April 2012

A lovely friend had an idea for a quiet gathering on a Saturday afternoon.  The Cafe at the Frick has a delectable menu offering and an even more stunning garden setting.  Though we lamented the rain at first drop, a funny thing happened as the droplets drizzled down our window.  Being surrounded by flowers weighed by water droplets became the ideal way to enjoy the garden views, the clink of tea spoons, the hum of little girls in tutus drinking tea like royalty and the tiers of lovely little foods.  It was a perfectly peaceful way of enjoying the rain, as if we were tucked away at a fancy country cottage without a care in the world.  Rather than dissect the delectable tiers of pretty foods, I’d rather just reflect on the powers of tea and good company.

A Proper Tea is much nicer than a Very Nearly Tea,

which is one you forget about afterwards.

~A.A. Milne

Strange how a teapot can represent at the same time the comforts of solitude

and the pleasures of company.

~Author Unknown

Great love affairs start with Champagne and end with tisane.

~Honoré de Balzac

The first sip of tea is the always the best…

you cringe as it burns the back of your throat,

knowing you just had the hottest carpe-diem portion.

~Terri Guillemets

Another novelty is the tea-party, an extraordinary meal in that,

being offered to persons that have already dined well,

it supposes neither appetite nor thirst,

and has no object but distraction,

no basis but delicate enjoyment.

~Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin,

The Physiology of Taste

Tea’s proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious,

and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise,

and will not use abstinence.

~Samuel Johnson

Bread and water can so easily be [scones] and tea.

~Author Unknown

Each cup of tea represents an imaginary voyage.

~Catherine Douzel

Thank you lovely friend for suggesting such a deliciously romantic respite from the rest of the rainy gloom.