Product Description

Is enjoying a cup of tea the favorite part of your day? Is the brewing of a 'cuppa' a ritual that centers and calms you? Then let Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover's Soul help you reconnect with yourself in the silent intimacy and introspection experienced while sipping tea. 

Chicken Soup for the Tea Lover's Soul is the perfect accompaniment to that English Breakfast, delightful Darjeeling , French Vanilla, spicy Chai, or comforting Chamomile. Nothing soothes the soul like a cup of tea and a good book, so curl up and wash away the tensions and troubles of the day.

 Learn about tea's ancient history and discover the many choices of tea available from the most exclusive to the tried-and-true favorites. Included are tips on buying, storing, and preparing tea, and even a few ideas on how to host a tea party. You'll also discover:

•  The best-tasting and most popular teas

•  The proper way to steep tea

•  The health benefits of tea

•  The difference between black and green tea, and much more.

Nothing soothes the soul like a cup of tea and a good book, so curl up and wash away the tensions and troubles of the day.  

 

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #197033 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 220 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780757306242
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are co-creators of the national bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen are co-creators of the national bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

Patricia Lorenz (Largo, FL) is a nationally known inspirational, art-of-living writer and speaker and the author of six books. Patricia is one of the top-three contributors in the country to the Chicken Soup for the Soul books with stories in twenty-six of the Chicken Soup books so far She's had over 400 articles published in numerous magazines and newspapers; is a contributing writer for sixteen Daily Guideposts books; four dozen anthologies; and an award-winning newspaper columnist.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1
Delectable Delights

 

The Last Great Tea Party

 

Andrew and I awoke to one of the coldest January days ever recorded in Milwaukee. The actual temperature was twenty-two degrees below zero, with a wind-chill factor of seventy below. Most schools in southeastern Wisconsin were closed because the risk of frostbite was too great for children waiting for school buses.

The furnace was running almost constantly, but the house was still cold. I was wearing two pairs of pants, a turtleneck, and a pullover sweater, and stood shivering in the kitchen. Just then, Andrew, my almost-six-foot-tall eighth-grader, walked in and asked in a perfect British accent, 'Say, Mum, don't you think it's 'bout time for a spot of tea?'

I laughed as I grabbed the teakettle to fill it with water. Andrew was in drama class that semester, and he was fascinated with his Scotch, Irish, English, French, and German ancestry, especially the different accents of each language. I looked closely at my son, whose father had died five years earlier, and was filled with appreciation at what a warm and easy relationship Andrew and I had developed over the years.

'Why, certainly, my good man,' I declared with as much drama as I could muster.

Andrew's eyes twinkled. He knew the scene was set. From that moment, we became English subjects. My British accent was muddled, but I tried to mimic the drama in Andrew's more perfected version. 'Do you fancy a spot of Earl Grey or Jasmine? English or Irish Breakfast? What flavor grabs your fancy this brisk morning?' I asked.

'Say, Mum, what is the difference between high tea and low tea?'

'Well, lad, low tea, which is usually called afternoon tea, is generally served at a low coffee or end table while the guests relax on a sofa or parlor chairs. High tea is served at a high dining-room table in the early evening, our traditional supper hour. More substantial foods are served at high tea, you see.' As a woman who had never had a cup of coffee in her life, but who loved tea, I was enjoying this opportunity to draw my son into my wonderful world of tea drinking.

Andrew rubbed his hands together as if warming them over an old English kitchen fireplace. 'So, Mum, let's have low tea on the coffee table in the living room. I'll make the preparations while you put on the kettle.'

Before I could remind my son that I had work to do in my home office, Andrew cleared the low, round oak coffee table of magazines, grabbed a cotton lace runner in the dining room, and spread it across the table-half closest to the sofa. Then he retrieved a centerpiece of silk flowers from the marble-top chest in the hallway and placed it behind the lace runner. For the final touch, he moved our small, solid oak mantel clock to the coffee table. The clock's rhythmic ticking, which could now be heard in the kitchen, made it seem that we were actually living in a drafty old English manor outside London.

Next, Andrew opened the china cupboard and retrieved my small English blue and white teapot, two delicate, antique, hand-painted bone-china teacups and saucers, the silver cream-and-sugar set, and a silver tray.

'I do declare, Mum, I can't see my face in the silver. It's in dire need of a good polishing.'
'I'll get right on it, Master Andrew,' I said with a wink.

Andrew set the table with two sandwich plates trimmed with flowers and gold paint that he found behind the silver. Then, in the drawer, he searched for two perfect napkins, settling on dark green linen, with a large, hand-embroidered yellow maple leaf on each corner.

'Here, the tray is ready. Gleaming, don't you think?' I proclaimed proudly. He smiled as a glint of his true English heritage shone through his eyes, and his face was mirrored in the silver.

As we waited for the water to heat and I carefully arranged sandwiches on the shining silver tray, Andrew dashed off to his room where he scoured his childhood collection of 160 hats, hanging on all four walls, for a proper hat to wear to what was most certainly going to be a very proper low tea.

My handsome son emerged wearing a plaid tam my godparents had given him after a trip they took to Scotland and England. Andrew had also slipped into an old man's floppy green herringbone sport coat I'd picked up at Goodwill to wear in my workroom on cold days. I stood back and looked at my son. The hat and jacket had transformed his tall, trim body into a gentleman as striking as an English lord.

'Mum, don't you suppose you need a proper hat and skirt for the occasion?' He winked at me and shooed me off to my bedroom to change.

I headed for my own five-piece hat collection and emerged with a simple beige wide-brimmed straw hat with a single feather protruding off to the side. To my cranberry-colored sweater I attached an antique round pin with multi-colored stones that had belonged to Andrew's great-grandmother. A long black matronly skirt pulled on over my pants completed my outfit.

