Having tea parties is easy if you have a tea pantry!

image from ClipartETC.
This is an article I wrote for another website, but it answers a question that several people have asked me: "Isn't it a lot of work to put on a tea party?" Not if you keep it simple and prepare in advance; while it is a lot of fun to put on a big, fancy, to-do, it is also easy to get carried away! In order to be able to pull together a simple tea party with minimal stress and planning -- even at the last minute -- it’s a good idea to keep certain items and products in the house, set aside in what some people call a “tea party pantry” so that they don’t get used for anything else and are there when you need them. Keep them wherever you have space, but label them and make sure you can find them at a moment's notice. Apart from tea, a kettle, tea pot, mugs or cups and saucers, and a tea strainer, your tea party supply collection can contain any or all of the following:

1. some bottled water, if your tap water is full of minerals or bad-tasting (it will affect the flavor of the tea)
2. sugar cubes
3. packaged fancy cookies
4. store-bought jam and lemon curd
5. imported clotted cream, or Mexican crema or table cream (in the International food section in some grocery stores)
6. packaged scone mixes
7. dried cherries, cranberries, currants and/or apricots
8. store-bought chutney, tapenade, and gourmet spreads or sauces
9. boxed cake mixes, pudding mixes, and canned pie filling
10. confections like chocolate chips and candied ginger
11. cream cheese and unsalted butter, which you can store in the freezer
12. loaf of pound cake or fruit cake, sliced, which you can store in the freezer
13. frozen appetizers like mini quiches, mini veggie turnovers, rolled sandwiches, and turkey sausage
14. frozen puff pastry, pie dough, crumpets and tart shells
15. frozen desserts like mini cream puffs, mini eclairs, and ice cream bonbons

With all of these things, you only have to buy fresh sandwich bread, cucumber, milk (to put in the tea), and some seasonal fruit and flowers, and you're ready for tea! For a traditional afternoon tea, you’ll need bread (scones or crumpets) with jam and cream, savories (tea sandwiches and other savory bites), and sweets (desserts). For a cream tea, you’ll only need scones with cream and jam, and maybe one small dessert. Keep everything small and dainty in size, trim the crusts off of all bread slices for toast and tea sandwiches, and avoid overly messy finger food. (Hot wings are too messy for a tea party!) Here are some suggestions using items from the above list:

Bread: scones (from a mix), frozen or packaged crumpets (heat in the toaster) or toast – trim off the crusts and cut into triangles. You can add dried fruit, chocolate chips, or chopped candied ginger to the scone mix before baking. Serve with clotted cream, table cream or whipped unsalted butter, jam and/or lemon curd.

Savories: cucumber sandwiches, sausage rolls (puff pastry strips filled with sausage and baked), chutney or tapenade spread on toast rounds or squares, frozen mini appetizers (defrost and bake as needed), or cream cheese mixed with some spicy gourmet sauce and used as a sandwich spread.

Sweets: packaged cookies, cupcakes (boxed cake mix), tart shells filled with pie filling or pudding, sliced pound cake or mini desserts (thaw as needed), pie dough or puff pastry turnovers filled with jam or pie filling (bake as needed), or frozen ice cream bonbons.