Jane Austen Tea Party

For roughly one year (give or take) I, and several friends of mine, conspired to throw a Jane Austen Tea together. Three weddings and one baby later, two of us managed to pull it off. (One of us having married and then moved away! Sniff.) Excepting the moment during preparation when we realized that we had told our guests to arrive thirty minutes earlier than the time we were operating by in our minds, it all seemed to be a great success. Yet another literary tea party to check off the Themed Tea Party Bucket List.

There is not much to say in the way of a description of the event, but I do have pictures to share. Mostly our goal was to achieve some degree of elegance inside my log home. Here are a few things we came up with:

• You'll (maybe) remember my review of Tea With Jane Austen. This informed me that one of the most popular teas to have drunk in Jane's day was green tea, so naturally we served that. That tea was quite a popular choice, followed by Republic of Tea's Lemon Chiffon Cuppa Cake Tea. I'm quite sure Jane didn't experience the wonders of cake tea in her day and more's the pity. (ha) My current favorite was also served - Republic of Tea's Caramel Vanilla black tea. It is so incredibly delicious.
• The menu was comprised of Roasted Red Pepper & Tomato Soup, pumpkin and blueberry scones, ham & pesto cheese puffs and roast beef w/ blue cheese wraps.
• My friend created a Jane Austen literary quote quiz wherein we tested to see how familiar our guests were with Jane Austen's works. (Some of them are way more knowledgeable than me, by the way!)
• The Sense & Sensibility movie soundtrack played in the background. (This is really a very pretty and soothing soundtrack which allows for conversation to be had over it.)
• My friend is rather a wonder with paper crafts and she made a huge assortment of bookmarks for our guests to choose as a party favor.

Here are some of the pictures of the event.


I also learned how to carve out a lemon and make lemon bowls. Yes, it is hard at first but I got faster as I went along. The bowls contained a nutty quinoa salad with garlic sauce.

The dessert we left to professionals. We picked up a Spice Cake from a local bakery (Market of Choice) and also served Trader Joe's Dark Chocolate Pumpkin Spice Salted Caramels. Oh yes. If you live locally and go into our Trader Joe's attempting to find said Salted Caramels you might be disappointed. If they are sold out, check in with me. I might have, um, stocked up.


We had a great time planning this tea and pulling it off. Yes, it did, in fact, spur us on with ideas for future teas (and other parties) because the party bucket list is long.

I love doing/hosting things like this!

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Other tea related posts:

• Anne of Green Gables Tea
• Tea & Etiquette / Downtown Abbey Tea