I was asked to do a tea at Kidron Mennonite Church for their ladies group. I jumped at the chance. This is the church my mom grew up and my parents were married in.
Also, I have friends that attend, so I figured it would be a fun night....and it was!
The tea was at 6:30 at night, so I did mostly decaf teas for them.
I always make the butterfly pea concentrate at home...then I add the lemonade so that they can see the color change from blue to purple.
My favorite base for this tea is Natural Hope Moringa Mint tea. It is a green tea with spearmint, lavender, moringa, and chamomile.
This time I made it both caffeine free and with the Natural Hope Moringa Mint...knowing that a lot of women were looking for tea with no caffeine at this event. The caffeine free version is just spearmint, lavender, butterfly pea blossom and then the minute maid lemonade. I also used some of the lavender from my garden.
When I got home from work I also made up some carafes of tea- so that I would not have to make it all there. I only had about an hour at home before I needed to be at the church.
I made the white tea and oolong tea ahead, but the carafes do an excellent job of keeping them hot.
To be sure I get a perfect cup of tea, I still make the tea in tea pots. I then pour the tea pot of tea into the carafe.
I set up my teas in stations, so that everyone could move around the room.
I had butterfly pea tea regular and decaf.
I had a decaf black peach tea.
I did the oolong tea here in the corner. I also had a small bowl with the tea leaves in it so they could look at the leaves and smell the tea. They could also see if they could determine what was in the tea. The coconut oolong was a one a lot of people enjoyed. And I have to say it is one of my favorites.
There were 29 ladies that came out. They did a nice devotional to start out and played some fun games.
I spent some time giving out tea facts as they tried the teas.
My friend and her sister did the food. It was a really nice spread.
I used to work at Lehman's Hardware with two of these ladies. It was great to see them again and be asked to do a tea here for them.
The ladies are trying the teas.
Did you know that black tea, green tea, oolong tea, white tea, yellow tea, and Pu-erh tea ALL come from the same plant?? It is true, it just depends on when they harvest and how they are processed.
There is only one large scale commercial tea plantation in the US...Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island in South Carolina. There are smaller plantations popping up in the south, but really only one big one (127 acres). Mars Hill NC (Red Sun Tea), Fairhope AL (Fairhope Tea Plantation- the oldest plantation in the US) and Pickens SC (Table Rock Tea) have medium tea plantations.
These are the only areas in the lower 48 to have the right conditions to grow tea. (Hawaii has some tea plantations too.) The Camelia Sinensis tea plant needs both heat and rain.
They were kind enough to invite my mom and aunt along too.
For educational teas for groups over 20 people I charge $8 a person.
Over 50- $7 a person and over 100 - $6 a person.
