A High Tea Menu and A Tea Party Girl Challenge
Today during my online perusals, I found a few items I wanted to pass on.
Celestial Seasonings seems to be working hard to stay competitive as the specialty tea market grows. Regular readers of TPG know I’m not a big fan of grocery store tea bags. I went to their website today and found an interesting claim:
A Bold New Look for Celestial Seasonings
We are proud to present our new tea packaging, with a fresh, contemporary look that highlights our delicious, 100% natural ingredients and unique tea flavors while celebrating our rich and storied heritage. The look is new, but our tea recipes and our commitment to delicious beverages of the highest quality remain unchanged.
I’ll see their bold new look and raise them a bold Tea Party Girl Challenge. Personally, I think most tea drinkers are smarter than this. Somehow new, flashy, packaging isn’t what we’re looking for, but quality product. If it remains unchanged in an age of consumers becoming more and more informed…hmmmm.
Do any of you buy Celestial Seasonings regularly? I would love to hear from you in the comments below. What’s your favorite? And if Celestial Seasonings would like Tea Party Girl to review any of their products, I will be happy to share the results with my readers. I challenge them to try and impress me, if they feel their product’s content needs to stay the same for twenty-first century tea drinkers.
Second, one of my dreams is to someday have the resources to visit the many fabulous tearooms all over America and even other countries. I read about one in particular today, The Canterbury Tea Room in Greeley, CO that sounds especially intriguing. It impressed me that they offer a true high tea dinner menu. The menu changes each month to reflect a different country. December’s theme is England, with the following menu according to their website:
All entries begin with Almond Soup and Sweet Potato Scones
Beef Wellington–rib-eye roast topped with mushrooms and onions, encased in puff pastry or
Christmas Chicken–braised chicken breast topped with apple-cranberry sauce or
Cranberry Stuffing Bake
All entries served with pease pudding, snowy mashed potatoes, and cranberry stuffing
Desserts
figgy pudding (sweet fig souffle’ with pecans), flummery (almond custard with fruit sauce), or syllabub (frothy whipped cream flavored with brandy)
Now that sounds like an appealing menu to me. Does it to you? I love planning themed menus and would really enjoy attending one of their high teas. Wouldn’t you? If you are ever in the Greeley, CO area be sure to look up The Canterbury Tea Room.
Lastly, there are a ton of cookie recipes currently making the rounds. Do you have a baking day planned sometime in the next week? If you could make only one Christmas cookie, which one would it be? Be sure to let us know in the comments below. I am still trying to decide whether to include a baking day in my Christmas preparations since I don’t enjoy baking at all. But if I did, anything with peppermint and white chocolate would be included. Vicki Arnold of Victoria’s Traveling Tea Party pointed these cookies out to me, a great idea she said for a child’s tea party. They look darling!
Be sure to let us know about your favorite Christmas cookie! And remember, there’s nothing better to cut the sweetness of Christmas cookies than a pot of freshly brewed unsweetened tea. Be sure to relax with some after your big baking day. No fair standing up during sampling! Find your tea corner and relax for a spell to enjoy the fruit of your labor.
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16 Comments Add your own
1. Steph W | December 14th, 2007 at
You know, my DH just made a batch of rice krispy treats. Not really a Christmas Cookie, but we don’t generally keep that kind of stuff around. I think they are one of my absolute favorites! If I only had one “cookie” to pick - that would be it!
2. Steph W | December 14th, 2007 at
And I agree with you on the matter of the Celestial Seasonings marketing. Just putting the same stuff in a pyramid bag isn’t going to give good results.
3. Rebecca | December 14th, 2007 at
Darn I commented and then something weird happened with my computer. I’ll try to remember what I said.
I’ve recently had a Celestial Seasonings Candy Cane Lane tea that is tasty esp with a candy cane or peppermint stick added to the tea cup - fun too! It was in a regular tea bag. I have some Lipton teas that I really like that come in the pyramid bags, the bags are almost a nylon - not made of the regular paper that tea bags usually are. My grandmother likes a tea forte (I think that’s what they are called) that also come in pyramid bags but they are taller & skinnier, aslo pricier than Lipton.
I don’t know that I have a favorite Christmas cookie but I have a few favorite treats that we usually have around the holidays. Cream puffs, chocolate coconut balls and those white cookies with nuts rolled in powdered sugar - they have several names and I’m not sure if they are Irish, German or Mexican in origin because each name is from a different country.
4. Beth | December 14th, 2007 at
My Christmas favorite is the good old sugar cookie, although snicker doodles remind me of Christmas as well. As a mom, I love the sugar cookies my boys decorate. Not magazine perfect, but extra sweet!
I don’t think I’d eat the starter or dessert in the menu you posted (picky eater) but the main course sounds delicious.
Still drinking Tazo awake tea until I get my Christmas tea presents!
