Afternoon Tea Menu Scones
Hosting a Tea Party with Gourmet Teas
Tea parties are serene, enjoyable events during which you can share great conversation, food, and gourmet teas with your friends and loved ones. Tea parties often remain in the memories of guests for years to come because they allow everyone to take a break from their busy lives for unhurried conversation and soul nurturing. The elements of a successful tea party include providing a variety of delicious gourmet teas, a charming party theme, and a delicious menu, to name a few. In order to ensure that your tea party is the best that it can be, plan ahead of time. Planning and preparation are key factors to the success of your party.
The Difference between High Tea and Afternoon Tea
High tea and afternoon tea are often referred to as the same thing but the two are quite different from each other. Afternoon tea is an elegant affair that takes place at around 3pm. The food served is lighter and less filling and sometimes only dessert is served. High tea is a full meal tea that was often enjoyed by the British working class. The food served was much heavier than the scones and tea sandwiches that we now associate with tea parties.
Why You Should Host a Tea Party
If you want to host a party for your friends or family but do not want it to be as formal as a dinner party, a tea party is a good solution. Tea parties are perfect for celebrating a baby shower, bridal shower, retirement, or birthday. You could also have a tea party just to catch up with your friends. The food for a tea party is prepared prior to the event. You can serve it buffet style or you can pass plates of food around the table during the party. Tea parties are nice because they give hosts the time to relax with their guests. The only thing you have to do during a tea party is prepare and serve tea. Whether you want to host a tea party at a fancy hotel or receive guests at home with just a pot of tea and biscuits, tea parties can be celebrated in a variety of ways, from casual to formal.
Tea Serving Tips
Tea bags are generally of lesser quality than loose leaf gourmet teas so at your tea party, serve only the latter. A full tea is a tea party that consists of three courses of scones, muffins, or fruit, tea sandwiches, and then desserts. On the other hand, a light tea only consists of pastries or dessert, and fruit.
Prior to serving tea in your tea pot, warm it up with hot water from your faucet. Your tea will stay warmer for longer that way. Use approximately one rounded teaspoon of loose leaf gourmet teas per eight ounces of water. If you prefer strongly flavored tea, simply add more tea to the pot. Pour boiling water into the tea pot and let it steep for about five minutes. Green, white, black, and oolong teas taste bitter if you let them steep for too long so your best bet is to steep them for around 1-2 minutes, max. Place a strainer over each cup when you pour out the tea. If you are making iced tea, simply double the amount of loose tea you use.
For proper tea etiquette, the hostess of the tea party should pour each guest tea and add sugar, lemon, or cream as requested. The hostess should use a sugar tong to take sugar from the sugar bowl. If you don’t plan to follow traditional tea etiquette and are instead going to have each person put sugar in their own tea, give each guest a demi-spoon, which is smaller than a regular teaspoon. Since most people serve sugar cubes at tea parties, demi-spoons are often given to guests instead of regular teaspoons, which are only needed to measure out sugar.
The proper way to serve tea is for each guest to pass her cup to the hostess. The hostess asks the guest how much sugar, lemon, etc. she would like and then places those items in the cup and a spoon on the saucer. Then the hostess passes the cup and saucer back to the guest, who quietly stirs her tea.
In order to let your guests know how they should dress for your tea party, simply state on the invitation whether the party is formal or casual. If you are planning your tea party around a theme, let your guests know about it in the invitation so they can dress accordingly.
Tea Party Theme
Although having a tea party theme is not necessary, it can lead to greater attendance. If you are planning a tea party with many child guests, it is necessary to have a theme and activities because children will get bored very quickly just sitting around drinking tea and conversing. Some adult theme party ideas include Mother’s Day, Christmas, and Fall Harvest. Themes that are appropriate for children’s tea parties include Peter Rabbit, Dress Up, and Valentine’s Day. For adult tea parties, your theme could even be as simple as selecting colors.
Tea Party Activities
You can plan some fun activities for your guests to break the ice, get everyone relaxed, and make sure that all of the guests have a good time. Tea party activities/games could be as simple as having everyone sit in a circle and share something that they are grateful for. Another activity you could do is read a famous quote. Whoever guesses the author of the quote correctly wins a prize.
About the Author
Alex White - Being a Tea Enthusiast i have tasted almost an endless number of tea infusions till date. i drink tea, research tea varieties, write about tea and simply love everything about tea. Talbott Tea has been my most recent tea obsession, every tea infusion of theirs is a true ..
