My Country, 'Tis of Tea — Maryland

Maryland is one of the original thirteen colonies, and I find it notable that it's considered the birthplace of religious freedom in our country. Maryland also assisted in the founding of Washington, DC by donating the land. (And I'll let you decide whether that was a good thing or not, ha!) And in tea history …

• Baltimore, Maryland, was the home of the famous Hochschild Kohn and Company department store, and this 1921 menu from the store's tea room can be found in the digital collections of the New York Public Library. I love knowing what foods this old Baltimore tea room once served, especially the desserts! Boston Cream Pie, Fresh Strawberry Whip, and Peach Meringue? Yes, please!

• One of the newer companies on the tea scene today, and one whose teas I have sampled and enjoyed, is Capital Teas. This company is based in Annapolis, the capital of Maryland, and I was pleased to read that the company has a rich tea history, as co-founder Manelle Martino is the great-great-grandson of Francis Van Reyk, "a tea entrepreneur who planted and oversaw some of the first Ceylon Tea estates (in what is now Sri Lanka) starting in the 1870s." If you haven't tried their teas, you may want to visit http://www.capitalteas.com.

• This vintage photograph from Greenbelt, Maryland, is another I found from the Library of Congress website. (Okay, so Washington doesn't mess up *everything* it touches, I guess.) It's from the Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information. The photo from February 1938 is titled "Serving tea in one of the one-room apartments. Greenbelt, Maryland." I'm intrigued that the "Office of War Information" photographed something related to teatime, so now I have yet another mystery to investigate, thanks to Maryland!