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Looking to start your kids on tea early?
Mlive.com has some great tips for hosting a tea and garden party for children. From the kid-friendly peanut butter or cheese filling for finger sandwiches, to the cupcake decoration station and the small kid-sized gardening projects, this sounds exactly like something I would have loved as a child.
The article mentions having caffeine-free teas for children, and I think this is an excellent idea as well. When having a party for children, it's generally not a good idea to pump the kids full of anything that's going to very suddenly make life stressful for you as the host, and caffeine-free is usually a good policy for kids in general. Fruit or mint-flavored tisanes (herbal teas) would be an obvious choice for refreshing flavors that won't be too far outside a younger child's typical flavor palette
I also think that for kids, painting their own personalized tea cups at a place like Color Me Mine (most of you probably have a similar "paint your own pottery" studio in your local area) would make a tea party a lot of extra fun. Most kids love an art project, and then they can all drink their tea while showing off their one-of-a-kind painted tea cups. Keep in mind that the pottery takes time to complete after being painted, so remember to plan two separate afternoons: one for painting and one for drinking tea out the finished artwork.
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6-25-2008 @11:39AM Julie said... How wonderful,it is so nice to see something like this as entertainment and socialization. A refreshing and much needed change from text messaging and video games.
A tea party reminds me of the good old days that were filled with imagination and wonder.
http://www.noshtalgia.blogspot.com/
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6-25-2008 @12:53PM Liz Newcomb said... I enjoy tea quite a bit now, as an adult, but hated it when I tried to drink it in high school, so it's hard to imagine enjoying actual tea for a tea party as a child. I'm fairly certain I wouldn't have enjoyed it unless it was FULL of sugar. Also, I understand that kids shouldn't drink much soda, but I drank cola and other sodas at parties when I was young and didn't have any issues, even though they were full of caffeine.
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6-25-2008 @10:21PM badfrog101 said... I loved tea as a child. If you have issues with caffeine, whole leaf tea can be "rinsed," almost all the caffein comes out in the first 30 seconds, and if you are using a good quality tea or an oolong, the leaves can be reused with differing and interesting changes in flavor two or five times.
You can't do this with teabags however, as they are filled with dust or fannings, broken bits of leaves that leak out all their flavor along with all the caffeine and all the tannins. Good quality whole leaf tea can be had from most coffee shops and elsewhere beginning at five dollars or so for a half pound, and tea goes a LOT farther than coffee. If I were having a tea party for children, I would ask my purveyor for suggestions for several mild teas, especially oolongs, and have a tasting; which the parents would also enjoy. Maybe more than the kids.
You could also send them into a stupor with camomile tea, which has mild soporific effects. Personally I'd rather have a party full of active caffeinated kids, but your party, your call.
And the English drink their tea with milk and sugar with little real harm done; although I now drink my tea straight, when I was five that's how I started out at the after service church tea.
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6-26-2008 @10:22AM Brandice Schnabel said... badfrog, it's actually a myth that you can rinse the caffeine from the leaves in that way. Perhaps I'll do a write-up with links to some of the people who've looked at the research.
Julie, I'm glad you liked the idea! :) I think it's something I would've loved as a child.
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