The Bath Tea Rooms - homebaked deliciousness
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Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals of Rose Bakery $29.95 It might come as a surprise to some that one of the most trendy and successful bakeries in Paris is run by an Englishwoman. In a land where bakeries and pastry shops line the streets like Starbucks in the U.S. or pubs in the U.K., much of the triumphant success of Rose Bakery in Paris's 9th Arrondissement has been gained by co-founder Rose Carrarini's reputation for creating simple, yet uncompromising foods that focus on the importance of using fresh, flavorful ingredients and a loving attention to detail. Like the Rose Bakery itself, Carrarini's new cookbook Breakfast, Lunch, Tea: The Many Little Meals Of Rose Bakery dissolves the distinctions between restaurant cooking and home cooking, and holds firm to the belief that flavor need not be complicated. Tucked away on a side street near the Gare du Nord, Parisians line up daily to sample the lunchtime menu of salads, tarts, cakes, and light fare. Love of food at Rose Bakery is a universal language, which makes Breakfast, Lunch, Tea an international delight. The book includes recipes for 100 of the bakery's most popular dishes, from breakfast staples such as Crispy Granola to afternoon treats like Sticky Toffee Pudding and Carrot Cake, as well as soups, risottos and other perfect dishes for a light lunch. Other recipes, all prided for their simplicity yet uncompromised flavor, include: (Breakfast) Lime Grapefruit and Ginger Juice, Traditional Porridge, Perfect Scrambled Eggs, Ricotta Pancakes, and Blueberry Scones; (Lunch) Asparagus and Almond Salad with Chicken, and Braised Lamb Shank with Cumin, Aubergine and Chickpeas; (Tea) Lemon Blueberry Tart, Fresh Ginger Cake, Pine Nut and Almond Biscuits, Hazelnut Brownies,Apple and Blackberry Crumble, and Apricot Sorbet.More than 100 specially commissioned photographs from acclaimed photographer Toby Glanville make Breakfast, Lunch, Tea a visually rich cookbook and capture the atmosphere and feeling the food itself gives you. The pictures are populated |
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Having Tea $55.39 What could be cozier on a blustery winter's day than a mug of tea by the fire with freshly baked Irish soda bread slathered with sweet butter and tangy orange marmalade? Or more invigorating on a crisp, cool afternoon in autumn than a picnic in the country with sharp English cheeses; crusty white peasant bread; vegetable, cheese, and apple tarts; and Thermoses of steaming warm tea? Or a better way to celebrate the ripe berries of summer than a dessert party tea in the garden with lemon-curd tartlets, raspberry shortcake, raspberry sorbet, sugar cookies, and tea served in flowered china cups? A cookbook and style book, Having Tea includes a range of stunning locations with recipes, menus, table settings, and serving ideas for tea. There are formal and elegant teas that ring in the winter holidays with rich dark fruitcake, shortbread, brandy snaps, and sherried English trifle; a tea for one in the study with spicy ginger Bundt cake and a plate of cookies; and tea for two in a loft, with slow-scrambled eggs, cornmeal muffins and apple butter, and panfried tomatoes sprinkled with fresh tarragon. Each menu provides suggestions for the ideal tea to suit the meal. Since the American style of tea drinking originated in England, Having Tea goes to the source to show two classic English tea rooms, tea at the Savoy Hotel in London, and a tea dance at London's Waldorf. In addition, there are special sections on the history and different varieties of teas, selections of teapots and tea services, and directions for brewing the perfect pot of tea. A final section, the Tea Larder, offers ideas for tea trimmings from honey to mint or ginger, tea sandwiches, and a directory of mail-ordersources for tea. With approximately fifty recipes for tea sandwiches, crumpets, scones, cookies, and cakes as well as hearty tea-time meals, Having Tea will make you want to make having tea part of your day. It shows how, far more than a beverage, tea is a grand indulgence that provides |
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Tea and Crumpets $10.08 New - "Tea and Crumpets" will transport you to the legendary European tearooms and storied salons offering simplified recipes for recreating at home the sandwiches, pastries, cakes, and confections that have made them famous. Savor the Ritz's recipe for cucumber sandwiches, the aristocrat of the tea table, and Claridge's raisin and apple scones. Learn how the chef at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel creates the chocolate scones that grace its afternoon tea menu, and delight in making banana-chocolate |
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Tea and Crumpets $8.02 New - "Tea and Crumpets" will transport you to the legendary European tearooms and storied salons offering simplified recipes for recreating at home the sandwiches, pastries, cakes, and confections that have made them famous. Savor the Ritz's recipe for cucumber sandwiches, the aristocrat of the tea table, and Claridge's raisin and apple scones. Learn how the chef at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel creates the chocolate scones that grace its afternoon tea menu, and delight in making banana-chocolate |
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Tea and Crumpets $8.84 Used - "Tea and Crumpets" will transport you to the legendary European tearooms and storied salons offering simplified recipes for recreating at home the sandwiches, pastries, cakes, and confections that have made them famous. Savor the Ritz's recipe for cucumber sandwiches, the aristocrat of the tea table, and Claridge's raisin and apple scones. Learn how the chef at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel creates the chocolate scones that grace its afternoon tea menu, and delight in making banana-chocolate |
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Tea and Crumpets $8.06 Used - "Tea and Crumpets" will transport you to the legendary European tearooms and storied salons offering simplified recipes for recreating at home the sandwiches, pastries, cakes, and confections that have made them famous. Savor the Ritz's recipe for cucumber sandwiches, the aristocrat of the tea table, and Claridge's raisin and apple scones. Learn how the chef at Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel creates the chocolate scones that grace its afternoon tea menu, and delight in making banana-chocolate |
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The Afternoon Tea $2 Used - This book provides 100 recipes, both new and traditional, for savouries, sandwiches, breads, scones and small cakes, illustrated with step-by-step photographs. They are designed for occasions with a few friends or a large crowd. The book concludes with menu suggestions for various types of tea parties, including picnic teas, summer garden teas and fireside teas. Other books by the author include "The Book of Desserts" and "The Book of Pasta". |
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The Afternoon Tea $5.61 Used - This book provides 100 recipes, both new and traditional, for savouries, sandwiches, breads, scones and small cakes, illustrated with step-by-step photographs. They are designed for occasions with a few friends or a large crowd. The book concludes with menu suggestions for various types of tea parties, including picnic teas, summer garden teas and fireside teas. Other books by the author include "The Book of Desserts" and "The Book of Pasta". |
