Angela Webster McRae's Blog, page 154

How Southern tea lovers get ready for the snow

Here in Georgia, the big, big news is that we may get some snow today or tomorrow. I'm talking three or four inches, aka "a blizzard" by Georgia standards! That means we've all made a run on the grocery stores (and in my case, two libraries to make sure I'm a well-stocked reader if I am indeed snowed in). Happily, I also have a well-stocked tea cabinet, and the snowy, gray skies this week had me thinking about snowy teawares and "grey" tea.

I was at a meeting the other night when a new friend, Cynthia, handed me a cute gift bag and said there was something in it for me. She knows I like tea, and she and her husband recently visited Savannah and brought me back this Savannah Grey blend, which she noted is her husband's favorite, and some delicious Scottish shortbread. What a lovely and unexpected treat here in the first week of January!

I looked at these tea leaves before I even read the label, and I was instantly struck by how lovely they were. I knew by the variety of leaves this wasn't just an extra bergamotty Earl Grey but something special. Savannah Grey, according to the package, is "a superior China black tea with long silvery tips. Bergamot (a Mediterrean citrus) and lavender are added to this beautiful tea for optimum taste. Cornflowers are added to enhance the visual pleasure. This is Savannah's Earl Grey." And I must tell you, it was absolutely divine! I've had lavender-flavored teas before, and I've had Earl Grey teas before, but Oh. My. Goodness. This blend had a richness and a depth that's quite unlike any other Earl Greys I've tried. I can see why my friend's husband loves it—and the fact it comes from The Tea Room in Savannah (no longer a tearoom, but they do still sell teas in a local book shop) is a delightful bonus. (They also sell them online here.) So if I'm snowed in with my books and tea this weekend, I believe we shall get along just splendidly.

New tea and new tea goals

One of my goals for the new year is to drink more green tea, and that was made easier when my friend Susan gave me two tins of green tea for  Christmas. These teas are both by Brew la la Tea, a company whose name made me smile!

Happily, the teas did too. First I tried the Organic Chamomile Lemon Green Tea, which had a bright, sunny lemon taste. It wasn't a mouth-puckering lemony taste at all, and this wasn't a grassy-tasting green tea, so that was nice. Perhaps it was "softened" by the chamomile, but at any rate, I very much enjoyed this tea.

Blueberry teas can veer off into "tart berry" territory sometimes, but this Organic Blueberry Green Tea did not and made a wonderful evening cup of tea. So I'm off to a good start with my drink-more-green-tea goal for the year.

And you'll notice that I like to talk about "goals" and not "resolutions." I've never been very good at keeping resolutions, but I am actually pretty good at reaching goals, especially if I write them down. So you want to know what my tea goals are for the year? They're very simple (some of you may laugh), but with the busy life I've had this past year, if I accomplish all of these, I'll be quite satisfied. They are:

• Drink more green tea. (I'm aiming to "drink green" at least every other day.)

• Visit at least two new tearooms. (There aren't very many in my area of Georgia anymore, so this will involve some planning.)

• Host a tea for a friend or friends at least quarterly. (I miss doing this and am going to make it a priority item for 2017.)

So there you go! Do you have resolutions and/or goals for the new year? If so, do you have any "tea goals" you can share? I'd love to hear them!

Just a reminder …

In case some readers didn't see my post a few weeks ago, I am now on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday blogging schedule here at Tea With Friends.

Today launches my new writing blog, The Writer's Junk Drawer, which appears on Tuesday and Thursday, and you can find it here.

And if you're interested in writerly and bookish stuff, you can follow me by "Liking" my "Angela McRae—Writer" page on Facebook here. Thanks!

Happy New Year!

Ginger wins the "My Country, 'Tis of Tea" prize!

Thank you to those of you who emailed me your responses to last week's pop quiz (all of them were 100 percent correct, by the way!), and Ginger was the winner of the prize, a $20 Amazon gift card. In case you didn't take the test and would like to know the answers, here they are. And Happy New Year!

1. This state was the first to grant women the right to vote, and some say a tea party helped advance the suffrage effort there. Wyoming

2. This state is the home of America’s only working tea plantation. South Carolina
3. A tearoom in this state served meals to scientists working on the Manhattan Project. New Mexico
4. This state is the home of a town called Edenton in which one Penelope Barker and 51 other women protested the Tea Act passed by the British Parliament in 1773, an event which became known as the Edenton Tea Party. North Carolina
5. This state has a city by the name of “Tea.” South Dakota
6. This state is the home of Stash Tea. Oregon
7. Luzianne Tea was founded in this state. Louisiana
8. One of the most legendary tea sandwiches is the Benedictine tea sandwich, named for a famous caterer, Jennie Benedict, and it is associated with this state. Kentucky
9. Lots of Depression Glass, including the Art Deco Tea Room pattern, was produced in this state. Indiana
10. In which state was Arizona Tea founded? New York

Napkin organization time

This week has been all about organizing. If it sits still long enough at this house, it is going to get organized, and preferably before midnight tomorrow. I love to end the year having checked off lots of things on my to-do list, and one of those items has been to clean out my linen closet and get rid of the things I don't use.  I do use my various napkins, but they were scattered in different piles, so I'm trying to bring order to the chaos.

