TRENTON — For those with a palette for tea and a curiosity of Colonial traditions, this afternoon's tea tasting at the city's Trent House gave guests a taste of 18th-century America as the aroma of freshly brewed green, oolong and black teas filled the basement's tearoom.

As part of the city’s 10th annual Patriots Week celebrations, participants sampled various types of tea and bit into homemade desserts while historian Susan McLellan Plaisted, owner of Heart to Hearth Cookery, explained tea etiquette and the meaning of “taking tea” in Colonial times.

“Servants would just refill your dish with more tea if you did not have your spoon placed across the top of your dish. You did not talk to the servants; you did not say please or thank you,” Plaisted said. “The etiquette of tea was for the mistress to continue to prepare tea and for you to have tea continue to be served until that spoon came up and over.”

Plaisted said there is an account of a Frenchman coming to Colonial America who did not know the proper etiquette, and he felt as though he was drowning in tea. Also, since tea was so expensive, it was deemed improper to leave a drop of tea behind, she said.

Participants settled at four-seater tables set with linens and custom-made pink china, and before long, the entire tearoom was filled with guests eager to learn about the history of tea and its uses centuries ago.

As their teacups were filled by “servants,” or the museum’s curators and other volunteers, attendees sampled gingerbread, “jumbles” made of caraway and rose flower water and “Portugal cakes” made of sugar and nutmeg, Plaisted said.

Tea service was part of an 18th-century woman’s education and defined her in society, she said.

“The point of the whole tea ritual was so that she could show off every single piece of silver on her tea tray,” she said. “When the mistress of the house was getting ready to serve her tea, she would serve it with her formal equipage.”

Tea pots were also very small centuries ago because the mistress wanted to “control exactly that you got the tea at its prime,” Plaisted said.

“There were no straining holes,” she said. “You didn’t want them to have tea that was too strong.”

Green and black tea bricks, or sheets of tea dustings arranged into artistic designs, were made in China centuries ago and are produced today, she said. They were used as currency, though there is no documentation of them being used in the United States, Plaisted said.

“They were predominately used for trade from China into eastern European areas. It’s not part of the tea history of this country,” she said. “In early Chinese history, tea was actually chewed and eaten, and this was something you could carry that you could get some nourishment from. It was money that you were carrying.”

America was not the only country suffering from tea taxes either. Tea was taxed in a number of different countries and situations, she said.

“There has been writing about the fact that ‘I am not selling you tea; I am selling you artwork.’ So, no tea tax,” Plaisted said, referring to the artistic tea bricks.

Nives Herman of Trenton said Plaisted’s presentation was “very informative” and that she learned more about tea today than she had in her lifetime.

“It’s a good way to learn about the Trent House, too. A lot of people just drive by it when it’s in our backyard,” Herman said of the building named for the founder of Trenton. “These are the kinds of events that get people to discover Trenton and look at it in a different way.”

Stella Durango of Lawrence agreed, saying a lot of people are unaware of how history-rich Trenton is. Her favorite was the green tea because of its “lighter taste,” she said.

“The other ones were more robust, more earthy,” she said. “I really like teas so it was a good opportunity, and also my daughter has an interest in Colonial times, so it combines both our interests. It was a great thing to do, especially on a rainy day.”

Patriots Week continues tomorrow with a panel sponsored by the Princeton Battlefield Society at 1 p.m. at the Masonic Temple in which historians will discuss the challenges of preserving historic structures on battlefields.

On Jan. 1 at Princeton Battlefield State Park on Mercer Road, a real-time tour of the Battle of Princeton begins at 7:30 a.m. Historians will discuss how the troops lined up, initiated their attacks and won the battle.

For more information about Patriots Week events, visit www.patriotsweek.com.



Contact Nicole Mulvaney at nmulvaney@njtimes.com.

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