Cute Kid Pix May 2021

More pictures that didn't make their own post...

My youngest's Cub Scout pack had a "trash the trash" day at a local river walk. We had fun picking up junk, which happily wasn't very much.

Ready for action

I found another geocache near the library, An Easy P&G for Laurel. "P&G" stands for "Park and Grab." The cache hider placed it with the help of grandchildren. The spot was a bit obvious for experienced cachers. It was still fun.

It's in there somewhere

In celebration of May the Fourth (be with you), I bought some Mandalorian tea. The Child Green Tea is not actually made from the Child, even though he is green.

They were on sale!

My wife and I got our second shot of Covid vaccine in Easton, Maryland, which is a bit of a drive from home. We had lunch across the street from the courthouse. The lawn has a bunch of statues and memorials.

The courthouse

Talbot Boys statue

Frederick Douglass

20th century war memorials

Vietnam Memorial

I caught two of the kids reading together, though of course they deny it now.

PvZ graphic novel goodness!

Virtual Montpelier Festival of Herbs, Tea, and the Arts 2021

Having visited Montpelier Mansion a few times before (see here, here, and here), we were on their mailing list and decided to sign up for the festival celebrating tea, herbs, and art. This is the 25th anniversary celebration. Thanks to Covid, the celebration was virtual, which made it a little easier for us to participate. We didn't have to drag the kids there!

Stolen from their Facebook page

For a modest fee, we got a sampler of teas and some high tea snacks. The official name for the package was the "Deluxe Afternoon Tea Box." I drove to the mansion the day before to pick up the yummy supplies.

We bought two sets, one for each parent

Montpelier has its own blend of Darjeeling tea that has a nice, lightly smoky flavor. We drank that while we enjoyed our scones with clotted cream that Saturday morning.

We did use a nice plate when we ate it, good thing I took a picture earlier!

We had the other sandwiches and treats (including a lemon bar and a carrot cake muffin!) as lunch before we watched any of the videos from the festival.

Again, we were too busy eating to take a picture on an actual plate

After watching the tea tasting video, I realized that the other tea samples were supposed to pair with the individual sandwiches. Whoops!

The tea collection

The other teas in the package were...

• Orange Spice Black Tea--this was spicier than I was expecting (though not chai spicy) and definitely perked me up. The blend is fairly common but still delightful.
• Forever Fruit Herbal Tea Blend--I'm afraid herbal tea is not my specialty. This has the typical generic berry flavor that I've experience the one or two other times I've tried something similar. This was not my favorite but, I'll be honest, it probably never had a chance to begin with.
• White Peony White Tea--The tea actually brews green, though maybe that's because of this specific blend. It has a smooth, woody flavor that's fairly subtle.

The online festival included other videos. Most of them are dance performances by Silk Road Dance Company. As you might guess from the name, the dances are traditional ones from Middle Eastern countries, with colorful costumes and fascinating music. My favorite of the set is DAF SOLO, which includes the playing of an Iranian drum (which is called a "daf") that can make a lot of different sounds.

 

There's also an educational lecture and recital by a soprano and a presentation about using herbs and self-care to manage anxiety.

The videos for the festival are conveniently on a YouTube playlist if you want to see the rest.

This was a lot of fun but hopefully next year's festival will be in person!

Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum

One of the best experiences we had while in Boston was visiting the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum. Naturally, the museum is at the water though the original location has subsequently been filled in. We were maybe two blocks away from the actual historical site of the Tea Party.

Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum

One of the ships

Out front is the statue of one of the organizers of the Tea Party, Samuel Adams. Adams belonged to the group who called themselves The Sons of Liberty and were advocating for colonial rights and against British taxes. My children loved posing with his statue.

Another Son of Liberty

They had daughters of liberty too, didn't they?

We arrived a little early and so walked through the gift shop to Abigail's Tea Shop, where they serve a variety of refreshments.

Paul Revere in the gift shop

Abigail's Tea Room

Toddler by tea samples (after eating a snack)

Since it was 9:30 a.m., we decided to have a little snack before our 10 a.m. experience started. In addition to cookies, I ordered the "bottomless" tea cup that let customers sample the different types of tea that were thrown overboard back in 1773.

A tea dispenser

Samples of Singlo and Hyfon

Bohea tea

Congou and Souchong

I had only tried Souchong tea before, a smoky black tea that I really like. The others were okay, though the Congou caught my tongue with its flavor and my imagination with one of its alternate spellings--Kung Fu tea!

