Blogging with Tea Cups

The temperature has dropped about ten degrees in the last hour and thunder rumbles in the distance. After several lovely days with lots of sunshine, a rain shower can be tolerated when it arrives. Sunday was our 40th wedding anniversary, and DH and I treated ourselves to grilled meat and a sit on the deck. It was a wonderful day, but yesterday morning it was back to work on this place. The heat and humidity made outside work rather miserable as the day wore on, and I nearly gave myself a heart attack mowing this place and trimming the shrubs. Normally, I do only one job at a time, but DH was making rumblings of trimming those shrubs. Last time he left the shrubs looking like an Army barber had cut them! This morning it was back to work on cleaning sets of sliding glass doors, a front glass door, and the kitchen window.

For a break I checked my blog list which I always enjoy, but I do have to be careful or I meander away from any work details for too long. This morning reading about tea things captured my attention as I love tea and tea pots almost as much as reading and writing. When I saw the lovely crocheted “tea set” on blogger buddy Becky’s page (http://beckypovich.blogspot.com) I was lost for a while. Reading her page then took me to another blog (http://writingstraightfromtheheart.blogspot.com/) about a lovely flowered tea cup. So I grabbed a camera and started taking pictures of my own cups and pots. Mind you, this is not all of them, only a sampling.

This springtime cup was one of my first purchases from a tea room that was in town at the time. I had cups and mugs that matched my kitchen dishes, but I wanted this special cup because it was so pretty. I loved the heft of the cup when I used it. I enjoyed it so much I became hooked on tea cups and tea pots.

This black and off white tea pot is trimmed in gold and is a pretty pot to use. I favor white or florals, but when I saw this unused pot at a garage sale, I knew it had to come home with me. The cup and saucer are from a set of brown and white dishes my mother-in-law used for several years. She favored blue and whites, but these browns were a favorite too. One day someone was helping her clean and dropped a tray of the dishes, breaking them all but a few odd pieces.  

This pot is probably a coffee pot rather than a tea pot. It was with a set of pot, sugar bowl, and creamer I ran into in a flea market late one day coming home from Oklahoma. I was really wanting the sugar bowl, a lovely lidded affair. But when I learned the whole tea set was only $10, I figured the extra peices were just a bonus. When I got home, I researched the mark. It is Polish pottery and the designs the company uses were created by concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany during WW II. It was a strange sensation to think the patterns survived when the creators didn't, and I was glad I had bought the set to bring home out of the dark shelves of the flea market.

I love my whites and these are only two. The taller one is again a coffee pot. But it was practically free in an anitque shop. The square one is darling to use and pours so beautifully. It came from a tea room in Sprinfield, Kentucky. I was accompanying DH on a business trip to a plant in Kentucky, and Sprinfield was our lunch stop. It was a  little town, the county seat,  built around a small square. I don't remember the name of the tea room, but it was darling. The decor was filled with tea pots, cups and plates. The food was superb. I remember a cranberry salad there that I have never tasted elsewhere. The shop's business was brisk with business men as well as lunching women. It was obviously known for good food, good tea.

I have a couple of nice 4-6 cup Blue Willow tea pots, but when I saw these blues at World Market, I thought I had to bring them home. They are not Willows but Willow-inspired. The square cup is what sold me on the set. The pot is big enough to serve two, but it is called a tea for one. The lilac and white tea kettle to the left is a delicate feminine pot and makes a wonderful tea party tea pot.

I am not big on decorative tea pots because I actually use all my tea pots for brewing. The rabbit tea pot was just too cute to pass up though,  and he was cleanance. He makes a nice Easter breakfast tea pot. The floral tea pot is one a friend gave me as a gift. Her sister-in-law does china painting, and Tracy had her do this one for me. It is one too lovely to use because I fear chipping this one. It is a beauty!

Another gift pot was this blue and white my sister gave me. She and her daughter were hitting flea markets one day, and she said this made her think of me. It is a very nice blue and white, quite different from anything I have.

DH picked out this Nipon tea pot. He found it at a flea market and thought I would like it. It is different from what I might have picked, but I like it. It pours well; I love the long spout and nice handle. It dates somewhere between the 1920's and 1940's I think, and yet this pot did not look to have been used. Someone missed some great pots of tea!

Somewhere along the line, I got intersted in egg codlers. I was looking for a Blue Willow one, but I got side-tracked with these few designs from the 1950s. I have acutally made eggs in them which is interesting to do. Coddled eggs, toast in a rack, and freshly brewed tea in a nice pot make a fabulous breakfast!

In fact, any time is a good time for tea!