Tea Series End

Hi! I'm back! Thanks for your patience with me while I took a much needed break! I'll be wrapping up my tea series today with this very longgggg post. Hope you have time to read it. =0)


Okay, first....just a few of the many tea accessories available to you. There are SO many out there that you can really have fun hunting for them and discovering different kinds. Many tea shops carry lots of different accessories.


Infuser mesh balls....these are used for loose leaf tea. You can use a large ball in a tea pot or a small ball in a tea cup for an individual serving. I also like my unusual tea ball pincher which makes scooping loose tea leaves simple and not so messy.






These are loose leaf tea strainers. They come in so many shapes and designs as well. They are used for when loose leaf tea has been steeped in a tea pot without a mesh ball or any other type of strainer. You rest the top piece on top of your tea cup and pour your tea through it. Then you move it over to the little bowl to catch any drips.















Here are some tea bag presses. They come in so many different shapes and designs but they are fun to have.

This is a really cool tea cup that comes from the China influence on tea. I got it at Cost Plus World Market. It has a built in strainer for your loose leaf teas.




















These are also called tea "presses" but they are pots made for brewing tea and sometimes used also as coffee presses. They are wonderful for a single tea service.














This little flower plate is a tea bag holder. Once you've steeped your tea bag you can remove it from your cup onto this cute little guy. I also enjoy collecting tiny china tea spoons. In some of the pictures you can see some tea napkins that I got from my sister who's sister in laws in Mexico hand embroidered. They have been making them for their church there as a fund raiser. My sister's husband preaches at their church for the mid week service and they run several ministries there. If you are interested in purchasing any of the napkins, I have a few leftover from her recent trip that I'm selling for her.


Then below are some pictures to fulfill a request to post my tea cup and tea pot collection. I like the idea because I'd like to record here for my daughter the "where" of each tea cup.

From the far left is a tea pot with a Thomas Kincaid painting on it from my husband, then a blue Christmas one from Poland, then a cream and pink lace pot, my yellow bunny pot, my stack of muffins coffee server, then my pale green with white polka dots, then my bowl of grapes tea pot, my white embossed tea pot, and then my pumpkin tea pot. All the others were from my mom.










Tea Cups: From the top right clockwise- Royal Albert rose bud cup from my mom (it's a match to the one in the next picture center), purple roses is Emilee's that I bought her on a trip having tea with a friend that I was there for her baby shower, Daddy's grandmother's tea cup from her collection (grandma A from Boston), a red floral print that I bought last summer at the cabin in a gift shop, a December cup my mom bought me for my birthday, a tiny floral print of my grandmother's (grandma S), a shamrock print cup that my mom got me for my Irish heritage, a pink and blue floral print that I got as a memento at a gift shop during a women's retreat.










Left to right- white embossed tea cup with scalloped saucer to match my white tea pot, pansy tea cup that was my grandmother's (grandma S), Royal Albert rose bud, blue and white from my mom's every day dishes when I was growing up, soft pink floral from my grandma S.












Emilee's bunny tea set

Two of five miniature tea cups that my Aunt Glennis made for me and my siblings when we were little. I have two that Emilee and Jon enjoy using for special tea or hot chocolate. They are so dainty and cute.











And I leave this tea series with a little tea bag history....




the tea bag believe it or not was an accidental invention and not only that but it was invented in the United States, not England and not China....No, the tea bag was invented right in the US as a way for people to try a "sample" of tea. These little "samples" of tea caught on so well that they became quite popular. The first tea bags were made from hand-sewn silk muslin bags and tea bag patents date back as early as 1903. First appearing commercially around 1904, tea bags were successfully marketed by tea and coffee shop merchant Thomas Sullivan of New York, who shipped his tea bags around the world. A machine was soon invented to replace the hand sewing of tea bags.


Thomas Lipton incorporated the Lipton Tea Company in 1915. Lipton Tea patented a novel four-sided tea bag in 1952 called the flo-thru tea bag.