Dream Deco Teacup

Ok, my teacup Embargo hasn't been going well. I had said "I just need one Paragon teacup" but now I've also got a 2nd one. But hear me out!...

Wedgwood Deco Bloom

When I first started collecting teacups I was just looking to pick up the cup and saucer from each design. Since then however I've been trying to pick up trios instead with the matching side plate as well as the saucer. Some times it's easy, sometimes not so much, either because a pattern is discontinued, or because it never had a matching plate to begin with. This was the road block for me when I was looking to add a super art deco cup to the fold.

See, I fell in love with the "Deco Bloom" cup from the Wedgwood Harlequin collection. Since the line launched they've
adding extra pieces like side places to the collection for some designs like my spiffy polka dot set, but sadly Deco Bloom wasn't one of them. I wrestled with the fact it was my perfect dream cup, but that it would never be a full place setting. Then something amazing happened! An identical cup showed up on Ebay, complete with side plate! Uncanny right? The crazy thing was the auction cup wasn't Wedgwood.

My Paragon Pink Hydrangea Trio

Wedgwood's Harlequin collection is based on old designs from their design archives brought back to life, but this old auction trio was by Paragon.

The Paragon china company ultimately became part of modern day Royal Doulton, It's old pattern books presumed lost. I wonder if some of those books or later ones found their way to the good people at Wedgwood?

No matter how it happened it was a dream come true when this vintage trio made it way into my hands!

I dug around looking for more info on the pattern,  just stamped with a number on mine the design sometimes pops up as "Pink Hydrangea". I've seen a few pieces show up on auction sites as part of big lots. The cup and plate shape was used with a few other designs from Paragon for any other deco china fans. My little set is also marked as being a replica of a service made for the queen, though I couldn't find any information on the pattern's royal provenance they way I could with my other Queen Mary set. Royal or not though it's amazingly pretty, amazingly deco and amazing that I was able to get this dream setting after all!

Tea is Always Greener

There was a time when I had more than enough teacups. Then it came to my notice that perhaps the cups and saucers also needed small matching plates to complete the setting? Now I have enough pretty trios to perfectly host a good old English afternoon tea. But what if the tea I'm hosting isn't terribly English? What if it's my latest wagashi treats and a perfectly brewed Japanese green tea with them? What then!? Well, we could go with my regular English and French bone china, or... we could start exploring another avenue of tea wear, we could try drinking from a small amount of Japanese tea wear, just a few setting for just a few guests...

And it's that kind of thinking that can get a girl into trouble. It's that kind of thinking that can lead to this, my first Japanese teacups, and a whole new world of gilded porcelain and lacquered woods.

To start off with are these two, meoto yunomi, or married couple cups. The big one for the fella, the little one for the girl. I'm guessing you're thinking what I was thinking at first too "sure give the man the lion's share!" but the size is actually an ergonomic consideration. Since the cups have no handles, how they feel in the hand is an important consideration, and since ladies on average have smaller hands than guys, the girl's cup is slightly smaller to fit more comfortably, and the boy's slightly bigger for the same reason. I have to admit, first drink I went for the big one, because "no one will tell me how much tea I can or can't drink!" but yeah in the end, the smaller one really does feel better to hold and drink from. I have to hand it to the wife cup! Different teas usually have different specific cups/bowls to go with them. Yunomi like these are taller than they are wide, and a less formal cup you can use with just about any tea.One of the reasons I liked them as a first Japanese teacup.

Another big difference between western and Japanese tea settings is that in the Japanese setting, all the pieces aren't expected to match. They are expected to compliment, but not be identical. I rather like this approach. It opens up for so much more creativity and personal taste. Not to mention greater possibilities for laying out the pieces you have to be different each time!

So obviously to start I also picked up these neat little plates for serving the sweets that accompany the tea, and to go with my lovely little cups.

I hoped the rich wood grain shining through the warm colored lacquer would play well with the tones in the teacups, and that the small gold pine needle would echo the pine motif on the cups as well. I'm not sure how good a setting they might make to someone who grew up with this type of tea wear, but to my maybe overly English eyes they work well. One of the main reasons to enjoy nice tea wear is the good feelings it brings to the flavors you've brewed. The happiness these items bring me mean in that aspect at least they work.

Still saving up for the perfect saucers to accompany the 2 cups (got my eye on these 2...)

Been doing more research, and started to pull in other pieces to the set. It's big subject, and it's always good to have more to blog about. So I'm going to go get a quick cuppa right now and write more about my latest teaventure next time!

