From the intricate details of setting up the perfect tea table to negotiating social dynamics over a cup of hot chocolate, we're taking you on a fascinating journey back in time with Etiquette for Teas and Other Afternoon Parties.
In this snoozy reading, we'll unravel the fine line between a reception and a tea, how to elegantly deck out a ballroom, and the peril of overstuffing a party. Get ready to crack the code on creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere and understanding the unspoken rules of the tea table. So snuggle up and steep yourself in the elegance of these timeless traditions.
The music in this episode is Where'er You Walk by George Frideric Handel.
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From the intricate details of setting up the perfect tea table to negotiating social dynamics over a cup of hot chocolate, we're taking you on a fascinating journey back in time with Etiquette for Teas and Other Afternoon Parties.
In this snoozy reading, we'll unravel the fine line between a reception and a tea, how to elegantly deck out a ballroom, and the peril of overstuffing a party. Get ready to crack the code on creating a warm and welcoming atmosphere and understanding the unspoken rules of the tea table. So snuggle up and steep yourself in the elegance of these timeless traditions.
The music in this episode is Where'er You Walk by George Frideric Handel.
HelloFresh Use code 50dreamful for 50% off your first box plus 15% off the next two months!
AirDoctor Use code DREAMFUL at checkout for up to 39% or $300 off!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
Welcome to Dreamful Podcast, Bedtime Stories for Slumber. I would like to start this episode by thanking our newest supporters Carrie Spivey, lucy Walker-C ox, dylan Shelby and a very special shout out to Elizabeth, who I missed last month. I'm so sorry about that. Thank you all so much and I hope you all have the sweetest of dreams. If you'd like to support the show and gain access to over 80 subscribe-only episodes while receiving a shout out, visit DreamfulStories. com and, on the support page, find a link to become a Buzzsprout supporter or subscribe via Supercast.
Jordan:
If you listen on Spotify, the past month has been one of the busiest I can remember. My girls both started school and have after-school activities. I traveled to Denver for a podcast movement and then I went to Orlando for work. I honestly feel like there isn't one more thing I want to have on my plate. That's why I'm so thankful to have my sponsor, hellofresh. I order the meals I want for their menu of 40 recipes and 100 add-on items, and the fresh pre-portion ingredients and recipes are delivered right to my doorstep. That means I don't have to do any meal planning or shopping, and the meal kits take 15 to 30 minutes to make. It saves hours of my time and I way less stress because of it. Plus, I get to try new recipes out all the time and let me tell you they're all scrumptious. So to try America's number one meal kit, go to HelloFreshcom. Slash 50Dreamful and use code 50Dreamful. That's 50Dreamful for 50% off, plus 50% off the next two months. Again, that's HelloFreshcom. Slash 50Dreamful and use code 50Dreamful for 50% off, plus 15% off the next two months. I've also put a link in the show notes and I can't wait for you to try it.
Jordan:
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Jordan:
I stumbled upon a 1922 book of etiquette which is a fun glimpse into the manners of high society in the early 20th century. For this episode, I will be reading the chapter on etiquette for teas and other afternoon parties. So snuggle up your blankets and have sweet dreams. Except at a wedding. The function strictly understood by the word reception went out of fashion in New York at least during the reign of Queen Victoria and its survivors of public or semi-public affair presided over by a committee and is a serious rather than a merely social event. The very word reception brings to mind an aggregation of personages very formal, very dressed up, very pompous and very learned, among whom the ordinary model cannot do other than wander helplessly in the labyrinth of a specialist jargon. Art critics on a Vonishing Day reception are sure to dwell on the effect of a new technique in the comment of most of us to whom a painting ought to look like a picture is fatal. Equally fatal to meet an explorer and not know where or what he explored, or to meet a celebrated author and not have the least idea whether he wrote detective stories or expounded Taoism. On the other hand, it is certainly discouraging, after studying up on the latest creed and excavations in order to talk intelligently to Professor Diggs, to be pigeonholed for the afternoon beside Mrs New Mother, whose interest in discovery is limited to a new tooth in baby's head. Yet the difference between a reception and a tea is one of atmosphere only, like the difference in Vonishing Twin Houses, one is enveloped in the heavy gloom of the mid-Victorian period, the other is light and alluring in the fashion of today.
