Nope.
Marie (no url) asked today: I was just asked this past Sunday to host a tea party for the ladies at our church. I came across your website via Google and very glad I did! I have no experience whatsoever with tea parties and your tips are very helpful. But what if I don’t have tea cups and saucers for 20 women? Would it be too tacky to have 20 different cups/saucer sets?
Marie, not only is it not tacky, I recommend it! Teacups are unique and add to the drama of the table when they are not all the same. The tea party with matching teacups is usually only found at the formal hotel tea or with professional caterers of large parties that buy their stock in lots. Sometimes for events such as yours the guests are asked to bring a favorite teacup and share its history as in, “This was the one item my grandmother saved from her house fire that Grandpa didn’t make her sell during the Depression”, etc.
It is best to have the cup match its saucer unless you’re a little girl inviting your stuffed animals to the event, however.
I’m so glad you found Tea Party Girl helpful! Be sure to come back and share how your event goes (went?).
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Luticia (no url), recently left a comment here at Tea Party Girl I thought might be helpful to others:
Hello! Love your site - just found it today! My question is: can you brew your tea in the pot or kettle the water was boiled in? Or are they supposed to be only for boiling the water? I’ve just wondered if a teapot was always necessary. Thank you!
No, Luticia, a teapot is not always necessary. I currently use my Bodum Glass Stovetop Kettle
to boil the water and brew my tea. I use T - Sac # 4 (100 filters) to hold my looseleaf tea so there’s plenty of room for the tea leaves to expand. It can be a little tricky because when I take the lid off after the water’s boiling I have to watch out for the hot steam. But it is easier to skip the teapot brewing step, though I do transfer the tea to my carafe to keep it hot once I’ve brewed it.
The teapot addition to a daily tea ritual or tea party mainly serves an aesthetic purpose, like all tableware. Serving tea from a tea kettle just wouldn’t be the same as pouring from a favorite teapot. But remember, the most important part of serving tea is making a plan to keep it hot, either with a tea warmer , cozy, or carafe. No teapot is beautiful enough for serving lukewarm tea.
Does that help? Anyone want to add a different perspective?
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Maybe you’re already able to easily transport yourself to the relish the gifts of summer. I’m sure someone somewhere has already said that summer is a state of mind. If I had to only rely on my childhood memories of summer, I would remember 7am swim practices at the local pool, eating dozens of plums off my friend’s backyard tree while lounging more by her pool and talking about our latest crushes, and practicing my writing on (insert deep sigh here) an electric typewriter.
But as I get older, I find myself relying more on summer talismans: anything whose presence exercises a remarkable or powerful influence on human feelings or actions. These include:
- a pair of colorful flip-flops with painted toenails.
- popsicles to offer any child that walks through the door.
- a basket of reading and writing materials by my deck chair to go with my glass of iced tea or Sauvignon Blanc.
- Susan Branch’s The Summer Book.
Have you discovered Susan Branch yet? I spent time with her work today and it truly inspired me to create works of art in my summer meals. Not over the top, buy 14 new ingredients and still not have it look like the picture recipes, but recipes and inspirations filled with little touches to make them special. Here’s a copy of my favorite. And in case you didn’t know, Susan Branch illustrates every one of her recipe pages, including the text. Blogging format hardly does it justice.
Fisher Farm Picnic Squash Salad
8 cups very thinly sliced squash, any kind (yellow crookneck and green zucchini=pretty!)
2 cups Paul Newman’s salad dressing
20 fresh nasturtium blossoms
2 Tablespoons fresh herb of choice (optional)
Put the squash into a large bowl. Bring salad dressing to near boil ~ pour over squash, toss lightly & then chill. Before serving toss again ~ pour off extra dressing. Toss again with fresh herbs & top with fresh nasturtiums.
Yes, nasturtiums are edible if you haven’t watered them with Miracle Grow. On the recipe page, she encircles the text with a nasturtium vine wreath and includes a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “Earth laughs in flowers.” I find myself emotionally responding to these darling and simple beauties.
