Tea set presents

A tea set is a gift for life. To serve tea to your friends in a china tea set is a wonderful way of making them feel that you care. It might sound a little strange but think about it, if you take great care in making loose leaf tea in a pretty teapot and serve it in attractive china cups how much nicer it is than grabbing a mug from the kitchen cupboard and throwing a teabag in it and topping it up with boiling water and presenting it to your friend.

Friendship

Celebrate your friendship, lay a serving tray with a lacy cloth or even a clean tea cloth and put out the requisite number of china cups, saucers and side plates, tea spoons and cake forks a few pretty serviettes, some milk or cream in a little creamer, a few delicious oatmeal cookies on a china plate and maybe a home-baked cake. Heat the teapot with a little boiling water, add the tea and pour the boiling water over it. Leave it to brew for three minutes and serve.

Colors and patterns

Tea sets come in a multitude of colors, designs, materials and patterns. Some antique china tea sets can be brought in second hand stores or good will stores for a few dollars others are rarer and can cost a small fortune in an antique store or auction house. You can be lucky and find a really great tea set that may be rare but has remained unnoticed by the dealers they are still around so keep your eyes open. There are many English tea sets from the twenties and thirties in the Art Deco style in bright colors by such ceramic artists as Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper these are hand painted collectables and sell for large sums of money

China tea sets

Bone china tea sets are very thin and vulnerable to chips and cracks from everyday use. They need to be kept for best use only and to be treated with care. The best way is to only wash and dry them by hand never in the dish washer as the crockery gets knocked together by the force of the water and can chip them easily. If your tea set has gold lustre on the finish (as many do) then it is even more important to wash them by hand as inevitably the gold lustre will fade and the tea set will lose its looks and value.

Porcelain china

Porcelain is another very fine material and good porcelain can almost be seen through when held up to the light. It is important to heed the previous instructions concerning washing the tea set. These fine materials are wonderful to drink from they are thin and delicate and make a welcome change from the ordinary stoneware mugs that most people drink from nowadays, they also keep the tea really hot.

Stoneware

Stoneware tea sets are also very useful and can be utilized for every-day use as they are usually tough enough to withstand the rigours of dishwashing and rough handling. There are many contemporary designers who produce colorful, well made items that are on sale for a reasonably long period of time so that you can replace items that get broken relatively easily. Many chain stores sell attractive tea sets or even single items which means you can choose how many pieces you require , some people may only need four settings others will need eight or twelve. This is a great way of having presentable china at reasonable prices.

Gifts

Tea sets make great presents and many people give them for weddings and engagement showers. Make sure you know what you want or even more importantly make sure that whoever is buying it knows what you want. If you can afford to buy from a contemporary designer who hand-makes their pieces you will be getting a piece of art work that at sometime in the future may well be worth money. Do not keep your tea set in a box, enjoy it and use it for what it was intended, to have a lovely cup of tea with friends.