Posts filed under 'The Tea Party'
Linda (no url), recently left me the following question:
I hope you will answer this message and help me!
My daughters are hosting a baby shower tea party for their sister in May. I want to know the best and most appropriate way to set a buffet table for 20 people. I have teacups for each guest and assorted teapots. There is a formal dining room table and a server in the room that can be set-up. This sounded like such a pretty way to honor my daughter and her baby girl….I am now regretting the decision as I want it to be etiquettly (sic) as correct as possible.
I hope you can help me or direct me!
Thank you.
It’s such a good question and I quickly wrote Linda encouraging her not to regret her decision! A tea buffet is a simple and beautiful way to host a less formal tea gathering.
In fact, in many tea rooms I’ve visited, guests are encouraged to choose their own teacup before taking a seat. And remember, afternoon tea is not called high tea because it is traditionally served at low tables (like a coffee or tea table) instead of a high table (like the dining room table). Many teas are served from a buffet table.
Here are Tea Party Girl’s top six suggestions for serving a buffet tea:
- Keep your food pretty, but simple. Serve nothing drippy, extra-hot (except the tea–more on that later!), or that requires cutting with a knife. Stick to tea sandwiches, scones, and bite-size desserts.
- Stack salad-size plates for your guests to use for their finger foods. Guests should only have to carry the plate, a napkin, and a teacup with saucer.
- As I have suggested before, serve only two teas-an herbal/decaf and a black tea of choice that you brew ahead. DO NOT put out a number of teabags for your guests to choose from and expect them to brew their own tea and deal with drippy teabags.
- Stacked teacups (as seen in the picture above) are an appropriate way to conserve space at the buffet table. Appoint someone ahead of time the honor of pouring the tea for the guests. After offering the guests the two choices of tea, fill the teacup 2/3 full. This allows the tea to stay hot and gives them room for milk and sugar. Hand the teacup to the guest. REMEMBER~when serving tea do not separate the cup from the saucer, but always handle the cup from the saucer only.
- It’s ideal for your guests to be able to sit by a low table within arms reach. If they are holding a teacup and a plate of goodies, they will need a place to set down one or the other, though they can possibly set their tea treat plate on their laps while holding their cup and saucer.
- If you leave teapots on the buffet table for your guests to help themselves to another cup of tea, you must plan a way to keep the tea warm. This can be done through a carafe, tea cozy, or warmer. Again, the ideal is to appoint someone to make the tea in the kitchen and roam among the guests providing fresh and hot pours.
Lastly, here’s an excerpt from my article, “How to Prepare the Tea Party for a Crowd” that applies to the tea party buffet:
“If using a buffet table, use boxes under the tablecloth or three-tiered trays for visual height. Determine how you can incorporate your theme into the buffet’s decorations and provide plenty of serving utensils so people don’t have to use their fingers to select their items. And remember, no scented candles to interfere with the fragrance of the food and tea!”
Does that answer your question, Linda? Does anyone else have a question or advice to add regarding serving the tea party buffet-style? Please add your comment below.
March 28th, 2008
As a reminder to my regular readers, my seasonal changes for this edition of planning a spring tea party are in bold print.
To begin planning your tea party event, no matter what the season or event you need start by answering a few questions:
- How many people will you invite?
- Who will they be?
- What is your budget? How much does that give you per person?
- When will your event take place?
- What will be your theme? Some ideas for your spring event are available through my post,
Once you make these decisions, you need to send out your invitations. These can be done a number of ways. Remember, keep your budget in mind. I’ve listed some options below.
- E-vites (free)
- Snail-Mail Invitations with
- spring-themed papers and your computer
- preprinted Hallmark invitations you pick up at your local store and handwrite.
- handmade, scrap-booking materials
- Telephone Calls (personal, but take up your time. depending on the number of people you are trying to coordinate).
Next, you need to plan the menu. Remember to keep your budget, theme, and time of day in mind. And DON’T forget to plan the tea. I’ve written a thorough article on The Steps to Creating a Tea Party Menu to help with your planning. Specific ways to incorporate flavors of spring in the traditional tea menu are with:
Tea flavors I suggest to serve at an spring-themed event, depending on your menu, are:
Once you’ve decided on your menu, think through how you will set your table. I’ve written some about setting the tea table already. Now is the time to think through what you already own, what you need to purchase, and what you can borrow. How many tables and chairs will you need? Remember, intimate is never more than eight, so take that into account when you think through your seating arrangement. What will be your centerpiece(s) and how you will incorporate your theme?
Include items in your table decorations that remind you of the season’s color and new beginnings. Start with what you can use from outside. Flowering branches are beautiful and inexpensive. Find a friend who would let you clip flowers from her garden, like daffodils or if it’s later in the season, roses. Purchase small pots of blooming bulbs like hyacinth or tulips. Remember to keep your centerpieces low enough so your guests can see one another.
If flowers are not your spring decoration of choice, there are many other fun details that remind one of the cool, crisp season of spring. Some ideas are polka-dots, tiny bows, pinstripes, gingham, and colored beads or pearls.
Part of setting your table means polishing any silver pieces and ironing any linens. Will you include a printed menu for your guests benefit? This is also the time to make/purchase some place-cards and decide what you want to give as a favor.
Take time now to decide what to wear and what music to play. How can these two elements add to your theme? This is the time of year to pull out the pastel-colors in your closet. Pick a color to wear by your face that is not a neutral; stay away from beige, black, and browns. If you own a lot of those colors, wear them on your bottom half. Some ideas for spring-themed music are:
Once these decisions are made, you will see your theme come together with all the elements that help us celebrate spring’s beauty. Be sure to spend some more time perusing Tea Party Girl’s archives for further details you might need to plan your tea party event. As always, feel free to email me or leave a comment with your questions as well.
