A friend is in Tea Time magazine!

The new issue of Tea Time landed in my mailbox this week, and I had eagerly awaited its arrival. You see, I had heard while in Kentucky that my tea friend Nancy Reppert, proprietress of Sweet Remembrances Tea Room in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, would be featured! And she was!

Doesn't she look like the perfect, most gracious hostess? I thought they captured her spirit quite well in this photo!

I'd been corresponding with Nancy for years through our blogs, but I got to meet her face-to-face in Kentucky last month. I must say, there may come a day when I meet a tea friend from afar who is just a real pill and a disappointment, but so far, every single "tea friend" I've met in person has been just as I'd expected. And Nancy, like so many others I've met through the world of tea, has two qualities I prize in women: she's smart and she's funny! Here, she humored me by posing next to the Greentree Antiques and Tearoom sign in Lexington, Kentucky before we all went in for tea.

Before reading the article in Tea Time, I brewed a special gift I had received from Nancy in Kentucky, some of Rosemary's Relaxing Tea from her sister Susanna's herb shop next door, and I used this pretty mug mat from Nancy as well. (The tea was divine, by the way!) Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania is at the top of my bucket list of places to visit, partly because I absolutely adore herbs and would love to visit the shop in addition to the tea room! Years ago, a friend here in Newnan owned a magnificent antebellum home and had a small herb shop on the property. I loved to drop by just to sniff the place. It was heavenly. And while I love herbs for their scent, I also find them so useful in cooking, in flavoring tea, and just for the pleasure of seeing them in my garden. It turns out that the Repperts' late mother, Bertha Reppert, opened her Rosemary House herb shop back in 1968, long before our society recognized the value of herbs. Isn't that amazing? I always love to hear about entrepreneurial women who were ahead of their time! And it sure sounds like the apples didn't fall far from the tree. If you'd like to keep up with the adventures at the tea room and herb shop, bookmark the Rosemary's Sampler blog here. You'll be glad you did!