Jordan:
A tea, even though it be formal, is nevertheless friendly and inviting. One does not go in church clothes, nor with ceremonious manner, but in an informal and everyday spirit to see one's friends and be seen by them. The afternoon tea with dancing is usually given to bring out a daughter or to present a new daughter-in-law. The invitations are the same whether 100 or 2000 are sent out. As invitations to formal teas of this sort are sent to the hostess's general visiting list, and very big houses are comparatively few.
Jordan:
A ballroom is nearly always engaged at a hotel. Many hotels have a big and a small ballroom, and unless one's acquaintance is enormous, the smaller room is preferable. Too much space for too few people gives an effect of emptiness, which always is suggestive of failure. Also, one must not forget that an undecorated room needs more people to make it look trimmed, rather than one in which the floral decoration is lavish. On the other hand, the crush is very disagreeable, even though it always gives the effect of success. The arrangements are not as elaborate as for a ball, at most a screen of poems behind which the musicians sit unless they sit in a gallery, perhaps a few festoons of green here and there and the debutante's own flowers linked on tables where she stands, to receive form as much decoration as is ever attempted. Whether in a public ballroom or a private drawing room, the curtains over the windows are drawn and the lights lighted, as if for a ball in the evening.
Jordan:
If the tea is at a private house, there is no awning unless it rains, but there is a chauffeur or coachman at the curb to open motor doors and a butler or caterer's men to open the door of the house before anyone has time to ring Hostesses they arrive are announced either by the hostess's own butler or caterer's announcer. The hostess receives everyone as at a ball If she and her daughter are for the moment standing alone. The new arrival if a friend stands talking with them until a new arrival, takes his or her place After receiving, with her mother or mother-in-law for an hour or so. As soon as the crowd thins a little, the debutante or bride may be allowed to dance. The younger people, as soon as they have shaken hands with the hostess, dance. The older ones sit about or talk to friends or take tea.
Jordan:
At a formal tea, the tea table is exactly like that at a wedding reception, in that it is a large table set as a buffet and is always in charge of the caterer's men, where the hostess's own butler waitress and assistants. It is never presided over by deputy hostesses. The menu is limited. Only tea, bouillon, chocolate, bread and cakes are served. There can be all sorts of sandwiches, hot biscuits, crumpets, muffins, sliced cake and little cakes in every variety that a cook or caterer can devise. Whatever can come under the head of bread and cake is admissible, but nothing else or it becomes a reception and not a tea At the end of the table or on a separate table nearby, there are bowls or pitchers of orangeade or lemonade or punch for the dancers. Exactly as at a ball, guests go to the table and help themselves to their own selection of bread and cakes. The chocolate, already poured into cups and with whipped cream on top, is passed on a tray by servant. Tea, also poured into cups, not mixed but accompanied by a small pitcher of cream, bowl of sugar and dish of lemon, is also passed on a tray. A guest, taking her plate of food in one hand and her tea or chocolate in the other, finds herself a chair somewhere, if possible near a table, so that she can take her tea without discomfort.
Jordan:
Afternoon teas without dancing are given in honor of visiting celebrities or new neighbors or engaged couples, or to warm a new house or, most often, for a house guest from another city. The invitation is a visiting card of the hostess with to meet Mrs So-and-So across the top of it and January 10th tea at four o'clock in the lower corner opposite the address. At a tea of this description, tea and chocolate may be passed on trays or poured by two ladies, as will be explained below, unless the person for whom the tea is given is such a celebrity that the tea becomes a reception. The hostess does not stand at the door but merely near it so that anyone coming in may easily find her. The ordinary afternoon tea, given for one reason or another, is, in winter, merely and literally being at home on a specified afternoon, with the blinds and curtains drawn, the room lighted as at night, a fire burning and a large tea table spread in the dining room or a small one near the hearth. An afternoon tea in the summer is the same, except that artificial light is never used and the tea is most often on a veranda.
Jordan:
Do come in for a cup of tea is Best Society's favorite form of invitation. It is used on nearly every occasion. Whether there is to be music or distinguished visitor, or whether a hostess has merely an inclination to see her friends, she writes on her personal visiting card Do come in Friday for a cup of tea and hear Elvin play or Phyrs sing, or to meet Senator West or Lady X. We've been more informally. I have not seen you for so long. Invitations to a tea of this description are never general.
