"We have a large backyard with a patio, a gazebo, a pond, a series of gardens and flowering trees and shrubs," says the community relations co-ordinator at Royal Court Parkland Estates. "Later this month, when the lilacs, hyacinths, lupines and daisies that will make up the centrepieces of our tables are in bloom, it will be the perfect place to hold an old-fashioned, Victorian-style tea."
That's exactly what will take place on the afternoon of June 20. That day, 150 Times & Transcript readers will gather together at Royal Court Parkland Estates to enjoy a cuppa, tour of the facility's gardens and take in a presentation by Martin Quinn, who owns and operates a nursery in Kincardine, Ontario, specializing in ornamental grasses.
And what is the price of such an enjoyable afternoon? Nothing more than a simple gardening tip, mailed or e-mailed to the Times & Transcript on or before June 9.
"Our garden tea is being held in conjunction with Communities in Bloom and the Times & Transcript," Wendy explains. "We regularly host coffee breaks or luncheons for the Communities in Bloom judges when they visit the city at the end of the summer, but we thought that this year we would host an old-fashioned Victorian-style tea to kick-off what will be a gardening weekend in the Moncton area, since the Times & Transcript will hold their annual plant swap the next day, June 21, at the March Moncton Market."
To prepare for the event, Wendy has been busily researching the proper way to hold a Victorian-style tea, both by surfing the Internet and talking to historians at a number of New Brunswick attractions, including King's Landing near Fredericton.
"There's quite a lot to learn when it comes to hosting a Victorian-style tea," says Wendy, "since this was a practice that was perfected over a number years in England during the 1800s."
Indeed. While the first samples of tea reached England between 1652 and 1654, replacing ale as England's national drink, it was not until 1840 that the practice of afternoon tea parties came to prominence.
A lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, is widely credited with inventing afternoon tea in 1840. Anna was reportedly quite fond of taking a snack of tea and tiny cakes in her rooms each afternoon, and many began following her lead, including Queen Victoria herself, who relished the new craze.
By 1855, the queen and her ladies-in-waiting donned formal dress for their afternoon teas, and by the 1880s, ladies all over England dressed in long gowns for the afternoon routine, giving rise to the quintessential Victorian tea parties that featured ladies dressed in lacy, flowing dresses and droopy hats lounging about in well-manicured flower gardens with gentlemen similarly dressed in white suits.
This was also the time that the practices of High Tea and Low Tea emerged. Low Tea is what we have come to typically think of as tea, with the upper classes enjoying gourmet tidbits served alongside tea from a silver or china teapot. High Tea, meanwhile, was practised by the middle and lower classes. It was the main meal of the day and featured meat, vegetables and tea.
"Afternoon teas are something we, as a society, have gotten away from in recent years," observes Wendy, who remembers how church teas were often held while she was growing up, and that young women were frequently given china sets as wedding presents so that they could properly entertain callers. "But holding a tea is a nice excuse to slow down and visit with friends, something we don't always get to do often enough nowadays."
David McAllister agrees. He co-owns the Bell Inn Restaurant in Dorchester, where afternoon tea is offered from 2 to 4 p.m. each day featuring chicken salad, potato salad, cranberry sauce, cheddar cheese, fresh fruit, biscuits with whipped cream and jam, and, of course, tea or coffee.
"People today, both men and women, still very much enjoy the idea of tea, because it gives them a chance to slow down in the middle of the day and visit with friends," he says. "They also like the link taking tea in the afternoon gives them with the past, even if afternoons teas today are much less formal than they used to be."
But while afternoon teas nowadays may be much less formal, usually, than their Victorian counterparts, some elements of the ritual remain the same.
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