Intimate Afternoon Tea Party

One of the girls in my local community, and now a wonderful friend, Tessa hosted a small meetup in her friend's apartment in San Francisco. Her friend Mouse(?) and she had previously had private afternoon teas for just the two of them, and Tessa had the idea to host one for our comm. There were five of us Lolitas at the beautifully-set table, with Mouse and another friend serving us the homemade tea service.

I really loved the small gathering, with only a handful of guests it is much easier to get to know one another. I don't like attending big meetups for one reason: it is really easy to get left out and feel overwhelmed by jumping between conversations and acquaintances. I never had a chance to talk in depth with these girls, and I enjoyed the opportunity to. Tessa said she was thinking of hosting more like these in the future, and I will try to attend every one!

I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos, I had to email them to myself from my phone since I forgot my camera. And of course, the quality greatly degraded through the magic waves of the internet!

Our teas for the afternoon were Earl Grey, Passion Fruit, Rose, and a butter Oolong.

First course was a wonderful cauliflower soup with ground pepper and locally baked fresh bread.

Second course was fresh berries from the farmers' market and homemade whipped cream.

Main course included crumpets, lemon & ginger scones, pumkpin scones, and three different sandwiches that all had cheese (and therefore inedible to me, haha).

For dessert we had rosemary shortbread cookies and a mysterious mouse-shaped cookie. I was too full to try it, but I do regret not tasting such a cute treat!

Tessa was such a sweetie, she even had prepared some cute goodie bags for us to take home!