How about you? What are your summer childhood memories? Have you been able to hang on to the specialness of summer as you’ve grown? What simple summer delights do you treasure? Please leave a comment and let us know.
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Last night, Steph W. of Steph’s Cup of Tea and I met for the first time ever over dinner! I have read about other bloggers meeting blogging friends in real life and I can finally say I’ve experienced this joy. Stephanie is one of the longest reading and most consistent commenters here at Tea Party Girl.
A graduate from the Washington School of Protocol (and it showed!), Stephanie shared with me about falling in love with afternoon tea in Ireland and taking Denise LeCroy’s Tea in London tour. A young and beautiful thirty-five years, Stephanie was gracious and a good conversationalist. Here’s a picture of our shared Cherry Creme Brule and Mint after-dinner tisane.
We ate at Paul Martin’s American Bistro in Roseville, CA; a local (for me!) restaurant that plans its menus around the best seasonal ingredients available. My kind of place for sure, and it was a thrill to share it with a new friend who also could appreciate it. We chuckled over not enjoying afternoon tea together, but our schedules allowed for a relaxing dinner instead.
Thank you, Stephanie, for taking the risk and meeting together!
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You are Celtic (over one in ten Americans are) and Elizabeth Knight’s written a book published this year for you.
I spent some time with her book this afternoon (accompanied by a cup of Taylors of Harrogate Yorkshire Gold loose leaf tea). Not sure what to expect, I enjoyed finding not only thirteen new themed tea party ideas, but learning about Celtic history and how it relates to the tea culture. With Irish and Welsh ancestry living in a town founded by Cornish immigrants, I wanted to learn how tea traditions did not belong to the English alone.
I first turned to July’s theme, the Hen Party Tea. I always thought calling women a group of hens derogatory, as if we all “cackled”, but instead I learned it’s an old Scottish custom where the women gathered the night before a wedding to pluck hens for the wedding feast. Now, Ms. Knight isn’t advocating we all gather to pluck hens, but to celebrate the best of our strengths and contributions over the ages. One of my favorite of her ideas was to offer, in her words, the original chic(k) lit book - The Little Red Hen as the tea party favor. Do you know the story? Isn’t that just a darling idea?
Another resource the book provides is one of the best charts, A Guide to Teas, I’ve seen. It includes the tea-type (i.e. black), its place of origin, a description, the brewing time, serving suggestions, and a list of complimentary foods. And because my tea table article is the most-read article here at Tea Party Girl, I’ll mention that I found the appendix Set to a Tea: The Tea Table a simple and complete explanation of what your tea table needs and why.
The book was issued by Benjamin Press, Bruce and Shelley Richardson’s publishing arm of their work. If you haven’t yet heard of the Richardsons, it’s worth spending some time at their website and learning about their contributions to Americans learning to appreciate afternoon tea. They operated arguably the most recently famous tearoom, the Elmwood Inn, from 1990-2004 in Perryville, KY and the teas are still available, along with cookbooks based on the afternoon tea menus from those days. Of the two I own, I like A Year of Teas at the Elmwood Inn the best because the menus are organized by month which helps my full brain with decisions. But all their books are well-photographed and the other book I own, The Tea Table, is full of “Tea Time Hints”. Here’s an example appropriate for this time of year:
“Keep your tea out of the sun! Making sun tea is no longer promoted by the tea industry. Putting tea in the water and placing it in the sun for several hours is like making a petri dish for the growth of bacteria. While tea does not contain harmful bacteria in its dry state, it can become a haven for bacteria when brewed and cooled. In traditional brewing methods, the addition of boiling water kills any bacteria that might be present. If you do make sun tea, be sure to boil it before you consume it.” (Richardson, 65)
Any Benjamin Press books make great gifts for the tea or book enthusiast. Who do you need a gift for? Are you Celtic? Do you know the story of the Little Red Hen? Had you heard of Elizabeth Knight, Bruce and Shelley Richardson, or the Elmwood Inn before today? Do you still make sun tea? Leave a comment and share your thoughts with us.
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