tea party

risa of muerto de risa is hosting an amazing international tea party... what a wonderful way to see blog friends & meet new ones! i love this idea and have really enjoyed visiting everyone. i confess that i am not usually much of a tea drinker... much more of a coffee girl here... but i do love tea accoutrements, and so i will bring some cups...


and a little matching pot for the cream!


in the summer of 2006 i had the most wonderful tea experience, that almost did make a tea drinker out of me... mr. d and i visited darjeeling, in west bengal, and drank incredibly delicious teas for several days. one of the most interesting things that we did was visit a tea cafe where one could taste dozens of different types of darjeeling tea... they were all so different. until that moment i had thought that darjeeling was darjeeling and that was the end of it, but no! the tea from each tea estate was distinctive, and their flavors differed depending on the season in which the leaves were picked. we walked around the lovely mountainous tea estates and drank cup after cup of this wonderful stuff. so i will bring some tea from darjeeling:


in darjeeling many of the people sniffed at folks in the rest of india, who drank (horrors!) assam tea with milk and chai masala (spice)... they felt that this corrupted the purity of the tea and the milk + masala were just to cover up the fact that assam was not as nice as darjeeling! i don't believe it though... the darjeeling was delicate and delicious, and indeed just needed a bit of sugar and that was it... but i love love love strong black tea with lots of milk and a spoonful of this:


chai masala made by my mama's best friend.

and if some should care for a coffee or espresso, i will bring these, another gift from mom:


these were a thrift score! isn't she great? :)

and here's me.