Crafting meets Cooking

This weekend was my birthday! I got dressed up, got some books, ate some great food, and got lots and
lots of tea! (lots of tea). I love tea, I love drinking it, serving it, making pastries to go with it, and when it comes to English tea I have it pretty much down. This year however I'm looking to play out more with green teas.

They still work well with my usual tea service, but felt like it would also be fun to try bringing in some new tea traditions to the party. On the way are some first pieces toward a small Japanese tea set (and people thought I had run out of tea-wear to collect!),  and today I started taking a few baby steps into the world of wagashi, traditional Japanese sweets, often made specifically to go with green tea. Something a little different from my usual cream tea with  killer scones and home made clotted cream every now and then.

A while back we were lucky enough to try a few different kinds of wagashi from a wonderful shop in LA, and some others from Minamoto Kitchoan in Mitsuwa to get a taste for them. While I' await a big old book on the subject to drop on my doorstep, this weekend I took to the internet for some recipes and got my hands sticky trying to make a type of wagashi called nerikiri.

 The first step was to make a batch of sweet white bean paste, the second, to keep half the bean paste for fillings, the other to create the neriki, a kind of marzipan texture dough which shapes and colors like a dream. The result just like my first scones was a little spotty, but life is all about practice!

The whole process took somewhere over 3 hours, so it's not something to whip up the day you plan to serve them, but the bean paste and dough are freezable, so possible to keep on hand for faster making when the mood hits.

Typically served with matcha ( powdered green tea), the sweetness of the cakes is to play well with the bitterness of the tea, so if you go towards the top end of the sweetness scale from the online recipe, it's dialed right up to one hundred. In the future for full leaf green teas like I usually drink, I think I'll dial the sugar back a little.

The big thing with wagashi is they are supposed to be a treat for all the senses. Silky textures, good flavor, and candy for the eyes. Shaped to match the seasons, wagashi specialist's sweets look like perfect works of art! Mine, so far, maybe not so much. Had a go at hand shaping some like the pinks currently gowning in my front garden, and experimented using a petit four mold in place of the traditional wooden kashigata to see how that went (not brilliantly).

Certainly looking forward to learning and trying more when my book comes. It would be smashing to bring a bit of the surroundings to the tea plate this summer drinking tea outdoors. Next up "jelly" type wagashi. The retro hostess in me can't resist a pretty treat that wobbles!

A Paragon of Teatime Fancy

Assorted Paragon Teacups

I drink a lot of tea, tons of the stuff, decaf or I'd die amounts of it, and when I'm sitting down to a cup properly, I like to drink it in style! Starting with an ironic teacup buy back in high school (Old Country Roses from my days working in a fancy glass and china department) it's built into something a bit more opulent and a straight up obsession.

I've had to slow down acquisitions due to lack of space and fear the collection might get (ok has got) out of hand. I still have a "to get" list though for cups that fill a particular hole in my collection, and cups that are just plain "like woah!". One cup recently ticked from that list was "vintage Paragon teacup".

I love Paragon cups for a few reasons. First, there are so many unique designs, second  vintage flavor, and third and most importantly a lot of their cups were crazy over the top! Gold, gold, cool colors, flowers, more gold, and a lot of the time inside the cup designs. Which is a great opportunity for more gold more flowers and they look smashing shining up through a non milky tea, with of the band of the saucer showing around it like pool of amber awesome (Can you tell I love these things? You should probably just go and add "a vintage paragon teacup" to your list of stuff you need to have too).

So yeah, paragon cup was on my list, and yeah, I'd been hunting, but like I say limited teacup real estate remaining, and so many designs, it was hard to chose just one! Till I ran across this cheeky little thing....

It had all the design elements I wanted from my Paragon cup, bold use of gold, hand painted flowers, in cup designs, cobalt blue (another thing on my "to get" list)  and to top it off it was being sold as a trio! (I found more cool cup and saucer combos than trios, and the fact they didn't often name their patterns makes tracking down a matching side plate tricky) I was already sold on it when I read on to find this pattern is actually a re-production of a design they made for Queen Mary back in 1913. ROYAL TEACUP!  (Royal teacups are a special love of mine and covered by the "like woah!" clause)

According to the Paragon International Collectors Club the Queen Mary Pattern (# 8902) was first designed for a service presented to Queen Mary on a visit to the Paragon (then Star) factory in 1913.  The pattern was then re-issued in the late 20's to the public, with is where mine comes from (the stamp on my set date it to between 1930-1933) 
Turns out I got a pretty good deal on my little set, and that this is one of the few paragon patterns out there that came in a ton of different pieces and is relativly easy to hunt for (Paragon replica queen mary X). For me I don't need extra pieces, just the trio, but for anyone looking to collect a matching set (and who has deep pockets) it's perfectly possible with a little patience to collect a full vintage tea, or even table service fit for a queen!

