All Things Tea

As I type this post it is a frigid 12 degrees in Southeastern Michigan - it has gone up 7 degrees since I got up this morning around 8:00 o'clock.  Baby it's cold outside and I don't have any plans to leave my cozy, warm comfortable house.  It is definitely tea drinking weather. 

I have several tea related items I want to share with you in case you might be interested in getting them for yourself.  

You may remember my blog post last April when Bath & Body Works introduced a teacup fragrance plug in their limited edition Bridgerton product line.  I promptly went to their store and purchased one.

Fast forward to February 2025.  While scrolling through my Facebook feed I saw they now have a teapot shaped fragrance plug.  It was on sale for $19.95 [plus tax] so, of course, I bought one.  The fragrance refills were on sale for $3.50 each.  The scent I got was Bergamot & Birch.  Bergamot is a main ingredient in Earl Grey tea, and since the fragrance plug is a teapot it only seemed fitting.  ;-)  But there's many fragrances to choose from.

I put this fragrance plug in the master bedroom.

Speaking of the Bridgerton TV series, as the airing of Season Four approaches I noticed the growing number of companies adding the Bridgerton series to their product line. Hallmark now sells Bridgerton products as well as Walmart.  When I was looking for a sugar & creamer set for my Valentine's luncheon I noticed Walmart had one online for $10.  The problem, it was an in-store pickup only and the store was too far away.  It was listed on E-bay, but for $29.99 plus shipping and I was unwilling to pay that markup price.  

Not sure why I get Belk ads in my Facebook feed since there aren't any Belk Department Stores in Michigan, but as luck would have it an ad came through my feed for a Napier teacup brooch on sale for $9.99 [never mind that shipping was $10.95!]  It seemed like a good deal so I ordered it.  It's actually even lovelier in person than in the photo.

Another ad that came through my Facebook feed was from J.C. Penney for Cuddle Duds pink Latte spring/summer pajamas.  Since lattes are made with both coffee and tea, and by faith spring will eventually come, I ordered a pair.  They're really cute.  They're wrinkled in the photo below because they were crammed into a small plastic shipping bag, but they have a very soft feel.

A few weeks ago, a lady who was very involved in the beginning of my church's existence passed away.   She attended several of the ladies' spring and fall teas with her daughter.  Upon her passing, her daughter texted me and asked if I would like to have one of her mother's tea sets.  There were three available and she attached photos.  They were all lovely and two had teacups to accompany the teapots, but I chose a pink 3-piece Sadler set with a Cube shaped teapot because I didn't have one of those in my collection.  What a thoughtful keepsake.

I was sure the sugar bowl had a lid to match the teapot lid but it got broken along life's way, so I Googled the tea set to see if I might be able to find one.  Imagine my shock when I saw the set listed on Etsy for $482.64!  The sugar bowl had a lid but the teapot had lots of crazing, which mine doesn't have.  I am so grateful to be gifted with this set even without the sugar bowl lid.  

We have so much teacup breakage at The Whitney, so I recently went through my collection and came up with 25 I was willing to part with [in addition to the 50 I bought from Maria's Antiques and Estate Sales] and put them into service at The Whitney.  I went in on one of my days off to organize and make sure all the teacups were in matching pairs.  Then I took before and after photos to show the servers how the shelves are to be maintained.  Time will tell!  

[Before]

[After]

We store all our tea equipage in the Music Room at The Whitney.  The shelves the teacups occupy were originally used to store sheet music and music books.  The two sets of shelves are on the left and right side of an alcove where a baby grand piano once sat.  I guess this is what's called repurposing!