Gifts, Tips, And Ideas For A Tea Party

Tea Parties have been around for hundreds of years, but it is the United Kingdom's tradition of enjoying an afternoon High tea, that truly brought Tea Parties into the limelight of Social Affairs. First brought into being in the 1700's, High tea was actually the practice of having the afternoon Tea at the high table, rather than the lower drawing room table. However since it's first introduction, High Tea has come to be a term that describes much more elegant, or formal afternoon affairs. Ladies don their finest bonnets, set out their best china, and serve their finest delicacies and most exquisite teas to their guests as they arrive.

So what is the best time to host a Tea Party? Although any occasion is suitable, the months of January and June are actually the very best times to celebrate being a tea drinker. January is National Hot Tea Month and June is celebrated as National Iced Tea Month. You may not have been aware of these very special holidays but they do indeed exist and are the perfect time to invite others to share in the delightful ritual that is a Tea Party.

Tea parties are always fun so whether you decide to host a standard Tea Party, a High Tea Social, or an Iced Tea Party you just know that it is going to be a wonderful event. So put a few willing friends on your guest list, plan a short calendar of events, and in no time at all you'll have the makings for your Tea Party.

There are always the standard trays of fancy sandwiches, and tasty tidbits, to go along with the refreshing tea beverages. No Tea Party is complete without a wide variety of fancy sweets to nibble on throughout the afternoon. You can create these treats yourself, or you can hold a potluck affair, and have each of your guests bring with them one tray of cookies, brownies, muffins, or cake to add to the mix. Potlucks save a lot of the work involved in preparing a Tea Party and they also provide for a wide assortment of treats that might not otherwise be available to your guests. You would then only have to provide the sandwiches, teas, and entertainment for the event. You decide if you want a casual Tea Party using paper plates and napkins to dine with, or if you want to go in true Tea Party style, and use fine china and silver teaspoons to dine.

Smaller tea parties with one table are generally easily arranged but larger tea parties do require a little more thought. Once the set up for the event is done a Master of Ceremonies can basically run the show using only a few simple instructions to the guests. Each individual table can be decorated with it's own teapot and tray of treats before hand, or a couple servers can be used to serve the tea throughout the event.For an easy to host event one long table can be set up buffet style to hold the goodies and beverages. This allows your guests to help themselves to their favorite teas and treats and frees you up to simply relax and enjoy your tea party.

Any ladies attending the event should bring with them a summer bonnet. You can either have your ladies wear their fanciest bonnets to your event, or you can have each person attending your event bring a plain straw hat with them, and they can decorate it there. When you send out the invitations to your event, instruct each guest to bring with them, glue, tape or pins for fastening items to their hats. Also ask them to bring an assortment of ribbons, bows and flowers for decorating their hats. Before tea is served have your guests decorate their bonnets so that they can wear them for the remainder of the affair. Men can also bring along straw hats to decorate for themselves. Some of these creations can be quite the conversation pieces when they are completed.

This hat decorating event is a wonderful ice breaker as the guests tend to share decorating items, ideas, and laughter as they work on their hats.

ICED TEA DAY PARTY

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gh the entire month of June is dedicated as Iced Tea Month, it is June 10th that is officially National Iced Tea Day, and the day when most celebrations for this event generally occur. So how do you celebrate National Iced Tea Day? You begin by drinking iced tea on that day. You can also attend, or host a Tea Party featuring a variety of tasty iced teas, and invite all your friends, relatives, or work acquaintances to join you in celebrating National Iced Tea Day.

Iced Tea Day parties are distinctly different from your standard High Teas and come with a completely different set of guidelines to insure a successful event. The beverages at these tea parties are of course served cold, but the main shift away from the standard tea party, is in the variety of flavors of tea that are served at an Iced Tea Day party. What makes an Iced Tea party exciting is the number of varieties of iced tea that you offer up to your guests. It is almost similar in theme to a Wine Tasting, only rather than wine, the guest are offered numerous varieties of iced tea to tempt their palate.

Preparing your iced teas is easy. You simply choose which flavors you want to offer up to your guests, brew them up the day before, and then allow each batch to sit overnight in the fridge to enhance it's unique flavoring.

Iced tea can be easily made in a number of ways, and the good news is that it can be made from Green, Black, White, Oolong or any flavor of Herbal tea. This means that you are able to turn your favorite hot beverage into a refreshingly iced cold drink during the hot summer months. A basic tea mix is made by simply steeping 4 teabags in your teapot, add about 4 tablespoons of sugar or honey into this strong tea while it is still warm enough to dissolve it, and then pour the tea into a one liter or one quart container. Fill the remainder of the container with water and shake. It is that simple. Put the container in the fridge for the tea to cool.