You might also be used to seeing cups like these pop up on Pinterest, Tumblr etc all the time, now you know they're Paragon china (seems to be nearly always Paragon or Royal Albert in those things). If you're a vintage lover, tea lover, or just plain fan of fancy things I heartily recommend adding one to your wish list, you just have to find the cup that suits you best!

DIY Teacup

New craft tutorial added to the Quaintrelle Life website! Small project to decorate your own teacup at home!

Using a little Photoshop know how it's easy to make your own custom teacup!

This is one I made a few years back when I was writing the tutorial the first time around for the now defunct Shojo Beat magazine (RIP Shojo Beat, we all loved you)

Click here to see yourself how simple it is!

J'adore Montreal

Hi again everyone! Back from Montreal and back to blogging! The trip was a bit of a lucky one all in all, my husband had a work trip out there and it was the perfect opportunity for me to tag along and see a city I've always wanted to visit.

The area is such great blend of North America and Europe, it felt a lot like being back on my old continent.

We got to check out some great vintage shops filled with some wonderful clothes from the 20's through the 60's, and also neat nicknacks. One great little pocket was on Saint Laurent  street far off the metro that had Kitsch n Swell (40's-50's house stuffs and clothes) Rokokonut (60's-70's kitsch and clothes) and Fripperie (20's-80's clothing and accessories) all next to each other kind of like a vintage super shop!

Kitsch n Swell and Rokokonut are both run by a super vintage loving couple and were such fun shops I wish I lived close enough to visit every week! My haul from there was 2 pairs of 50's/60's cat eye glasses frames. My eyes are starting to be a little less sharp these days and after finding such cuties at such a good price I figured I'd pick em up ready for when I need to call upon them for ultra swanky visual correction!

Another great place we found was Retro-Ville, literally floor to ceiling fantastic finds! The lady that runs the place was so friendly We spent ages in there going through the shop and looking at her personal collections of fantastic vintage buttons and purses, extra bonus points for Treasure, the friendly fluffy in store cat too! Couldn't take the shop cat home but check out the neat cat cookie jar we found there! Now the new home to out everyday tea stash (no more standing on tip toes to pull down tea bags from my on the hour decaf brews)


More than just great old stuff was some great new stuff, my figure I owe in large part to a love of interesting food! We managed to get some reservations ahead of time for some of the cities best restaurants and got to enjoy all kinds of things I've never tried before (sweetcorn sundae for eg). The markets were also stellar. Got some nifty local ground cherries I'd never seen before and tea! the place was a surprisingly wonderful tea destination! Kusmi tea is probably one of my new favorite tea companies I found on the trip, it's every where and they have some really interesting blends once enjoyed by the Czars of Russia.

All in all we ate, walked alot, saw a ton of cool things and met a lot of cool people. I already have a list of things I want to do on our next trip out here, I just can't wait to go back!

( for now though, I have a head full on inspiration and a cat head full of tea, so I'm going to ride this wave and turn this great trip into a Montreal worthy collection of designs for the Fall/winter season ;p)

I got a few posts to write up so we should be back to regular blogging once again!

Quaintrelle Jello Shots (no booze)

Building on the success of the last "Jello" experiment, I finally went and made my "Quaintrelle jello shots" over the weekend. The flavor? Milk tea of course! To cement the "shot" aspect this time around I made them as individual tiny servings set up in little vintage demitasse!

So if you have a few tiny cups you've been wondering what to do with, this recipe is for you!!

Mini Set Teas (makes about 5 mini teas or 2 regular sized ones)

Ingredients:

1 cup boiling water
3 Black tea bags
3Tbs Sweetened condensed milk
1 Envelope Knox Gelatin



Method:

• Brew your 3 tea bags for approx 5 min (or to flavor) in 1 cup of boiling water (ideally in a glass measuring jug or easy pourable vessel) .
• Mix in the 3Tbs of condensed milk into the brewed tea.
• Sprinkle gelatin over 4tbs water in a small sauce pan and leave for about 5min
• Heat water in larger saucepan to make a water bath, float the smaller pan of gelatin in the water bath and heat gently till gelatin is fully dissolved. Shake occasionally but do not stir to avoid bubbles.
• Once gelatin is dissolved add to you milky tea mixture and stir gently to combine.
• Pour mixture into each demitasse
• Chill for 3 hours to set.

