How do you give a proper tea? I have been obsessed with this question since I first read Alice in Wonderland as a child. Not a good example for a proper tea. I pursued better examples for tea time while studying in England by going to a variety of tea houses for Afternoon Tea. Although Earl Grey tea and black currant scones served with fragile cups and saucers allow for a lovely afternoon indulgence, I never learned how to give a proper tea.
But finally today, I will travel to our local senior center to enjoy a freshly brewed cup of tea and a hot, delicious scone with jam and cream. I will delight in learning about the history of tea, tea décor and how to brew a proper pot of tea. Will I be the only thirty-something there? Absolutely. Will I be the only one under the age of sixty-five? Probably. Do I care? No, I am simply a seventy-year-old trapped in a thirty-seven- year-old’s body. Will I am being wearing hat? Pink with pink roses, of course.
It will be a lovely day. As Henry James wrote in the Portrait of the Lady, “There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
