An Afternoon Tea Party

28th February, 2007

I was invited to one of my adult students houses for afternoon tea. It was a very different experience to what I am used to. I was picked up at 1pm and taken to her house. It was a beautiful house by the way. I walked inside to a beautifully presented table setting waiting for us. Of course I had to take pictures!

One of the other students in my class had been practising ‘Tea Ceremonies’ so she came dressed in a kimono with all her tea gear so that she could perform a tea ceremony for us. It was so cool because the ladies house actually had a room built in where you can perform these ‘Tea Ceremonies’. I ate one of the Japanese sweets and then drank my tea. I actually quite enjoyed this sweet. I am usually not a big fan of the Japanese bean sweets but this one went down quite nicely.

I wanted to take them something that they had never tried before. Vegemite was the only thing that I could think of that was new and Australian – so I made them some vegemite sandwiches to try. I also took some camembert cheese, ritz biscuits, strawberries and chocolate almonds. They had never tried the cheese before either so that was an experience for them too. They actually really enjoyed the vegemite which I was surprised at. One of them even asked me if she could buy vegemite paste in Japan! We had coffee and green tea, and cake with cream and rice crackers…….there was so much food to choose from. One of the ladies bought some origami paper so we all made a paper crane, then she gave me a little box with the rest of the origami paper and put all the paper cranes that we made inside. I will be making a mobile out of the paper cranes. I ended up staying for 4 hours. I was able to meet Shinako’s children as they came home from school while I was still there. They were very nice and were keen to ask me questions after they got over being shy. It was a very relaxing and beautiful afternoon. These people just go to so much effort for you it’s amazing!