A Country Tea

Continuing the theme of "two weeks of teas"....in anticipation of my London Tea Tour. I was very blessed to have my friend, NM Tea Lover, with me for a few days this week! I held a small "country tea," which means the tea is served in the kitchen. I was making fresh crumpets, which is an involved process because I can only make a few at a time. I wanted to be able to chat with my friends while I cooked.

Both of my friends who attended are much better cooks than I, so I was a bit intimidated to cook for them. But I persevered. :-) We had squash soup with teapot and heart puff pastries and a salad topped with pears, walnuts and an English Stilton cheese. (Special thanks to my London traveling companion for the puff pastry idea!!) With these, we enjoyed a jasmine (Queen of Heaven) artisan tea.

For the second course, we had the fresh crumpets with butter, blackberry jam and cherry curd. Yumm! The crumpets didn't turn out quite as nicely as my trial run but they tasted fine nonetheless. Must have been beginner's luck the first time! Actually, I used olive oil on the griddle the first time and canola the second. I prefer the olive oil. The canola seemed to brown up too quickly.

For dessert, one of my friends brought delightful coconut cupcakes, which we had with a robust Assam tea (and milk and sugar).

I wish I could have these tea parties every week! The timing of this one was perfect because it gave me something to look forward to and to distract me from the upcoming London trip. :-)