Another Cup of Tea

Cobalt Blue, white and gold gilt Royal
Albert bone china tea cup and saucer

Tea anyone?  I think I've mentioned that I love to drink tea.  I think I've also mentioned that I love to host real tea parties and to go to tea houses.  I've loved to do this ever since I was a child.  My mom would make a cup of tea for both of us and we'd sit out on the patio after dinner drinking and catching up with each other. 

When I went to college, there as a divine bohemian tea house about a block away from where I lived called Ginnies.  I could spend all evening on Friday and Saturday nights there with my then beau.  I'd try different teas and desserts and enjoyed seeing how each room in the tea house (a converted old clapboard home) was decorated.

Just about every place I've lived I've hunted down the local coffee or tea house.  Some have been disappointing to say the least and others have been hugely commercialized and just didn't have the charm of Ginnies' by a long shot.  In my travels, I've always loved best the tea houses where they served the tea from real bone china tea cups and saucers.  There's nothing the authenticity to make a cup of a tea a joy.