5. Jamie | December 14th, 2007 at
Yes, I’d adore The Canturbury Tea Room, from the sound of that scrumptious menu!
As for Christmas cookies - it just wouldn’t be christmas without spritz (pressed into christmas trees, and shaped into candy canes with peppermint pieces added), and snickerdoodles. I’ll probably do my baking next weekend (the 22nd/23rd).
6. Marie | December 14th, 2007 at
I love Celestial Seasonings’ Sleepytime. It’s delicious and really helps me relax like nothing else. Could care less about the packaging.
I bake three pumpkin rolls every day, from mid-October to Christmas. Ugh.
7. Anonymom (Tara) | December 14th, 2007 at
Bold packaging may look very pretty and catch my eye on the shelf, but it isn’t going to make me buy tea. I’ve been doing looseleaf almost exclusively for almost two years now and bags have become a reserve parachute for me–to be used only in the case of an emergency.
Only one holiday cookie? It would have to be the gingersnaps my sister-in-law just brought me. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but these had such a lovely, soft and melty texture and depth of flavor. You are reminding me that I need to bug her for the recipe.
While I have your attention, can you answer a question for me? I adore tennis sets (china or ceramic teacups with a matching saucer/plate combination). Why are they called tennis sets? Do you know the origin of this term? Is it simply because they are for “serving”? I’d be interested in learning anything you know about them. Thank you!
8. Kim in ID | December 15th, 2007 at
I’ve been reading your blog for awhile now and thoroughly enjoy it!
I do buy some Celestial Seasonings herbals, but their little book gimmick wouldn’t make them any more attractive to me. I prefer to get reading suggestions from the experts: M-mv and Semicolon to name a few. For black teas, I order from the teacaddy.com.
My favorite Christmas cookie? Oh dear, that’s a hard one. Anytime you start putting butter and sugar together…A couple of my favorites that I am making today are Andes mint cookies and chocolate dipped melting moments. I love to bake, but even more I love to eat!
9. MzRita | December 16th, 2007 at
If I could only make one holiday cookie, I would make Ginger cookies. I feel I have the best ginger cookie recipe out there, and I am going to share it here with all of you. They are divine. If you really want to dress this up, place a bowl of canned lemon pie filling in the center of your cookie platter,and place the ginger cookies around it. A ginger cookie dipped in lemon pie filling is soooo good!
GINGER COOKIES
Beat well:
3 sticks margarine melted
1/2 cup dark molasses
2 eggs
2 cups sugar
Sift and add:
4 cups flour
4 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
Cover and refrigerate 24 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take out chunk of dough. Roll small balls in sugar. Place 2″ apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Cook 8 - 12 minuntes, depending on size. Allow to set 2 - 3 minutes before removing with sharp spatule. Cool on counter. Store in cookie tins or sealed containers. Makes 12 dozen small or 8 dozen medium.
10. Ginger | December 17th, 2007 at
I love anything peppermint. I did quite a bit of baking last Saturday and will do more this Saturday. I plan to make the peppermint scones from the holiday edition of Tea Time Magazine. If you don’t like to bake, don’t. Go to Trader Joe’s a buy a package of their candy crunch peppermint Joe-Joe’s (like Oreos but better).
11. Tea Party Girl | December 18th, 2007 at
Ah, Ginger, a girl after my own heart or taste buds! Yep, the Trader Joe Joe-Joe’s were bought a few weeks ago and tucked away. I can’t believe I haven’t got into them yet!
Let me know how those scones turn out~
12. Tea Party Girl | December 18th, 2007 at
Kim, Great to “meet” you. Thanks for your comment and I’m sure Celestial Seasonings thanks you,too.
I agree. I’ve been reading Semi-colon and Mental Multivitamin from the first days of my blogging exploration.
13. MzRita | December 22nd, 2007 at
Suggestion in the form of a question…
Why isn’t there a category titled “Tea Party Recipes”?
Rita
14. tom | December 28th, 2007 at
I like a couple of Celestial Seasoning’s teas.
In the morning I like the “Morning Thunder”. It is a yerba mate and black tea mix.
At night I like the Madagascar Vanilla Red. Naturally sweet since it’s rooibos and not a true tea.
My wife likes their licorice tea. She just likes licorice tea. It also has a sweet flavor and helps her tummy calm down.
15. Tea Party Girl | December 31st, 2007 at
Welcome, Tom! Good to hear your perspective. I may have to try their rooibos.
16. Ginger | January 6th, 2008 at
I forgot to post about making the peppermint scones from the holiday edition of Tea Time Magazine. They are great, if you like peppermint. I would make them again. The only thing I would add is the recipe says it will make 6 scones. I cut the dough into 8 equal portions and the scones were about the size of a hamburger bun. Next time I would make smaller scones, maybe 12 from the recipe.
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