Jordan:
A hostess asks either a nun or close friends or at most her dining list, sometimes a sort of a tea is so small that she sits behind her own tea table, exactly as she does every afternoon. But if the tea is of any size, from 20 upwards, the table is set in the dining room and two intimate friends of the hostess pour tea at one end and chocolate at the other. The ladies so poor are always especially invited beforehand and always wear afternoon dresses, with hats of course, as distinguished from the straight clothes of the guests. As soon as a hostess decides to give a tea, she selects two friends for this duty who are, in her opinion, decorative in appearance and also who this is very important can be counted on for gracious manners to everyone and under all circumstances.
Jordan:
It does not matter if a guest going into the dining room for a cup of tea or chocolate does not know the deputy hostess's who are pouring. It is perfectly correct for a stranger to say May I have a cup of tea? The one pouring should answer very responsively, certainly how do you like it, strong or weak? If the latter, she deluges it with hot water and again, watching for the guest's negative or proofal as cream or lemon or sugar, or referring chocolate, the guest perhaps goes to the other end of the table and asks for a cup of chocolate, the table hostess at that end also says certainly and pours out chocolate. If she is surrounded with people, she smiles as she hands it out and that is all. But if she is unoccupied and her momentary guest, by courtesy, is alone, it is mere good manners on her part to make a few pleasant remarks. Very likely, when asked for chocolate, she says how nice of you. I have been feeling very neglected at my end.
Jordan:
Everyone seems to prefer tea, whereupon the guest ventures that people are afraid of chocolate because it is so fattening or so hot. After an observation or two about the weather or the beauty of the china, or how good the little cakes look or the sandwiches taste, the guest finishes her chocolate. If the table hostess is still unoccupied, the guest smiles and slightly nons goodbye. But if the other's attention has been called upon by someone else, she who has finished her chocolate leaves unnoticed. If another lady coming into the dining room is an acquaintance of one of the table hostesses, the new visitor draws up a chair, if there is room, and drinks her tea or chocolate at the table. But as soon as she is finished she should give her place up to a new arrival, where perhaps a friend appears and the two take their tea together over to another part of the room where the vacant place is farther down the table. The tea table is not set with places, but at a table where ladies are pouring, and especially at a tea that is informal, a number of chairs are usually ready to be drawn up for those who like to take their tea at the table.
Jordan:
In many cities, strangers who find themselves together in the house of a friend in common always talk. In New York, smart people always do at dinners or luncheons, but never at a general entertainment. The cordiality to a stranger would depend largely upon the informal or intimate quality of the tea party. It would depend on who the stranger might be and who the New Yorker. Mrs Whirly would never dream of speaking to anyone, no matter whom, if it could be avoided. Mrs Kindheart, on the other hand, talks to everyone, everywhere and always. Mrs Kindheart's position is as good as Mrs Whirly's every bit, but perhaps she can be more relaxed. Not being the conspicuous hostess that Mrs Whirly is, she is not so besieged by position makers and invitation seekers. Perhaps Mrs Whirly, finding that nearly everyone who approaches her wants something, always comes instinctively to avoid each new approach.
Jordan:
The everyday afternoon tea table is familiar to everyone. There is not the slightest difference in its service, whether in the tiny bandbox house of the newest bride or in the drawing room of Mrs Whirly of Great Estates. Except that in the little house a tray is brought in by a woman often a picture, an appearance, an appointment instead of Butler with one or two footmen in his wake. In either case, a table is placed in front of the hostess. A tea table is usually of the drop leaf variety because it is more easily moved than a solid one. There are really no correct dimensions. Any small table is suitable. It ought not to be so high that the hostess seems smudged behind it, nor so small as to be overhung by the tea tray and easily knocked over. It is usually between 24 and 26 inches wide and from 27 to 36 inches long, or it may be oval or oblong. A double deck table that has its second deck above the main table is not good, because the tea tray perched on the upper deck is neither graceful nor convenient. Some proper serving not only of tea but of cold drinks of all sorts. Even where a quantity of bottles, pitchers and glasses need space.
Jordan:
Everything should be brought on a tray and not trundled in on a tea wagon. A cloth must always be first placed on the table before putting down the tray. The tea cloth may be a yard, a yard and a half or two yards square. It may barely cover the table, or it may hang half a yard over each edge. A yard and a quarter is the average size. A tea cloth can be colored, but the conventional one is a white linen with little or much white needlework or lace or both.
