"TeaParties" news and stories

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.

For years, I've been itching to throw or go to a murder mystery party, or one of those dinner mystery theater events. They've been around forever, even back in the days when the directions would be played on one of those foldable records. But have you heard of a mystery tea party? While searching for something else entirely unrelated, I came across Maxine's Mystery Tea Parties.

Basically, instead of some evening party with cocktails, you solve your mystery over some tasty tea. You can buy the scenarios, which include story and script, nametags, tips, and more, in a downloadable or snail mail format, and they include mysteries like "Who Killed the Darling Duke of Darjeeling?," "The Decadent Housewives of Hysteria Lane," and "The Bodacious Babes of Buzzard Bend."

Have any of you ever bought or participated in one of these? Or made your own mystery tea party? I don't know why I never thought of it, but now I'm wondering if I should scheme up one of my own.

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