How to Serve High Tea at Home

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Serve High Tea at Home

We all know the game of choosing the right setting to meet someone to talk. Lunch may be too rushed, dinner may be too formal and having "drinks" may be too loud and crowded. When you want to impress a guest (or a number of them), and pizza and beer just doesn't do it, high tea is one of the alternatives. High tea is a more formal event then merely brewing up a pot of tea to share with girlfriends as you talk. Learning how to serve high tea at home helps to ensure that your next tea party is a successful one. Does this Spark an idea?

Instructions

  1. Set a Time and Create the Atmosphere

    • The official time for a high tea party is 4 p.m. High tea combines tea with heavier amounts of food than may be served at a traditional tea party. High Tea Time is more malleable to allow for the best time for your guests to be free, so you'll have extra time for cricket, or Imperialism, or whatever it is you need to do that day.

      Aahhh...a pleasant atmosphere

      As important as time is atmosphere. Set aside an area of your house--or apartment, or box, or whatever--that will be roomy and private. Of course, comfy chairs are a must, and should be set around a centrally located table ... you know, for the tea and stuff. Splurge and get some seasonal flowers. Arrange them so that you and your company can see and be surrounded by them, but do not have to work around them. Use doilies under your plates, bowls, cups and so on. Got a particularly nice tablecloth you don't mind liberating? Some attractive napkins yearning to be seen? Use them. Also, choosing pleasant music fills the air in ways that smells and sights cannot. Lean toward (perhaps wordless) tunes that accentuate relaxed conversation, and steer away from the intrusive. Mozart? O.K., Busta Rhymes? Not so good.

Next: Obtain the Proper Equipment

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References

Resources

  • Photo Credit Tea Pot and cups image by Vitalij Geraskin from Fotolia.com

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