Angela Webster McRae's Blog, page 146

Teatime treats from a trip to North Carolina

Last weekend I was in Raleigh, North Carolina, for the annual Red Adept Publishing party, and I once again squeezed in a visit to the wonderful Tin Roof Teas! This is my third year to stop by while I'm in town for the party, and oh, how I wish I had one of these stores back home. They have a huge variety of all kinds of great teas, and with teawares, tea samplers, sugars, strainers, infusers, and oh so much more, it's all deliciously overwhelming.
What I came home with this time was a beautiful new turquoise tea mug (sigh; I was trying to cut down) and one of the teas featured in a display, the Peachy Green Rooibos, which includes peach pieces and sunflower blossoms. It's as pretty as it is tasty! I got the fresh-juicy-peach flavor I was hoping for, and I also like the fact that rooibos is a low-maintenance sort of tea to prepare. I can wander off for 5-8 minutes instead of hovering nearby for the 2-4 minutes at which I usually prefer to steep my green and black teas.
And doesn't this sign just say it all? I so agree!

American Red Cross nurses at tea, 1918

Had I planned better, I would have shared this photo last month during National Nurses Week! This is one of the latest tea-related vintage photos I've found on the Library of Congress website, and this one is by photographer Lewis Wickes Hine and was created on June 25, 1918. The title is "How many Lumps? Afternoon tea in the American Red Cross Nurses' Rest Room in an American Hospital."
This image was taken at the hospital in the town of Chaumont, France, which was the headquarters of the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I. Must say I was rather delighted to come across a teatime photo of nurses who were actually serving during wartime!
To read more about the American National Red Cross photograph collection at the Library of Congress, click here.

Rose Dragon Ball Black Tea

Teavivre has kindly sent me some new teas to sample, and I thought one of the packets had an odd shape to it, so I checked it out and inside found this!
As you can probably guess from the title of this post and from the picture of the ball of tea above, this Rose Dragon Ball Black Tea includes black tea and roses. Remember how artisan floral teas were all the rage a few years ago? I'd forgotten about them, so it was lovely to open this ball of tea leaves and discover the pretty rosebuds drifting off as the tea steeped in my glass teapot.
The taste, however, is what impressed me most about this tea. I was expecting a heavy perfumed taste because of the rose, but I found only the merest hint of rose in this tea. Mostly I tasted a very fresh, very brisk (but not astringent) Yunnan tea with its characteristic malty notes. According to Teavivre, the Rose Dragon Ball Black Tea is made from Yunnan large-leaf species of old tea trees. These old tea trees are between 50 and 300 years old. (Tea trees over 300 years old are considered to be "ancient" tea trees.) I greatly enjoyed the taste of this tea from "old tea trees," and I had several cups of it. Since I've sipped lots of flavored teas over the past week, a quality black tea seemed to be just what I was looking for, and I appreciated both the taste experience and the aesthetic experience of this lovely new tea. Go here if you'd like to learn more about Teavivre's Rose Dragon Ball Black Tea.

In honor of Memorial Day

A tin tea mug for garden lovers!

For a couple of months now, I've noticed that the Peachtree City T.J. Maxx has had some cute $4.99 tea mugs made of tin. I've really tried to put the brakes on acquiring many more teacups and tea mugs, but I was in the checkout line at T.J. Maxx this week when I saw one of these mugs that I just couldn't leave behind!
Even the tags on this mug are cute! The back of the tag tells me that this mug of powder-coated steel should not be used in the microwave (not a problem), and it's a copyrighted design from Bell & Curfew, a company in Bath in the UK and Brooklyn, N.Y. 

I did wonder whether the handle of a tin tea mug filled with tea would be too hot to, you know, handle, but it wasn't. I wish I'd seen a few more of these mugs since I have a few friends they'd be perfect for, but alas, there was just the one. If you'd like one for yourself, though, be sure to check out the checkout line at your local T.J. Maxx!

"363 Days of Tea" by Ruby Silvious

Could you use a little art and inspiration in your life this week? If so, I am delighted to recommend a new book I recently ordered thanks to an Amazon gift card my sister gave me for my birthday. It's the book 363 Days of Tea by Ruby Silvious, and it chronicles the author's 2015 project of creating a new piece of artwork each day for a year with a used tea bag serving as her canvas. I've seen a few projects like various "dresses" that incorporated used tea bags, but Silvious has taken tea bag art to an entirely new level!

Tea lovers will enjoy this book for its tea information as well as for the beautiful artwork. For instance, I enjoyed examining all the hang tags and noting which teas I have tried and which I have not. Silvious has also made me consider my lowly tea bags in a new light. Have you ever thought about which tea bags have the most distinctive stains? Or which teas stick to the bags? She writes, "Over time, I learned the different tea bag shapes and constructions as well as the kinds of stains different teas produce. For instance, chamomile tea leaves stick to the tea bag paper, making them difficult to remove. Some green, white and herbal teas don't stain at all, so I reserve these for painting portraits. When going for distinct contrasts, I use black and rooibos-stained tea bags because they produce the best stains by far."

