Teatime at the Office

A chance anecdote I read over the weekend has encouraged me to begin a daily teatime at the office. Oh, I've had teabags and a pretty mug there before, but I've never really gotten into the idea of taking loose leaf tea and a teapot and all that to the office. But yesterday, I thought why not!



So I went ahead and took a teacup and saucer and a couple of loose leaf teas with some tea sacs for steeping the tea. The goal is to have teatime as a nice break anytime between 3 and 5 p.m. Then, in a bit of serendipity, my friend Bonnie called up to say she'd visited a tea shop in Gatlinburg over the weekend, told the owner she was looking for some tea for a friend who writes a tea column in the newspaper, and the woman was sending me some teas to try. Imagine my joy when my friend showed up with a gift bag containing her gift of Scottish Breakfast Tea plus 10 (10!) full-size bags of assorted teas courtesy of the tea shop owner. The tea lovers in the office agreed to join me in the sampling, and I'll be sharing our reviews of these wonderful teas in the coming days.


But for today, I thought I'd post photos of a few of the staples I'm taking in for our office tea service. A tea tray (yes, it's plastic, but I didn't think this would be the time to risk chipping my favorite chintz tea tray), a Shabby Chic teapot (shabby because it has a tiny chip on the spout), and an eBay sugar and creamer I picked up a few years ago. I'm also taking some Pepperidge Farm shortbread cookies and some ginger crisps to share. Three o'clock never looked so good!