Wtf is scandalbroth?!

Today I'm guest blogging at my momma's blog, Maria's Farm Country Kitchen. Guess where I get my sass from? Like mother like daughter.

Scandalbroth, according to Obsolete Word of the Day, is an old name for tea. But it's also a "reference to tea as the beverage of choice while the woman-folk sat around and gossiped" (that is, before cosmopolitans became popular). As an author of historical romance novels set in the Regency period (England, about 1810-1820), it was only  a matter of time before I encountered this weird word.

I love it. In one word, it's a beverage, an activity, and a stereotype about women ("sat around and gossiped and drank tea!!!").

Women of the Regency era—the characters themselves, or we women who "visit" the era as readers and writers of romance—know gossip often means scandal, and scandal is often delightfully interesting.

Read the rest here: http://www.mariasfarmcountrykitchen.com/word-of-the-day-scandalbroth/