If you'd like to see a sample of the elegant artwork in this lovely book, click here.

Hats on parade at "Tea With Lynn"

Last Thursday at the McRitchie-Hollis Museum in Newnan, I had the pleasure of attending a program and tea sponsored by the Newnan-Coweta Historical Society, "Tea With Lynn." The speaker was Lynn Smith, a renowned local hat collector and beloved Newnan figure. I am quite pleased that Lynn also happens to be our longtime State Representative from Newnan. She works hard, doesn't seek the limelight, quietly reads bills and studies the issues, is well-respected for her leadership on environmental stewardship, and has never embarrassed us. I hope she serves forever.

Because Lynn donated her collection of 500-plus hats (many with hat boxes) to the historical society, they have a special exhibit of her hats on display. When I was a newspaper reporter many years ago, I actually interviewed Lynn about her collection, so I've followed with interest her adventures in hat collecting. Her display at the museum chronicled some of her collection, and this laminated feature page from 1990 looked familiar—and that's because I took the photos!

I was intrigued to learn about Lynn's early hat-collecting influences, such as her "Aunt Rosemary," who used to sweep down from New York, swathed in mink from head to toe and making an impression on her young niece. Lynn said she learned about fashion from her aunt, and she learned how to shop the great New York department stores—you shopped in the basement where things were more budget friendly.

Lynn's husband was in the military, so as a young bride she learned to stretch a budget. She said she visited estate sales and garage sales to find items for her home, and it was there she began to notice old designer hats for as little as a dollar. By that time few women wore hats anymore, so she started collecting them. And as we all know, one collection leads to another.

Lynn also collected magazines and books featuring hats.
And even some artwork of hats and hatboxes.
One of the most special "hat stories" she told was of one I knew about but had forgotten. In 2000, Lynn was chosen to greet Prince Philip when he came to Newnan to open the Slumberland USA mattress manufacturing facility. As the highest-ranking elected official in town, Lynn was contacted by the British embassy, and someone politely suggested that it might be appropriate if she were to wear gloves and a hat when she greeted the Prince. The gloves were actually pretty easy to find, she said, and she eventually found a hat that matched the suit she had chosen to wear.

Beautiful, isn't it?
After her program, the several dozen women in attendance got to ask questions, tour the house and hat collection, and partake of teatime treats courtesy of the historical society. We got to enjoy selections of Twinings Tea along with chicken salad and cucumber sandwiches, mini eclairs, delicious scones served with jam and cream, and some shortbread.

What a great way to celebrate an afternoon with a lovely woman and her lovely hats!

The winner of the Susan Branch book is ...

Farrah G.! And Farrah, I've just sent you an email requesting your snail mail address, so once I receive that, the book will be on its way. With over 100 entries, this giveaway was one of the most popular ones I've ever offered. Clearly, I need to give away more Susan Branch merchandise, so I'll be on the lookout for more!

Twins having tea

Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division
Are any of you twins? Do any of you have twins? I think most of us are probably fascinated by twins. My paternal grandmother, Ruby, was a twin. Grandmama Ruby had eleven children, including my father, but none of them had twins. Grandmama Ruby's twin sister, Ruth, had only one child. Now isn't that interesting? I was at a family reunion last year and asked some of my aunts and uncles (nine of the eleven are still alive) which twin was the oldest, and no one knew! But enough about twins in my family. I found some darling twins on the Library of Congress website that I wanted to share!

It's usually only the older photos that are in the public domain, but this image now appears on loc.gov and is titled, "San Francisco, California's most famous twins, Marian (left) and Vivian Brown, photographed in the 1990s, enjoy afternoon tea."

Aren't they darling! I wonder what kind of caps they're wearing. Apparently the two were known for dressing alike. Go here if you'd like to learn more about the late Marian and Vivian Brown.

Road trip tea reviews: Pure Leaf Tea House Collection

So this week Alex and I have had the pleasure of enjoying a few days at a friend's condo in Orange Beach, Alabama. On the way down, I happened to be reading a new magazine and saw an ad for a new collection of teas from Pure Leaf called the Tea House Collection. I mentioned that I wanted to look for them on the trip, and to my surprise, the very next store we stopped at had them! (It was one of those nice huge convenience stores with a deli and a Cinnabon vendor inside, but still, I was surprised at how easy it was to find these.) I loved the modern looking glass bottles, and the flavors all sounded intriguing, but I limited myself to two.
The first one I tried was the Fuji Apple & Ginger organic green tea. Sweetened with cane sugar, this drink had a nice sweet but not-too-sweet taste, and I liked the little zip from the ginger. I drank about half of this from the bottle and enjoyed it, and I found I liked it even better when I got to the condo and poured the rest of it over ice.
The other flavor I tried was the Wild Blackberry & Sage organic black tea, and I had this one entirely with glasses of ice. I found that "hint of wild blackberry and sage" is accurate, but I did enjoy the mildness of the flavor. I would have to say that these two teas come pretty close to approximating a genuine freshly made iced tea, and I'll be trying the other flavors soon as well. Have any of you tried these teas? If so, what did you think? You can read more about these teas here.