Jordan:
On this is put a tray big enough to hold everything except the plates of food. The tray may be a massive silver one, but it requires a footman with strong arms to lift it, or it may be of Sheffield or merely of effectively lacquered tin. In any case, on it should be a kettle which ought to be already boiling, with a spirit lamp, under it an empty teapot, a caddy of tea, a tea strainer, a slot bowl, cream pitcher and sugar bowl, and on a glass dish, lemon and slices, a pile of cups and saucers and a stack of little tea plates, all to match with a napkin about 12 inches square, hemstitched or edged to match the tea cloth, folded on each of the plates, like the filling of a layer cake, complete the paraphernalia. Each plate is lifted off with its own napkin. Then on the tea table, back of the tray or on the shelves of a separate curate, a stand made of three small shelves, each just big enough for one good size plate, are always two, usually three, varieties of cake and hot breads, as tea is a one meal of intimate conversation. A servant never comes to a room at tea time unless wrung for to bring fresh water or additional china or food or to take away used dishes On the tray and curate are brought in individual tables, usually glass topped and very small and low, are put beside each of the guests and the servant then withdraws.
Jordan:
The hostess herself makes the tea and pours it. Those who sit near enough to her put out their hands for their cup and saucer. If any ladies are sitting farther off and a gentleman is present, he of course rises and takes the tea from the hostess to the guest. He also then passes the curate afterward, putting it back where it belongs and resuming his seat. If no gentleman is present, a lady gets up and takes her own tea, which the hostess hands her, carries it to her own little individual table comes back, takes a play to napkin, helps herself to what she likes and goes to her place. If the cake is very soft and sticky or filled with cream, small forks must be laid on the tea table. If jam is to be eaten on toast or bread, there must be little butter knives to spread it with. Each guest, in taking her plate, helps herself to toast and jam and a knife and carries her plate over to her own little table. She then carries her cup of tea to her table and sits down comfortably to drink it. If there are no little tables, she either draws her chair up to the tea table or manages as best she can to balance plate, cup and saucer on her lap. A very difficult feat, in fact. The hostess who, providing no individual tables, expects her guests to balance knife, fork, jam, cream, cake plate and cup and saucer all on her knees, should choose her friends in the circus rather than in society.
Jordan:
The garden party is merely an afternoon tea out of doors. It may be as elaborate as a sit-down wedding breakfast or as simple as a miniature strawberry festival At an elaborate one in the rainy section of our country, a tent or marquee with size that can easily be drawn up in fine weather and dropped in rain and with a good dancing floor, is often put up on the lawn or next to the veranda so that in case of storm people will not be obliged to go out of doors. The orchestra is placed within or near open size of the tent so that can be heard on the lawn and veranda as well as where they are dancing. Or instead of a tea with dancing, if most of the guests are to be older, there may be a concert or other form of professional entertainment. On the lawn there are usually several huge, bright-colored umbrella tents and under each a table and a group of chairs and here and there numerous small tables and chairs. 4. Although the afternoon tea is always put in the dining room, footmen or maids carry varieties of food out on large trays through the lawn and the guests hold plates on their knees as they stand. Glasses on tables nearby, they have teas and musicals and all entertainments where the hostess herself is obliged to stand the door. Her husband or daughter or her very close friend should look after the guests to see that any horse strangers are not helplessly wandering about alone and that the elderly ladies are given seats if there is to be a performance or to show any other courtesies that devolve upon a hostess.
Jordan:
The atmosphere of hospitality is something very intangible and yet nothing is more actually felt or missed. There are certain houses that seem to radiate warmth like an open wood fire. There are others that suggest an arrival by wireless at North Pole, even though a much brighter actual fire may be burning on the hearth in the drawing room, or the second, than the first. Some people have the gift of hospitality. Others, whose intentions are just as kind and whose houses are perfection and luxury of appointments, seem to petrify every approach. Such people appearing at a picnic color, the entire scene with the blue light of the austerity.
Jordan:
Such people are usually not masters but slaves of etiquette. Their chief concern is whether this is correct or whether that is properly done. Or is this person or that such a one that they care to know? Introspective people who are fearful of others, fearful of themselves or never successfully popular hosts or hostesses? If you, for instance, are one of these, if you are really afraid of knowing someone who might someday prove unpleasant, if you are such a snob that you can't take people at their face value, then why make the effort to bother with people at all. Why not shut your front door tight and pull down the blinds and, sitting before a mirror in your own drawing room, order a tea for two.
Jordan:
Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. Order a tea for two. ["pomp and Circumstance"], ["pomp and Circumstance"], ["pomp and Circumstance"]. ["pomp and Circumstance"]. ["pomp and Circumstance"]. ["pomp and Circumstance"]. ["pomp and Circumstance"]. ["pomp and Circumstance"].
