Tea time at the Hempsted House
Tea time will resume at the Hempsted House in New London for a limited time this weekend. Proceeds from the short series of afternoon teas will benefit local charities.
Tea has made a big comeback in the U. S. during the last decade at cafes and markets that sell every type of exotic and herbal tea and tea drink imaginable.
Traditional teahouses that serve afternoon tea are harder to find these days, but here in New London, Carolyn Johnson, who previously owned the city’s popular Carolyn & Co. Tea Room, will revive the tradition this weekend. Johnson will serve an afternoon tea with all the fixings as a fundraiser for the preservation of the historic landmark Hempsted Houses and New London Main Street.
The Hempsted stone house where the fundraiser will take place was one of several teahouses in New London in the 1920s and ’ 30s. It was run by Irene Douglas Young and her daughter Rachel Leavitt Young, and was one of the few places where women could socialize alone outside of the home at the turn of the century.
Historians believe that the support and friendships that drove social movements of the era, including women’s rights, most likely developed in tearooms.
The stone house — known then as the Huguenot House — had a lending library and an “Americanized” menu that included, in addition to iced and hot tea and chocolate, chicken, waffles and ice cream.
Johnson explains that she will be serving a traditional English-style afternoon tea that includes three courses, each served with a different type of tea: green, oolong and black. She will give a brief talk about the history of tea in general and the three types of tea she will serve.
Johnson will make and bake all the edibles, starting out with scones with clotted cream, followed by a sandwich course that will include traditional cucumber sandwiches, as well as egg salad, smoked salmon and vegetarian sandwiches. The tea will conclude with a variety of pastries.
“Everything will be very small and very pretty,” she says.
Johnson points out that people often mistakenly refer to afternoon tea as high tea.
“High Tea actually means the servants ate it, the working class, or ( people) coming home hungry from working the field,” she says, noting that it was a more substantial, heartier meal.
Afternoon tea with fancy china cups and little sandwiches dates
back to the 1840s, she says.
“It became a thing for upper- class women to have in the afternoon to take them through to dinner,” Johnson says. “It was more of an English tradition— something we sort of stole. Afternoon tea was never a big American thing. We drink tea more with meals, not necessarily at 4 p.m.”
Taking tea outside the home to public places became very popular starting in the early 1900s, with tearooms run by women and patronized mostly by women, Johnson says. They could be located anywhere from a small house to a large department store or hotel and were nicely decorated, offering a “cozy” atmosphere — a quality for which her tea house was known.
As much as Johnson enjoyed the tearoom tradition that she revitalized on Ocean Avenue in 1992 and then moved to State Street before closing in 2001, she admits that “It was hard to make a living at it.”
The benefits of taking time for tea that will be experienced by people who come to the fundraiser, Johnson says, is that “it’s a chance to take time for yourself and your friends to sit and be with each other, to talk and relax.
“Tea is about nostalgia for another time prior to smartphones,” she says. “It’s about slowing down and doing something you’re not going to do every day, although you could make it part of your day.
“Afternoon tea doesn’t have to be that time consuming to prep,” she adds, “but (the food) should be pretty and tiny.”
Johnson urges people to come to the fundraiser, although the event is selling out fast because, as she says, “it’s a great chance for people to enjoy the afternoon tea tradition, while supporting an important historic site in New London.”