These make a wonderful little amuse-bouche  for a more satisfying dessert I recommend setting the Jello in a large teacup with a wide bowl and topping with a rich vanilla Ice-cream or frozen custard. These first "shots" were made with good old regular black tea, but other wonderful flavors included rooibos, earl grey and chai.

I hope you'll give it a shot at your next tea party!

Decadence or Everyday?

Lately I've been wondering how much extra time/work does living fancy really take? So far the answer seems to be not much more!

Very often on my busiest days it's hard to find a moment to just relax and enjoy something fancy. Once I get into my work the most I can usually muster is a 10min lunch break and then my head is back down in whatever project is on the books that day till the rush to the post office with orders before it closes. Today I decided to enjoy my breakfast quaintrelle style, and see how it impacted my day.

This morning the usual bowl of cereal and mug of tea (from a tea bag) and quick half watched segment of morning TV was replaced with a pastry picked up last night, pot of good quality loose leaf tea and a book (work related but I love my work!).

The tea took the same amount of time to brew, it cooled quicker in the cup so I was drinking that before I would have hit the usual mug, the pastry could (and tomorrow will) be replaced with some granola and yogurt for the same amount of time.

Over all my quaintrelle breakfast took the same amount of time, only rather than trying to race past it to get cracking on what was next, I actually really enjoyed every second of it!

Even now as I contemplate doing the same thing tomorrow a little part of my brain is saying "decadence! You can't do all this every day!" Even though I just proved to myself it took no extra time or work. It's funny how we (or at least I) are hard coded into thinking anything fancy is time consuming or more work than the regular grind. The truth is it doesn't have to be, and usually isn't, plus this morning I'm feeling pretty good about the day ahead! It's amazing what a little bit of nice china and a teapot can do.

Time for Elevenses?

So we're both back from our England trip, half way through unpacking and getting back to the business  of being back at home. It's always tough coming back, I miss my family and I miss a lot about jolly old England. Still, give me till lunch time and I'll be in the American swing of things again. (but not before then, because I'll be having elevenses!)

When I was a kid I first experienced the joy of "Elevenses" at brownie camp. It's basically a cup of tea and light snack such as a cupcake or some biscuits (British for cookies), eaten around 11am, like a morning afternoon tea! Mostly because the name is kinda funny, and because it's an excuse for cake after breakfast, we've been deeply into elevenses lately at chez Hoffpauir. After beginning to unpack from the trip it looks like we brought back quite the haul of snacks and tea perfect for the "meal"!

Fox's biscuits, Hob Nobs and a new trifle spin on the Bakewell tart (not to mention a few hard to find baking bits and bobs)! The current star for me though is finding a tea company I'd missed before, Tick Tock rooibos tea. I loved the packaging so much I brought back a big box for the house! It's definitely one of the tastiest rooibos teas I've had too, so tastes as good as it looks. I love the ad they made with various Tick Tock drinkers too (watch for the awesome 1940's lady).

To cater to the harder to find items I miss from the homeland we also picked up a couple of candy making books. Between the 2 there are recipes for some of my favorite sweeties like rose and violet creams, various toffees and rhubarb and custards. Can not wait to try some of these out! I especially love the presentation of the little Life is Sweet book. it's full of quirky personality and some of the cutest retro illustrations!

So there we have it, all our sweet stuffs are unpacked, clothes are in the wash, we're getting back to work and if you can't get hold of me around 11am, I'm probably enjoying some of the above and planning what to have with afternoon tea!

Royal Tea

I love tea and I love my teacups! I'm still deciding which Marie Antoientte teacup to add to my collection, but the other day my latest teacup arrived and I was drinking like Queen Alexandra!

The design is based on moldings depicting the arts commissioned for Buckingham palace by Edward VII in 1902. The most interesting part of the design is an unusual pearl glaze pattern which has an effect just like guilloché enamel!

I'd been trying to cut down on teacups recently, but a baby blue cup featuring crowns, the arts and pearls was too much to resist.

I picked this up from the Royal Collection shop. They have a new Buckingham Palace design every year (this is the 2009 design) and it's a great place to pick up china fit for an English queen! Right now they have a set featuring the China pattern Queen Victoria purchased at the 1851 Great Exhibition!