Most afternoons at home, now that I’m retired, I like to have tea about four o’clock and set up a pretty tray to take into the living room. One of the parts of the ritual I enjoy most is choosing a seasonal grouping of china.
Here I’m using a favorite pink and yellow rose Limoges plate with a graceful Bavaria tea cup, which has one of the most beautifully designed shapes of all my cups so that it feels really well balanced in the hand. 
The small plate on the left is part of a trio that was given to me years ago by one of the Art Education faculty, Christy Park; she told me she got it at Virginia Kropas’s yard sale (one of our alums), and it had been Virginia’s mother’s. I met Virginia’s mother a long time ago and liked her very much, so I treasure the connection. The little pink tea pot I found just last June at the Wenham Tea House. It’s just the right size when I’m having tea alone.
On this occasion I had dried fruit scones, which I had made the previous Sunday morning for our special Sunday breakfast. They have dried apricots, cherries, pears, and golden raisins in them and melted butter and sugar on top! I like them in the fall with peach or apricot jam. Margaret’s Hope Darjeeling or Temi Estate goes beautifully with the scones.
I take my tea tray to my chaise longue in the front windows and sip tea and nibble a scone, my legs tucked up in cotton blankets and a stack of reading material beside me on the table. Tea time is always one of the best hours of the day.
Deborah's House of Many Colors 