We were the perfect lord and lady. The teakettle whistled. As I poured the water into the proper teapot and added loose English Breakfast tea encased in a large chrome tea ball, Andrew tuned the radio to an FM station playing classical music. He offered me his arm as we entered the living room and made ourselves comfortable on the sofa.

By now, my character in our English play had evolved into a sort of beloved great-aunt who lived in a castle high on an English countryside and was absolutely delighted that her young nephew had dropped in for an unexpected visit. Suddenly, I wanted to know everything about this young man as I watched him carefully pour tea into the hardly-ever-used delicate teacups.

'So, tell me, Sir Andrew, what are your plans? Where are you going in this great adventure of life?'

Andrew leaned back on the throw pillows behind us as he sipped his tea and stroked his chin. 'Well, it's a long road, you know. I still have four years of high school after this year, then college. Sometimes I wonder how I'll ever afford to attend college.'

I reminded him that financial aid would be available just as it had been for his older sisters and brother. We talked about how he might get into one of his dream schools if he kept up his grades.

We slid into conversation about girls. Andrew looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows into the barren treetops and said slowly, 'The girls. I think they all think I'm a geek.'

'Oh, surely not! Why, Andrew, my good man, you're handsome, smart, funny. I bet the girls love you. You just don't know it yet.'

Andrew sipped the steaming tea. Then he turned and said, 'I don't fight much, so they probably say I'm a wimp.'

My eyes rested on Andrew's size-thirteen feet, which proclaimed that his six-foot growth spurt was not over. I reassured him that not fighting was much more manly, something the high-school girls would certainly appreciate.

As time passed, we talked about music, sports, weather, God, and the school mixer coming up the next week. We watched a squirrel on the deck outside the windows eating corn off a cob. I felt myself opening up to the sensitive young man before me. I told Andrew how scared I was the year before, when I quit my regular job to start a business in my home. I told him I was lonely sometimes. He nodded, poured a tiny bit of skim milk into his tea, and picked up another tea sandwich. I took a deep breath and continued, 'Someday, I'd love to meet a wonderful, interesting man with a great sense of humor and deep faith.' I looked into the eyes of my son, pretending to be my nephew in drafty old England, and said, 'I'd like to get married again someday, Andrew. I don't want to grow old alone.'

The cold morning turned warm and wonderful as we each took turns talking and listening intently to what the other had to say. We both revealed parts of ourselves that had been neglected. Every so often, Andrew poured more tea for each of us. As he picked up the tiny sugar tongs, he'd ask, 'One lump or two, Mum?' Then he'd politely offer the plate of tiny sandwiches.

On that cold winter day, when I was forty-eight and Andrew fourteen, we were transported into a world we both knew would only exist for that one morning. We would never again have a tea party like this one. Andrew would immerse himself in school, the basketball team, the junior-high band, his friends, the school play, the telephone, and video games at his best friend's house.

But it didn't matter because on that coldest day of the year, during those precious three hours as we stumbled through a mumbo jumbo of British phrases and inadequate but charming accents, my youngest child and I ate, drank, talked, shared, laughed, and warmed our souls to the very core. Andrew and I not only created a cherished memory, but we wrote and directed a play at the same instant we performed it. There was no audience, just Andrew and me, and cups of very good tea.

Patricia Lorenz

 

My Best Cup of Tea

A woman is like a tea bag:
you never know how strong she is
until she gets in hot water.
Nancy Reagan,
 paraphrasing Eleanor Roosevelt

I worked for three years in the Republic of Botswana in southern Africa. Coming from the lush green forests and many lakes of northern Wisconsin, this land that was mostly Kalagadi Desert, with its vast expanse of tan sand, tan prickly thorn bushes, and gigantic tan termite hills, was at first sight startling in its sameness—except for the cloudless sky, which was brilliant blue. It was a period of drought. But it did not take me long before I saw and was enchanted by the beauty of the Kalagadi and its people.

The capital city, Gaborone, had a reservoir for water, making it like an oasis in the desert with its glorious scarlet jacaranda trees.

Botswana had been a protectorate of England until 1966 when the country gained independence peacefully. The Engli...

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Customer Reviews

Charming coffee table book, perfect for holiday present
This book is the perfect present for the holiday season (or any other special occasion). For those not knowing what to give as a gift, this little tome will definitely please male and female friends and relatives with its inspirational true stories of the tea drinking experience and how tea has brought people together in fellowship and family. First off, this book looks a bit different from the usual Chicken Soup tome - the cover is about an inch smaller in size and the inside pages are printed on a soft white paper (instead of the usual bright white) which makes reading easy on the eyes. The cover is shaded with a color reminiscent of brewed tea. It's a pleasure to hold this book in my hands. And it's an even greater pleasure to relax with this book for an uplifting spell of reading enjoyment. I always feel better after leafing through a Chicken Soup book, and this one in particular. I thrive on "feel good" stories. I appreciate the life lessons that the authors provide, and I get a kick out of seeing how they incorporate those lessons with the joy of tea drinking. Pass the cheese tray, friends, and relax with a cuppa - and this book.

Inspirational
I purchased this book along with "365 Things Every Tea Lover Should Know." Not only did I purchase the items for myself, I also ordered a copy for my new tea drinking buddy. She was in complete shock when she received the items. I'm happy to know she loves this book as much as I do. The stories are very heart-warming, funny, inspirational and sad.

I highly recommend this book either for yourself or for someone who loves tea. You will not be disappointed.

Perfect to pair with tea for present.
I love the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books. I bought this one as a present to go along with a selection of teas. The present couldn't have been more of a hit with a bonifide tea drinker.