Are you planning a spring-related tea event? Have you hosted one? Please share your experience/plan with us in the comments.
March 26th, 2008
“Beauty cannot be deeply appreciated until a soul has been touched by deformity.”
“Spring warms us because winter has chilled us.”
For so many, the deformity of life is denied or avoided. But like early spring weeds, if left unchecked, ugliness eventually takes over. It doesn’t just go away. But we are tempted to ignore it, because somehow we know, we’re often powerless on our own against the brokenness that can be our reality.
God understood this. We needed a better plan. Talk to anyone who has experienced painful injustice. A child is murdered or molested. A man of influence is blackmailed and imprisoned. A woman is beaten by the man who said he loved her. These people do not want the ugliness brushed aside!
For Christians and non-believers alike, historically a blameless man was brutally killed one Friday two thousand years ago in Jerusalem. He was not protected by the Jewish law of the day that declared a person could not be tried, judged guilty and sentenced to die all in the same day. What could have gone down in history, however, as a senseless crime of just another revolutionary instead has revolutionized countless souls for two thousand years. Why?
Because an innocent man and a perfect God understood that we cannot have beauty and new life without the suffering or the new life becomes meaningless.
And that’s why today is called GOOD Friday though it’s a day millions of people remember a death.
What is your philosophy of beauty?
March 21st, 2008
Mary Cassat’s The Cup of Tea, 1879, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Can you BELIEVE Easter is next week? I can’t either. If you are planning to prepare a special meal, be sure to see what Alice at Tea in My Cup suggests for an Easter Brunch Tea Party. There’s a complete menu with recipes. And be sure to plan your tea well. I provide suggestions for food and tea pairing in my article, “The Steps to Creating a Tea Party Menu“, but will repeat them here for your convenience.
Here are some specific food pairings that may apply to your menu.
1. Use an Earl Grey or Assam with beef.
2 Use an Oolong or Darjeeling with chicken.
3. Use a Ceylon with vegetables.
4. Use a First Flush Darjeeling or Light, Sweet Green or White Tea with fresh fruit.
5. Use an Assam, Darjeeling, or Oolong with dark chocolate.
6. Use a Dragonwell with milk chocolate.
7. Use a Dragonwell, Darjeeling, Ceylon, or Assam with carrot cake/cheesecake.
8. Use a Darjeeling or Assam with Creme Brulee or caramel.
9. Use a Darjeeling with a dessert of apples/apricots/currants/berries/pie or vanilla.
10. Use a Dragonwell with a Brie cheese.
11. Use a First-Flush Darjeeling with Camembert cheese.
12. Use a Ceylon with cream cheese.
Now, if you are planning any tea sandwiches for your Easter events, I direct you to Susan’s tutorial at the T-Cozy. Preparing the tea sandwich is harder than it looks; it’s important to keep them from getting soggy or dry. And they can be time-consuming. I found this post when Susan provided a round-up of some of best posts from The T-Cozy on her one-year blogging birthday. The other one I want to highlight is her advice about laundering vintage linens. One of the reasons I appreciate the T-Cozy so much is because of the art and aesthetics the bring to the afternoon tea experience they provide at the T-Party. I’ve said it before. If I was closer to Connecticut, I would hustle on over and take tea with these talented women.
Speaking of talented women, another tea party blogger I keep up with is Karen at Sweet-Necessities. This weekend, she’s in Chicago at the Country Living Women Entrepreneur Event. They asked her to pitch her boutique products to a panel for consideration to be featured in a future issue, along with three of her friends from Make Mine Pink. Congratulations, Karen. We wish you the best of success! It’s a thrill to see talented individuals in the tea party niche gain recognition as the tea party’s popularity grows.
Lastly, if you’re a history buff, tea buff, or a tea in history buff, Bigelow’s tea blog recently linked to a tea time line you will be interested in. Tea Party Girl focuses mainly on Western civilization’s version of the afternoon tea party; however tea’s history and role in culture began thousands of years before Duchess Anna began inviting her friends to tea in the mid-nineteenth century.
So, are you planning any special meals/ around your Easter/Holy Week observances? Please share with us in the comments below.
March 15th, 2008
“Christopher Robin was home by this time, because it was the afternoon, and he was so glad to see him that they stayed there until very nearly tea-time, and then they had a Very Nearly Tea, which is one you forget about afterwards, and hurried on to Pooh Corner, so as to see Eeyore before it was too late to have a Proper Tea with Owl.” –The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne (quote courtesy of Dawnya Sasse)
Whether you’re a tearoom owner, tea hostess, or seeking out an afternoon tea experience, do you seek out a Proper Tea or a Very Nearly Tea? What’s the difference?
Here are Tea Party Girl’s top ten thoughts:
A Proper Tea pays attention to the details. These include ironed linens, sparkling silver, and fresh ingredients.
A Very Nearly Tea lets the tea cool or run out.
The guest of a Proper Tea RSVPs in a timely manner and arrives promptly. They make time to groom to their best before they arrive and are better listeners than talkers.
The hostess of a Very Nearly tea shows her guests that she is stressed by the work.
A Proper Tea considers each element’s artistic contribution and thinks through how the tea, food, music, and table settings complement one another.
A Very Nearly Tea serves dry scones and tea bags guests are expected to brew themselves.
A Proper Tea provides comfortable seating.
A Very Nearly Tea crowds as many people as possible into tight places.
The Proper Tea guests are allowed to linger.
The Very Nearly Tea guests are rushed.
Think back through your experiences. What have made your tea-times unforgettable? When have you been disappointed? Please share YOUR thoughts with us on the difference between a Proper Tea and a Very Nearly Tea in the comments below.
March 10th, 2008
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