“Let’s Be Friends” Teatime

I enjoy preparing tea parties for different occasions with pretty table settings, several courses, and an abundance of hot tea. My friend Missy throws her share of full-spread tea parties as well. However, in an effort to simply experiment with tea blends and expand our scone-baking skills, Missy and I decided to get together on a regular basis without the fancy themes and elaborate spread for the purpose of trying one new scone recipe and one or two new tea blends, so we have fresh ideas for when there are bigger tea parties to throw with groups. We take turns trying out new recipes for these simple afternoon teatimes. Our daughters join us too. And sometimes our sons will pop in to sit and munch for a minute too and give their review.

We are both fans of Sally Clarkson’s books and podcasts on home and Christian hospitality. Something cute Sally says when she’s inviting a friend, a grown child, or a grandchild to sip tea and enjoy a goodie is, “Let’s be friends and have tea together” or “Let’s eat a cookie and talk and be friends”. So that’s what we’ve started saying to each other now when we get together– “Let’s be friends!” And it just tickles us.

Recently, it was my turn to host and present a new scone and tea blend. I told you that sometimes our sons join us and this time we also had my daughter and son-in-law from Texas and Missy’s soon-to-be SIL to help us taste test!

On our trip out west, my daughter and I had picked up some huckleberry tea, so we started with that as our inspiration. Everything out there is huckleberry, y’all! Huckleberry syrup, huckleberry latte, huckleberry salmon. And we loved it! I thought about what scone flavor would go well with huckleberry and decided on lavender and lemon. I used the basic scone recipe from our scone-baking class at a local tearoom and added lemon juice and zest plus a smidge of lavender extract to the dough. After baking and cooling, I glazed them with a mixture of powdered sugar, lemon juice, and a tad lavender extract. Before the glaze set, I sprinkled each scone with lemon zest and dried lavender. I enjoyed these so much and I think everyone else did as well (some got seconds so that’s a good sign), so I’ll definitely make them again.

The scones were served with clotted cream, lemon curd, and some huckleberry jam from our trip. Our tea blends were the huckleberry tea and my favorite garden tea blend, which is a creamy Earl Grey with vanilla, lavender, and rose petals! So good! We served the garden blend at my daughter’s wedding last summer. And even though I said earlier that we only bake one scone recipe for these casual teas, I’d already made a southern cream cake for my family the day before and had plenty left over so I put that out too. I don’t think my guests minded me breaking the rule. 😉

We had a nice afternoon tasting and sipping and giving our reviews, plus just talking and catching up and “being friends”, as Sally would say. Oh, and you remember I mentioned that Missy’s future son-in-law joined us? Well, at that time they weren’t officially engaged yet but, unbeknownst to her daughter, they would be engaged within a few days! And my daughter and I got to play a sneaky role in it! I’ll share more about that in my next post so check back.