Who deserves a lovely tea party more than you? While there is much joy in planning an elaborate tea for friends, it is important to keep yourself refreshed. A simple daily teatime ritual for yourself is a mindful gift you can give yourself. It need not be elaborate. Having a stash of baked goods in the freezer is helpful. Favorite cheeses and crackers keep well if stored correctly. A tin of your favorite tea should always be found on your shelf. This is the time to get out your favorite cup and saucer or family china plate. Treat yourself to the pretty cloth napkin. As meditation, relaxation and refreshment, teatime, for and by ourselves, might be our best idea yet.
No Menu or Recipes available for this Tea.
No Menu or Recipes available for this Tea.
Kathleen’s Tea for One
My tiny living room is the setting for my mid afternoon tea. I set my tea tray on one of the gold leaf nesting tables that my grandparents brought back from Italy. My tea tray is a 1950’s melamine platter. On the tray is a dark green English teapot with a cherry-print tea cozy, both gifts from my best girl friend. I have my parents’ pressed glass sugar and creamer set. When I use all these heirlooms, my dear ones are with me, even the grandparents who have passed on. I serve myself a sandwich and sweet to accompany my usual black tea blend, Yorkshire Gold, taken with milk and sugar. My winter sandwich is sardines on buttered seedy bread and in summer, I’ll have tomatoes from the garden, sliced and salted on buttermilk bread with mayo. I mean to always have homemade shortbread in the freezer but Walker’s Scottish Shortbread is an acceptable replacement.
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Rose’s Tea for One My tea for one takes place on my upstairs lanai, looking out at the Pacific Ocean with my dog Declan napping at my bare feet. Having moved to rural Hawaii from northern California very recently, I want to combine the best of then and now, here and there. I roll my three-tiered tea cart onto the deck and place my lacy, rose-patterned “R” pillow on the outdoor couch. I drink green tea out of my little one-person teapot, decorated with a small brown bird perched on the lid. For my food service, I use interesting pieces from my pink Depression glass collection, inherited from three different women who have been important in my life, my grandmother, my mother and my late sister-in-law. My sandwich choice is my childhood favorite, peanut butter and jelly, on seeded wheat bread from the local farmers’ market. As a nod to my new home, I use coconut macadamia nut peanut butter and guava jelly, both also available at the farmers’ market. If I am lucky enough to have any almond biscotti dipped in dark chocolate from Shelley’s Bakery in Santa Cruz (a birthday gift from my sister and her husband) left in my larder, this will be my afternoon sweet. If not, I keep a stock of coffee shortbread cookies dipped in white chocolate from the Honolulu Cookie Company. As I sip my tea and watch the waves crash on the shore and the egrets land in the yard, I reflect in gratitude on the gift of Ohana (family) old and new. |
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