What Are Tea Things?

Tea Things

Hi! Melody was telling us all about the Coffee and Tea Festival Philly. She saw so many cool things there. She even shared her notes from the seminar. Tea things jumped out at me. 

According to the Mirriam-Webster Dictionary, tea things are "articles for serving tea." I bet you figured that out by yourself. I wanted to know more. So I binged and googled and found four cool blog posts by none other than Bruce Richardson! 

George Washington, More George Washington, John and Abigail Adams, Jane Austen

Tea things include the kettle, pot, cups, saucers, creamer, sugar bowl, caddy, strainer, spoons, and sometimes a mote spoon. I bet you can picture all of those items in your head except two - the caddy and mote spoon. The caddy held your tea until they were added to the tea pot and steeped. The mote spoon looked like a small slotted spoon with a long, thin, pointy handle. They were used for removing renegade tea leaves from your cup AND clearing leaves from the tea spout.

Check out a demonstration here.

If you looked at the links, did you notice the cups didn't have handles? That was typical back before we had shaped packaging for shipping. When tea things were shipped overseas in the holds of ships like the Mayflower, cups without handles took up less space and were more easily stacked. Handles were delicate and broke off easily.

Our Tea Things

This is far from all of our tea things. I pulled out a few favorites.

We use the big kettle for heating the water. The green pot has an infuser basket inside so we steep in that. The green saucer holds the infuser basket after steeping finishes. The tin in back is kind of a tea caddy. We have a plain white pot for serving. Then a formal set with tea pot, sugar, creamer, tea cup with saucer, and serving tray. 

The formal set was giving to us by Nana Kestrel and shows a different cat on each piece.

Do you need all of this stuff to serve tea? Well, yes and no. Yes, because using all the different tools to make and serve your tea becomes a soothing ritual, just like sipping that great cuppa. No, because when you really have to you can get by with less and still have a relaxing cuppa with just a kettle, tea, mug, and spoon.

Hmmm, I'm thinking our new Facebook cover should be a collage of our different tea things. What do you think?

If you'd like to share a photo of your tea things, send a photo to melodyq2000 [at] gmail [dot] com.

So glad you stopped. Come again soon!


#CTFPhilly
#BostonTeaPartyShipsandMuseum