Breakfasts and teas

Amid flowers and softly shaded lights sits the gracious woman who pours the liquid gold into the fragile cups, dispensing meanwhile, smiles and the bright charming small talk that is so necessary to the success of these occasions. A wise hostess selects for this important position the most brilliant, tactful woman within her circle of friends. The menu, although by no means regulated on the English houseparty plan, should consist of trifles — sandwiches, wafers, fancy cakes, ices, and possibly a salad. Foreigners understand the value of the simple feast which makes frequent entertaining possible and a delight rather than a burden. In America the menu, decorations, etc., grow more and more elaborate from 46 Breakfasts and Teas the ambition of each successive hostess to out-do her neighbor, until the economy and beauty of simplicity is irretrievably lost in the greater expense, fatigue and crush of a more pretentious function. At the afternoon tea guests may come and go in street toilet, with or without a carriage in accordance with preference and pocketbook. However elegant the appointments and surroundings of this special function, the progresive hostess must remember that her culture will be judged by the quality of the beverage she serves. It is an age of luxury and refined taste in palate, as in other things, and tea is no longer tea, unless of a high grade and properly brewed. The woman who trusts her domestic affairs to a housekeeper, or in the event of attending to them herself, depends wholly for the excellence of an article upon the price she pays, is a very mistaken one. Without informing herself she may very naturally conclude that Russian or Caravan tea is cultivated, buds and blossoms in the land of the Czar, until later on, when her ignorance meets a downfall in some very embarrassing way. The high-class, fancy teas of China are prepared by special manipulation and for the use of wealthy families in the Celestial Empire and are therefore never exported to other countries. Russian tea-merchants, recognizing this, send shrewd buyers across the desert into China just at the season to secure the choicest pickings for future consumption by the nobility of their own country. Of late years the "Five Breakfasts and Teas 47 O'Clocks" and consequent craze for fine teas in America has tempted them to obtain a small quantity above the requirements of their titled patrons in Russia and this they export to the United States. If genuine, the name Russia or Caravan tea signifies the choicest and most expensive grade procurable the world over. It will be remembered that among the many gifts bestowed when in this country by its recent guest, Li Hung Chang, were beautifully ornamented boxes and packages of this delicately flavored and fragrant tea. The high class grades from India and Ceylon, although not as costly as the Russian, may be used by the hostess of the modern "Five O'Clock" without risk to her reputation as a woman of culture. She will consent, however, "That tea boiled, Is tea spoiled," and avail herself of the pretty and convenient silverball, or the closely covered pot or cups in which these rare teas should never brew over three minutes. For the famous tea service of China and Japan, tiny covered cups are always presented.