Adding additional flavors to your iced tea is just as simple. Perhaps the easiest method of creating flavored iced tea is to use flavored tea bags or Herbal tea bags. Prepare as above.

Another method of flavoring iced tea is to add one half cup of your choice of orange, blueberry, grape, apple, raspberry, lemon, cherry or other juice into your one liter or one quart container of tea. You can also use fruit or berries, just be sure to cube your fruit, or crush your berries before adding them in with your tea mixture. Generally one half of a fruit, or one half cup of berries is sufficient to provide a rich flavor within the tea mix.

For spearmint or peppermint iced tea you can either purchase the herbal tea bags, and use these to easily create your iced tea, or you can add 2 tablespoons of the herb itself into your mix.

BASIC ICED TEA MIX RECIPE:

4 Teabags of your choice.

5 tablespoons sugar or honey

1 liter of water

Put 4 teabags of your choice into a large size teapot, add in boiled water, and allow to steep. To allow your sugar to dissolve, add your sugar while tea is still warm.

When slightly cooled transfer the tea from your teapot into a one liter bottle. Fill the remainder of the bottle with water. Shake to mix. Place in the fridge to cool.

You choose the flavors of your iced teas and the add ins that you want to include in. With the wide selection of herbal teas on the market, making flavored iced teas is very easy, and inexpensive.

Then serve a variety of fancy sandwiches and baked goods alongside your iced teas to create a Tea extravaganza.

Whichever type of tea party it is that you decide to host, serve up plenty of that wonderful beverage that we call tea, and have a wonderful Tea Party in true High Tea style.

Crafty Gift Ideas With A Tea Theme:

A nice Tea themed craft idea is to prepare gifts of tea using either pre-designed envelopes or ones that you create on your own. This gives you the opportunity of placing your own unique message on each of the tea envelopes that you create. Once you have your envelopes made you simply fill the tea bags with your choice of herbal, green, white or Oolong teas. A wonderful site where you can pick up free patterns is http://alenkasprintables.com/teabags.shtml . There are a variety of Tea Envelope designs available at this site, and these can be easily edited to your own preferences, and then printed off from your home based printer.

These Tea Envelopes can also be used to create unique varieties of loose leaf tea. Purchase bulk teas, herbs, and dried fruits and berries at your local health food store and then mix and match to create your own distinctive teas. Ginseng - spearmint - blueberry perhaps, or Green tea - lemon grass- ginger, you are only limited by your imagination. You can also use these same envelopes to create a gift selection of seeds that are for popular Tea herb plants. Lemon grass, spearmint, peppermint, chamomile, fennel, lavender, thyme, rose and bee balm(commonly known as bergamot). But don't stop there,

You can also create a window box Tea Herb Garden, and plant the most popular and easily grown herbs for tea. Lemon grass, spearmint, peppermint, thyme and chamomile.

Crafty little Iced Tea Recipe Booklets are very easy to make. There are an array of iced tea recipes available online and it is very easy to print off recipes from the Internet. Place each recipe on a separate page in your book, and then bind the pages together with either a cloth, or construction paper cover.

Use a hole punch to make holes along the left side, or top side of your pages, and then bind the pages together with brightly colored ribbon or string.

A wonderfully relaxing craft idea for National Iced Tea Day is a Bath Tea Bag. You simply need a two square pieces of cloth approximately 2 to 6 inches in size. Using a sewing machine, stitch your square into a pocket, leave the top of this pocket open so you will be able to fill your Bathtime Teabag with your choice of dried flower petals, bath salts, epsom salts, sea salt, milk powder, green tea, oatmeal flakes, bath scents or scented oils. After you have your pocket filled, either fashion a drawstring closure, or stitch the remaining side closed. Add a string to the top of your Bathtime Teabag so it is able to dangle into the bathtub.

One of the easiest craft to design in a tea theme is a Tea Time Gift basket. This is a great project for a group of people to do together because you can each bring a selection of items to swap, trade, and share as you are filling your baskets. Items to gather for the baskets are: teacups or mugs, tea balls, teaspoons, a selection of herb teas, a selection of loose leaf teas, a selection of green, black, white or Oolong teas, small packages of cookies, mints or other small candies, cupcakes or small cakes, cinnamon sticks, tiny jars of honey, small packages of sweeteners, and any other items that you know would be sure to delight the person that you are preparing your basket for. Be sure to bring plenty of ribbons, bows, flowers, tinsel, bells and glitter to decorate your basket with. Also keep in mind that you don't have to limit yourself to just themed baskets, use a bonnet instead, and fill it with all the tea themed goodies that you would otherwise place into a basket. You can even choose to fill a teapot or teacup with packages of assorted mints and teas.

However it is that you decide to celebrate your love of tea enjoy a nice hot cup of tea, or a delightful ice cold glass of iced tea, and have a wonderfully refreshing time doing so.

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