Re-Visiting My 2019 Tea Activities

2019 will soon draw to a close, so I am going to re-visit some of my tea activities that I neglected to  write about on this blog.

1) In March 2019 I gave a lecture about tea and its' spread around the world for World Awareness Day at my son's high school.  The students sampled teas while I spoke.

 2) I helped to create an exhibit for Asheville's Smith McDowell House Museum called Infused in History: A Tea Exhibit.  This exhibit ran from April through September 2019 at the museum.

3) I donated a tea-themed gift basket to the 2019 Jane Austen Summer Program silent auction at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. The silent auction raises money for scholarships to attend the annual four-day symposium. The gift basket included one pound of Congou black tea from Elmwood Inn Fine teas.  

These activities kept me busy in 2019.

Infused by Henrietta Lovell

Infused: Adventures in Tea

By Henrietta Lovell

Faber & Faber, 2019

I adore this book.  Henrietta Lovell's Infused: Adventures in Tea, which came out earlier this year, is supremely entertaining - and all the more so for a tea lover like myself.  I have not enjoyed a tea book this much since I read Helen Gustafson's The Agony of the Leaves: The Ecstasy of My Life with Tea around twenty years ago.  Lovell's book is part memoir, part travel story, and part primer on the world of tea.  For me, this book was a page turner that I devoured from cover to cover.

If you love this book as much as I do, you may want to listen to some recent podcast interviews with Henrietta Lovell.  I found the podcasts listed here to be engaging, each giving more insight into the life and personality of this author.

https://www.teaandtattlepodcast.com/home/115

https://heritageradionetwork.org/podcast/british-tea-is-sht-and-other-lessons-henrietta-lovell/

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/tea-bags-are-bad-for-the-environment-and-bad-for-your-brew-says-tea-expert-1.5399387

My next step is to order some of the teas mentioned in Lovell's book.  I believe my first purchase will be the Infused gift set  which includes six of the tea discussed in the book along with a copy of the book itself.  I want to support Lovell's company, The Rare Tea Company, with my purchase not only because I trust in  the quality of the teas she makes available, but also because her choice of teas supports farmers who use sustainable growing methods.  In my mind, this is a win-win.

Tea Themed Tabletop Christmas Tree

I always enjoy decorating for the Christmas holidays!  Here above is a new addition to my usual Christmas decor: a tea-themed tabletop Christmas tree. I have collected the ornaments over the years.  And a few I have made myself, as I love crafting.  In addition to teapots and cups, the tree features faux macaroon ornaments! For instructions on how to make the macaroon ornaments, see my post HERE from two years ago.  I purchased the tree at a hardware store and then found the mini tree skirt at my local Target.