Tea Caravan

I’ve been daydreaming about starting a Tea Wagon, in a lovely portable shepherd's caravan like this.  Afternoon tea, scones, jams, tea sandwiches, savory tarts, spindly bright-colored café tables with full-blown roses in vases, or peonies, and napkins in the colors of Provence...  A portable bookshelf as well, from which customers can borrow light or philosophical reading, and sit lingering as long as they like.

The café tables—two or three inside, a couple on the porch (if a different caravan) with a big pot of rose geraniums, and three or four in the shade alongside it—will have matching slatted chairs.  Plates of Majolica (melamine) will match the Provence fabrics, or coyly contrast.

The teas will be made in little individual pots, and will include:

Spring Cherry Green

Apple Green

Ginger Tangerine Sencha

Snow Leopard White

Lavender White

Blueberry White

Vanilla Coconut White

Melon Oolong

Earl Gray

Cardamom Black

Monk’s Blend

Orange Marzipan Rooibos

Wild Cherry & Chili Rooibos

Peppermint

Sage

Yanabah Navajo

Peppermint Chocolate

One or two will be iced, each day, depending on the season or occasion, and served with lemon or fresh mint.

And with them will be offered three or four things like

tangelo buttermilk scones

savory cheese and scallion scones

buttermilk biscuits

chard and prosciutto tart

old fashioned blackberry crisp

egg salad tea sandwiches with herbes de Provence

sauteed mushroom butter and bacon tea sandwiches

cinnamon toast

jams and preserves

herb butter

Greek pine, fir, and thyme honeys

cheeses

fresh figs and Mallorcan almonds

prosciutto and seasonal melon

I will park outside libraries, or under a redwood in some back-woodsy residential area; in places where there’s little hope of joy or romance, like in the parking lot of the new building in Redwood City, or of an assisted-living home.  Wherever there’s a need for a spot of color.

image:  Shepherd’s Wagon, A Gathering for Kindred Souls Looking to Live Off the Grid