Once a month, tea drinkers and snack lovers from all over the world virtually gather in New Zealand to share tea and friendship (with goodies throw in for good measure) at a virtual tea party hosted by Su.
Today I’m offering High Grown Kenyan from Williamson Tea in Kenya. It’s a lovely, full-bodied black which means it does have caffeine. But if you don’t want caffeine, there’s an easy way to remove almost all of it. Brew the leaves for only 30 seconds, throw out the tea, then re-steep the tea with boiling water. It’s easy and you’ll have no worries about how the decaffeinating was done, either. I’m happy to brew some that way for you.
To go with it, I’ve made blueberry crisp, probably my family’s most-requested dessert. I like to make it in this cobalt blue dish because I love the color and there’s the added benefit of not showing any possible blueberry stains. You can gild the lily with a scoop of vanilla ice cream if you like. So take a seat, relax, and enjoy Thursday.
This, that and the other thing 
Jolly good fun!
It’s lots of fun, JT. The only thing better would be if we could all actually get together. 🙂
Everything looks so tasty – tea parties so so much fun!
That they are, Meg. With Covid, virtual ones are the only sort I’ve been to for quite some time.
janet
How nice! I’ll bet that crumble is delightful! 🌞
It’s really good, Lisa, and quite easy to make, my favorite combination when it come to food. 🙂
janet
I hear you! 🌞
The blueberry crisp looks delicious, would fit perfect a good cup of coffee. 😀 😀 😀 Just joking, we serve tea for those of our guests who want it. 🙂
You would be welcome to have coffee, Drake, if I could come up with some. I have some cold brew that I buy to use when making mochas, the coffee drink I really like, especially if made with dark chocolate and not much sugar. 🙂 In France I’ll often have a cafe creme or a cappuccino. But I’m basically a tea drinker.
🙂 This looks most delicious! Enjoy!
Take care
Claudia xo 🙂
Thanks, Claudia. ❤️
I’ll take a piece of that delicious crisp please — no ice cream thanks. And a definite yes to your tea — with caffiene. I do like a strong brew.
Your tea setting is beautiful Janet. Even if I wasn’t a tea drinker, I’d love to drink from those lovely cups.
The tea set, part of an entire set of dishes, is Devonshire from Johnson Bros. in England. It was given to me by my great aunt who, with her husband, traveled all over the world. I always loved it because salad plates were square and even though the set wasn’t complete anymore, I loved it and she gave it to me.
How lovely. I think I enjoy using things that have stories and meaning so much more. And whereas once I kept them “for best” now I figure every day is a blessing and I may as well use them.
In our other house, I didn’t have room to keep everything where I could easily use it, but here I can and it makes all the difference. Of course since we’re not really entertaining now, I can only use some, but they’ll be there when we start having family over again and hopefully make some new friends.
[…] at This, that and the other thing has baked a beautiful blueberry crisp to go with her High Grown Kenyan tea. Brewed in a beautiful […]
The blueberry crisp looks delicious. I like the idea of a virtual tea party.
The blueberry crisp is so good, Dan. A virtual tea party is great, especially these days.
Mmmmm – and caffeine version for me!
You got it. ☕️
🙂 and thanks to your post (yet again helped me) I remembered the tea party in time to join my self- not time for snacks or food – just tea and flowers – but hey – I made it to the fun monthly event (and did want to connect with Su – I like her so much)
Flowers are always good. 🙂
🙂
looks fun and delicious! 🙂
Thanks, Lola. 🙂
What a nice idea. Good tip about decaffeinating the tea.
Oh yum. Thanks for the tea and blueberry crisp. We picked about 76 gallons of blueberries from our bushes in the yard this year. We have blueberry everything! Did give half of the blueberries to family and friends.
Oh, how I wish I were close enough to have helped out with that glut!! 🙂 When we lived in Ohio and the girls were young, we used to go to a farm to pick. That was fun and we had scads of blueberries.
It is a lot of work over 5 to 6 weeks to pick our blueberries in the heat. . We usually have a couple from church help us. But because of Covid we did it all ourselves this year. Tiring for a 77 year old and an 83 year old. Good thing we stay active – keeps you young. Ha
I can well imagine how tiring that is! It keeps you young if it doesn’t kill you, right? 🙂
Ha Ha Yes, it does keep you young if it doesn’t kill you. The secret to be able to go at our age is to never stop. So we work hard on this three acre yard.
Good for you both!
What a lovely idea.
It’s lots of fun and calorie-free, except for eating whatever we fix. 🙂
janet
I never realised that doing a quick soak & throw, followed by a proper steeping was to take out some of the effects of the caffeine! We do this with Chinese tea but I thought (apparently mistakenly, it was to ” clean” the tea leaves). Now I know.
Your Blueberry Crisp looks wonderful! and in that stunning cobalt dish as well – pretty enough to serve in!
I do love that color. I have several baking dishes like that and love to use them.
I did a tea tasting in San Francisco’s China town a number of years ago and the young man preparing the tea did this. At that time, I had no idea why and possibly there’s another reason the Chinese do that. Who knows? But it works well for decaffeinating tea as well.
Your blueberry crisp looks amazing…. prize worthy!
Prize-worthy or not, it tastes amazing and lasted us for several dessert courses over several days. 🙂
Yum! 😀
Nice!
Thanks. It’s fun and calorie-free. 🙂
janet