Cuppa and cookie

The shop also has vintage board games on the tables to entertain guests.

Shut the Box and Draughts

Time came for us to start our experience. Our first stop was a facsimile of the Old South Meeting House, where, on December 16, 1773, Samuel Adams held a meeting with the people of Boston to discuss the situation. Three ships (the Dartmouth, the Eleanor, and the Beaver) had arrived with tea that would be taxed by the British government as soon as it had been offloaded. And the cargo needed to be offloaded in twenty days. The deadline for the first ship was December 17. The Sons of Liberty had arranged a guard to keep the tea on the ship and so far were successful. One last appeal was made to the British governor to allow the ships to return to England with the tea still on board. Governor Hutchinson refused. The meeting continued into the evening but several men left, put on very basic disguises, and headed to the wharf. Interestingly, Adams along with other leaders in the Sons of Liberty stayed behind in the meeting house with the crowd so they would have an air-tight alibi for what would happen next.

We were given roles and feathers. The feathers were not for writing but to be used as a disguise--as if Native Americans were dumping the tea. Historically, the disguises were meant to protect peoples identities, not to put the blame on the natives.

My son with an invisible black feather

My daughter's stylish white feather

My feather--pointing out the speaker in the ceiling?

My role in the event

After a thorough explanation and a rousing speech from Sam Adams (or an actor portraying him, I should say), we headed out to the ships to commit either an act of treason or of patriotism. On board the ship, another fellow told us about what happened that night.

On board a recreation of one of the ships

After a brief discussion of the plan and a quick oath not to reveal what we did, we had the chance to throw some tea crates overboard.

My daughter pushes one off

My son throws one

We did a quick tour of the ship's interior, seeing where the cargo was stored. The tea was in large boxes of varying sizes. The cargo also had other items.

A patriot ready to take out the tea

Barrels of goods

The front of the ship has the captain's desk. The captain was sympathetic to the colonists' cause and agreed to let the men throw the tea overboard as long as no one was injured and no other cargo was harmed. Some of the sailors even helped out, though they may have been keeping the colonists from getting to excited just as much as they were participating in the act.

Captain's desk

Ship's galley

Back on deck, we had a chance to explore a bit before moving on. Our guide, a lady who had a brother among the tea raiders, gave us some pointers.

On deck with our guide

Trying to steer

The call to leave the ship

The actual event took about three hours. The tea had to be pulled up from the hold before it could be tossed over. As a demonstration, our guide showed the benefits of having multiple pulleys for raising the crates out of the hold (the old block-and-tackle routine). My son was picked out of the crowd to demonstrate the ease of using an extra pulley.

Two set-ups

Trying the first (more difficult) crate

She's impressed with his second effort

She also gave us a description of other item on board, including lemons, china from which to serve the tea (stored in those barrels), and coal.

Display of goods

Our tour then went indoors and we saw some impressive displays (including talking paintings) about the aftermath of the Tea Party and the Battle of Concord and Lexington. They also have on display a surviving tea chest that a boy found washed up on the shore. Pictures weren't allowed in the museum, so you'll have to go see for yourself.

The experience was about an hour and a half long, so we decided to have lunch at Abigail's Tea Room. I had the New England Clam Chowder and a half sandwich, which was yummy.

Lunch

The whole thing was very impressive and well executed. Even though the cost is a bit pricey, it was well worth it.

The other identities

Our feathers, which are marked for the occasion

Tea Time with Taylor's

I recently discovered some old posts that were more or less finished drafts but never got posted. I celebration of Thanksgiving, this week will have some European leftovers. First up, a taste of England. Look forward to more European-inspired but neglected posts for the rest of the week!

I went to a presentation on tea presented by Victoria, a nice lady from Taylors of Harrogate, purveyor of tea and coffee, including the famous Yorkshire Tea. She presented some history and trivia about tea as well as providing several different brews to sample.

She said that Taylors produces around 40 types of teas, from black to red to green. She asked us what we thought the average tea consumption was for England. The answer was 60.2 billion cups a year. Then she asked about US consumption. The US consumes only 65 billion cups a year, which is surprising since the UK population is around 60 million and the US population 310 million.

Tea was first invented in China 5000 years ago. The emperor Feng Shun had been banished. In exile, he would only drink boiling water. One day a leaf fell into the water before it was served to him. It changed the flavor and eased his heart, hence it was called "Tai" which is Chinese for peace. Gunpowder tea is a closest to this original form. The tea is unfermented with a slightly sharp flavor. The tea gets its name from the shape of the leaves. When they are dried out they "ball up" into little nuggets that look like gunpowder.