I discovered that while I had lots of mismatched floral napkins in various pastels, the ones I ended up using almost every time I have a tea or other formal occasion are the dressier white ones, and they basically ended up being various white napkins with pretty corner treatments, clockwise from top left: monogrammed "M" napkins (which I love but found only four of them a few years ago), crochet-edge napkins (a find from my late mother), Battenberg lace napkins (also from my mom), and some thin but beautiful embroidered and pulled-thread napkins (I have no idea where or when I found these).

Happily, my gift from Aunt Jane this Christmas was a set of six more monogrammed napkins, which, surprisingly, were found at T.J. Maxx! I was intrigued to note the differences in the whiteness level of all of my napkins, and I realized since I usually use them with a cream-colored crochet tablecloth, I mix white and cream things quite regularly and don't really worry about whether or not something is a stark white. My only remaining question is what's the best way to store napkins. I usually wait and iron them right before I need them, but I'm thinking of going ahead and ironing them and rolling them around an empty gift wrap roll. Would love to hear any tips/thoughts you might have to share!

The January/February 2017 issue of Tea Time … and a question!

Since Christmas has passed, it's okay to talk about a magazine that features hearts on the cover, isn't it? I don't know about you, but I love the simple yet elegant idea of using heart-shaped slices of strawberry to embellish a cake. (And why haven't I thought of this before?)
Tea Time always has at least a few recipes I'd like to try, and this time, I was also inspired by the way they displayed macarons in this stemmed bowl. I have some similar glass bowls I purchased at a Southern Living at Home party years ago, and I don't pull them out nearly often enough. Macarons, truffles, shortbread bites … now I'm thinking of even more creative ways I can use these pretty scalloped bowls!
I always love to read about tea production around the world, and this time I enjoyed the article on tea by editor Lorna Reeves, who actually visited Sri Lanka herself and learned about Ceylon tea. A fun read!
And here's my question: How do you all keep track of favorite articles in Tea Time? I've decided I'm going to start keeping a log (printed or computerized, I'm not sure which) of favorite articles, recipes, and topics. That way, I'll be able to revisit favorite articles without thumbing through more than a decade's worth of issues. I have them all, and yet I rarely go back to those early issues. Do you? How do you keep track of your favorite articles? Or do you?

In search of missing pieces

What do you do when you're missing a creamer? You substitute a cute Santa Claus tea figurine (thank you, Linda!), that's what! He's filling in admirably, I think, in light of the missing piece that I was unsuccessful at locating in 2016, so I'm hoping for better luck with the search in 2017.
Last year I bought this Christmas chintz teapot and two-tiered serving tray at a T.J. Maxx, and after I blogged about it, my friend Joy thoughtfully located three dessert plates and the sugar bowl for me—on clearance! As you can see, my table setting is a plate, four teacups, and one creamer short of completion. When I started seriously looking for the missing pieces in the fall, I was very surprised to find I could not locate the missing plate at any price, anywhere. Not even at Replacements.com, which told me that there must not be many of these out there! I could buy the sugar and creamer as a set, but I don't *need* another sugar bowl, so … I'm holding out.
What do you think about mixing this Christmas chintz pattern? When my dad gave me money to buy my Christmas gifts from him this year, I bought two of these pretty teacups when I found them at Marshalls, and I'm thinking they could blend well. Or would you just mix and match with four different patterns of Christmas teacup? No rush, though. I won't be putting these out again for another year!

A Country Christmas

I always enjoy seeing other bloggers' family Christmas photos, so I thought I'd share a few of mine this year! We celebrate at the home of my dad, who lives much more out in the country compared to my neck of the woods, and my sister's family is building a new home next door. So after we all finished visiting our various churches this year (and Alex and I agree our church's service was one of our favorite things about Christmas), Christmas Day saw the usual bountiful lunch and gifts, a next-door home tour, and a visit with the goats and my niece Amelia's new miniature donkey, Itsy.


I'm afraid I can't quite remember which of the five goats is which, but I know these two are Fred and Ethel.


It is indeed more blessed to give than to receive, and at Christmas, I really, really enjoy shopping for the grandkids and for my nieces and nephew. Amelia, who likes to send me long texts followed by a string of emoticons, loved her emoticon message bead kit.

The gift of tea and reflection

I don't know about you, but I find that the week after Christmas is one of my most favorite weeks of the year. After all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it's wonderful to be able to just kick back and relax, stay out of stores (yes, I really said that), and reflect on the old year and look forward to the new one. And tea friend Frances surprised me with a lovely gift that is helping me do just that!

This darling little tea-themed tote and mug mat include a quote from the great C.S. Lewis, whose "Screwtape Letters" is one of my all-time favorite books.
Also included in the tote were two items perfect for post-Christmas reflecting, a darling new teacup pocket journal and a package of teas! (Frances couldn't have known this, but I talked myself down from buying that very journal in a gift shop recently. I feel guilty shopping for myself at Christmas, but I did remember that sweet journal and wished I had it. And now I do!)
But the message on the back of the tote is what I'm admiring most today, and I intend to do exactly this and little else. How do you relax after Christmas each year?