Indulge Your Valentines with Book-and-Tea Pairings

 

In this season where we can't all be together, what better gifts to show your love than a book and a cup of tea? The combination spells c-o-m-f-o-r-t to me, and, while I don't want to discourage you from also purchasing some quality dark chocolate, let's be honest--we've probably all been eating more chocolate than is good for us lately. Those COVID pounds don't gain themselves.

For some months now, my oldest daughter has been working at the Queen Mary Tea Emporium in Seattle, which is a dangerous place for me to spend time because I invariably come home with new flavors to try. The girls and I already had a yearly tradition where we would go for high tea, and, in fact, it was the last "normal" outing we had before everything shut down last year.

Seriously, we need to make this happen again

Because the tea room itself is so cozy (besides being darling and delicious), it has been closed this whole time. Opening at 25% capacity wouldn't allow enough customers to make business sense, but they hope to re-open as restrictions loosen. In order to do this, the Queen Mary Tea Room needs our help! You can donate to their GoFundMe account, or you could also just buy yourself and your loved ones some of the most tasty tea you will ever encounter. They ship all over the country! To help you help yourself, I've suggested some tea pairings with some of my latest favorite reads below!

For the Valentine who could use a mental getaway...

This is the first book in the delightful trilogy that inspired The Durrells in Corfu. Take my book snob warning, though--once you've read the books, you can never go back. Apart from the great scenery and the characters' names in the TV show, the show has little to do with the books, and the books are in every way superior. Both lyrical and laugh-out-loud funny. Having transplanted themselves from England, with its dreary (Seattle-like) weather, the Durrells escape to paradise. But no matter what adventures they are having with the Corfu natives or with Corfu fauna, they and the other British expats never fail to stop in the afternoon for tea.

In honor of little Gerry's obsession with the island animals and insects, I would pair this book with Queen Mary's Golden Monkey tea, the first Queen Mary Tea I ever tasted and still one of my very favorites, for its lovely caramel-y notes.

For the Valentine who loves London and a good mystery...

And by this I mean the whole series of mysteries not-so-secretly written by J. K. Rowling. They're great fun, and you can follow Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin Ellacott all through the neighborhoods of London on Google Maps, if you like, because Rowling grounds them in a contemporary London as real as that of Sherlock Holmes in the 1880s. These are also fun if you like a little romantic tension in your books, because the two detectives have it in spades. Like the Durrells in Corfu, Strike and Robin are always heating up the kettle for a cup of tea, and Robin knows that Strike prefers his "like creosote"-- dark, dark, dark, with no cream or sugar.

While I suspect Strike brews his tea beyond the 3.5 minutes recommended by Queen Mary (maybe because he has inferior tea), I think he would enjoy a favorite wake-me-up tea of mine, Queen Mary's Irish Breakfast.

For the Valentine who loves Napoleonic-era adventure on the high seas...

Forget Master and Commander and the other Patrick O'Brien, wannabe Forester books. Horatio Hornblower is where it's at. If you want to read the books in chronological order, according to Hornblower's age in them, start with this one, where our favorite seaman is but 17.

"Hellish cold" said Preston. "The devil of a morning to turn out. Nelson, where's that tea?"

The mess attendant came with it as Hornblower was hauling on his trousers. It maddened Hornblower that he shivered enough in the cold for the cup to clatter in the saucer as he took it. But the tea was grateful, and Hornblower drank it eagerly.

 "Give me another cup" he said, and was proud of himself that he could think about tea at that moment.

I'm guessing the British Navy couldn't afford to furnish its men with the good stuff, but perhaps by the end of Hornblower's career he could sip a cup of Earl Grey in retirement (it was named for an 1830s Prime Minister). Let's hope it was as good as Queen Mary's Earl Grey or (my daughter's favorite) Queen Mary's Creamy Earl Grey.

And, finally, for a Valentine who just wants a love story...

If you've read any of my Regency romances, set in Somerset in 1808 (not technically the Regency, but you know what I mean...), you know the Hapgood sisters and their neighbors frequently enjoy a good cup of tea, whether they are welcoming a new eligible gentleman or simply talking over the latest goings-on.

I know without a doubt that my characters would love a pot of Queen Mary's Queen's Royal Afternoon tea because I certainly drank enough of it when creating them!

So here's wishing you and yours many more years to love, and wishing the Queen Mary many more years to reign!