The next advance in tea making also happened in China. As tea became popular, there was pressure to provide the dried leaves of the tree faster and faster. One fellow found that the leaves would not dry overnight, or sometimes would be damp with dew. To combat this, he set a fire in his tea drying room. He used bamboo and the smoke from the fire gave a distinctive flavor to the tea. Thus Lapsang Souchang came to be, a smoky black tea that is a personal favorite of mine.

In 1603 the Dutch received the first tea. They brought it back to Europe. The French never cottoned on to tea, but the British began to adopt it. Charles II's neice caused it to become quite popular when she started drinking tea with her breakfast rather than beer. You may blame or praise Queen Anne decision depending on your taste.

Earl Grey tea is named after the second earl, who was prime minister under William IV. The most reliable story goes that he was gifted by a Chinese ambassador with a tea infused with bergamot oil to offset the lime in the water of his country estate. Lady Grey would offer the blend in London and it wasn't long before a demand grew. The tea is often used in cooking to flavor rice or cakes.

Often teas have been blended with other oils or flowers to produce healing properties in the drinks. So occasionally flavors are associated with teas that don't come from the tea leaves. One example is Moroccan Mint, which adds mint extract to gunpowder tea leaves to create a distinctive flavor. 

Tea bushes grow in fifty countries. The bushes could grow to a height of forty to fifty feet but most growers keep them around four or five feet to make harvesting easier. Higher altitudes make better growing conditions (that emperor was exiled to the Himalayas, perhaps). India is a prime grower now. Darjeeling is the most expensive Indian tea. The robust flavor and the high price have made it the champagne of teas. More common is Assam which originated in a region 300 miles north of Calcutta.

As for Yorkshire tea, it is a blend of east African and Indian teas (and I thought they were grown in Yorkshire--whoops!). Charles Taylor started a business in 1866, importing teas. He had some kiosks in Leeds where they sold tea and coffee. He also opened the first Betty's Tea Room in Harrogate, which has subsequently turned into a chain of tea shops in Yorkshire.

At the end of her presentation, Victoria had a bag of different items that were related to tea. Here's some of the items:

• Dust pan--because the finest tea is often little larger than dust particles. Having bought much loose-leaf tea in my life, I can attest to this.
• Drum--teas are blended in large drums, though they only turn the drum twelve times at Taylors.
• Trowel--used tea bags are good for gardens.
• Silk--the first tea bags were made with silk!
• Whiskey--often in the Victorian and pre-Victorian eras, if you ordered whiskey or beer, you really meant tea.
• Face cream--green tea extracts are often used in cosmetics like face cream.
• Sea shell--fancy tea spoons are often scallop-shaped, probably from sailors using shells to scoop out tea.

Victorian Dreams Living History Camp 2015

L had a half-day camp in August called "Victorian Dreams Living History Camp." It was held in Ellicott City Colored School Restored, built in 1880 as the first public school for black children in Howard County. It was restored in 2003 and has some historical exhibits (we may visit it again on a weekend tour).

Ellicott City Colored School Restored

L loved the camp though she wasn't forthcoming about what she did at camp. I had to piece together events from what little she told me, the items she brought home, and the presentation on the last day of camp.

The one highlight she mentioned every day was having tea. They served a variety of herbal teas in proper china (I saw it on the last day but didn't get to take a picture). L's favorites were red vanilla and chamomile. She was especially happy that she got to put a packet of sugar in her cup! Rest assured, herbal teas have been added to the home shopping list.

They also learned about fans. In addition to making fans, they received a nice wooden fan and a sheet describing the various things a women could communicate with her fan. For example, if a woman held a fan in her left hand, she desires acquaintance; if in her right hand across her face, she's saying, "Follow me." Twirling her fan is a bad sign: if in the left hand, she wants to get rid of her conversant; if in the right hand, she loves another.

L's take home fan

A fan she made

They learned about Victorian Parlour Games (another hand out that came home), including Charades and Pass the Slipper. A favorite thing to learn was the Virginia Reel, which the students demonstrated on the last day for their parents.



They wore pinafores and learned about various typical dresses form the Victorian era--the House Dress for everyday living, the Walking/Visiting/Afternoon Dress for casual social interactions, and the Dinner Dress for evenings and more formal occasions.

The girls in pinafores

On the last day, they also received a certificate of completion which made L very proud.

The final presentation

Her certificate

If they offer this program next year, I am sure L will want to go.