Planning a Tea Party: Part Two

Types of Afternoon Tea

Full Tea

This is what Americans think of as a "high tea". Full tea is often served on a three tiered tray with a variety of light snacks, including savory as well as sweet.

Full teas are typically served with:

• Variety of Tea
• I prefer a Chai blend, but if you want to serve a traditional array of tea, go for:
• Assam- A malty flavored Indian tea
• Earl Grey- A blend of black tea with bergamot oil that gives it a licorice flavor (and Jean-Luc Picard's favorite)
• Darjeeling- Another Indian tea with a hint of almond
• Lapsang Souchong- A Chinese tea that is dried over smoking pine needles
• You can choose your own favorite, but consider how the flavor will work with your food choices. If you're having a lot of rich flavors, I might not go with a green tea. However, a white tea, or floral tea, would be a light flavor to counter the richness of any rich food you might serve.

• Scones
• Sweet, vanilla scones served with clotted cream and jam
• Savory scones served with butter

• Finger Sandwiches
• Cucumber and cream cheese
• Smoked salmon
• Chicken or egg salad

• Miniature Savory Snacks
• Quiche
• Soup

• Deserts
• Petite fours
• Brownies
• Miniature Cakes

Light Tea

A few steps down from the full tea, the light tea is served with scones, clotted cream, preserves, and a variety of small deserts. If you don't have the means to serve a full tea, the light tea is the best choice. You can still have the elegance, without the expense or as much effort.

Cream Tea

A cream tea is well suited for a small gathering. Only tea and scones, with clotted cream and preserves, are served with this tea. It's perfect for an afternoon refresher before or after a meet up.

Good Tea Brands

• Teavana
• Lupicia
• Numi
• Harney and Sons
• Taylors of Harrogate
• Tazo

Recipes and Tutorials

• Petite fours
• Scones
• Tea Sandwiches
• Mini Quiche
• Clotted Cream
• Lemon Curd
• Preparing different types of tea

Thank you for reading! I'm sorry it took so long to get this post up, please check out the first post in this series and read about the History of the Tea Party.

-Lunette <3

Layering Hair Accessories

One of the features of the OTT look in Lolita, whether it be sweet or classic, is all the layers of hair accessories. If you want to attempt it, I suggest you get a large wig to help balance the proportions on your head.

        

Stephanie(Vanilla Milk) in her Lady Rose OP

Stephanie used several roses, bows, and birds to make this layering happen. She wore a hime style wig to keep the accessories from overwhelming her head. The mint bows and pearl drape were handmade by me, the birds are available in crafts stores that have a floral section, as well as the roses, and there's a pink chocomint, plastic, bow clip with a crystal drop.

 

Wunderfluff in her Decoration Dream JSK

Wunderfluff isn't wearing a wig this time, instead she accommodates all of her accessories with a handmade bonnet. The bow in the middle is the Decoration Dream headbow, the candies were handmade by me(it wasn't my intention to make my accessories the trend of this post lol), the gems are just stickers you can find in the scrapbooking section of craft stores, and it is balanced out with a pink bow on her right side.

Thebitchyteadrinker looking fabulous in pink.

Thebitchyteadrinker's hair accessories include bonnets, rose crowns, strawberry clips, bear ears, star clips, pearls, and yes, that is a tea cup she's wearing on her head. I love her love of accessories. She is the kind of person who always wonders, "Can I put this on my head?" Often the answer is, "I'm totally putting that on my head."

Jordana(right) combines black roses and a veil for a dramatic Gothic coordinate. I think the gray wig was the perfect choice to contrast all the black layers on her head without sacrificing any of the somber tones of her look.

Jordana also has her own Lolita shop! Check out Mossbadger for some beautiful and unique accessories.





Sweetlyspooky also uses black roses in a goth coord, but she went in the punk direction with the skeleton hands and center bow. The symmetry gives the silhouette of having one large bow on her head.


 Thank you for reading! If you have a coord you love, please send it to me at lovelylunette at gmail so I can use it in a future post.

-Lunette <3