Tea

Local ladies turned out for tea last Friday at the Crescenta-Cañada Family YMCA’s annual Autumn Tea. Women enjoyed sipping tea and nibbling on scones, tea sandwiches and sweets while learning about each other. YMCA members and the community were welcome at this anticipated event. After lunch, Pat Lane pulled out her guitar and performed “old time favorites.” A raffle ended the affair with a dash of excitement and fun. The Autumn Tea was made possible by Nancy Turney, the director of senior services at the Crescenta-Cañada Family YMCA, and a committee dedicated to making the tea a lovely event.

Tea, and the traditional Japanese tea ceremony, will be featured during a special class at Descanso Gardens. The class will meet from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23. Rieko McMillan will discuss and demonstrate the Japanese tea ceremony during this introduction to the Way of Tea--an Art of Living. Participants will have the opportunity to sample the tea and sweets that are part of Chaji tradition. The intimate class will be limited to 15 students. Chaji, a full tea gathering in the Urasenke chado tradition, incorporates rules to capture the spirit of the season, the occasion, the time and place.

Tea for two? How about six? That was my strategy as I set off to experience the Sweet Chari-Tea Tea Room in Burbank. I brought with me a panel of five high-tea veterans ? my wife and four of our female friends. To my surprise, not one arrived wearing a fabulous hat. Sweet Chari-Tea occupies two rooms of a converted storefront next to an auto-repair shop. Not an ideal location, but owner Mary Brodsky has done a nice job of making the space warm and welcoming. Peach walls, delicate decorations, framed art and a faux fireplace, above which hangs a picture of her mother, Thelma.

Ladies donned hats and tweed skirt suits. Girls wearing skirts and brightly-colored twin sets greeted them with smiles at the door of a not-quite-opened tea room for Saturday's Project Angel charity tea fund-raiser. "We're really passionate about this, and very dedicated," said Gohar Kotcharian, a Crescenta Valley High School junior who is co-president of Project Angel and a member of the family that owns The T Room at 2405 Honolulu Ave. in Montrose. "We're just grateful to be a part of this cause," said Marianna Kotcharian, who helps manage The T Room.

Claudia Peschiutta NORTHWEST GLENDALE -- The bowls and tea pots at the Japanese Teahouse in Brand Park for years sat cold and untouched in a storage room. But they will soon be warmed again by the heat of green tea and the hands of its drinkers. Preparations for the house's first tea ceremony in more than a decade got underway Tuesday when volunteers replaced the tatami mats on the floor and made other repairs. The tea ceremony kit at the house had long gone unused when Pam Cook, the city's recreation and community services coordinator, got a call from an expert in the practice.

It a was a “mad” day on April 25 when the History Department of the La Crescenta Woman’s Club held a “Mad Hatter’s Tea,” with proceeds going to fund the club’s 100th anniversary celebration in 2011. The clubhouse was decorated in the Mad Hatter motif, featuring several interesting teapots on each tea table. The tables were outfitted in vintage tablecloths and included displays of collectible hats, hat boxes and hat stands with giant playing cards that were printed with faces of club members.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- The La Canada Flintridge OrthopedicGuild will hold its annual Membership Tea from 1 to 3 p.m. Feb. 21 at the home of Carlotta De Francisco, 349 S. Grand Ave. in Pasadena. Guests will be informed about the guild's 45 years of service to the Orthopedic Hospital of Los Angeles. The hospital will be represented by Mary Beth McKee, director of development in the Foundation Office. McKee will share the hospital's history and its commitment to caring for children regardless of their families' ability to pay. Guild meetings are held on the first Thursday of the month and all are welcome to come and observe.

Josh Kleinbaum With whimsical banter and the lyrics to match, the Wood's Tea Company opened the 2003-04 season for the Glendale Community Concert Assn. at Glendale High School on Sunday. "It's fantastic," said Jennifer Horine, who brought her two teenage daughters to the concert. "We had no clue what kind of music it would be. It's so upbeat, and they play so many instruments." The four-man group from Vermont played a variety of music, including bluegrass, Celtic music, folk music and a Vermont sea shanty (never mind the fact that there is no sea in Vermont)

Clara’s Holiday Tea Party drew 120 people Sunday to Descanso Gardens for an afternoon meal and an up-close introduction to professional ballet dancers. Media City Ballet hosted the event to give parents and children a preview of characters that will perform in “The Nutcracker” ballet on Dec. 6 and 7 at the Alex Theatre, artistic director Natasha Middleton said. “A lot of times kids will come to the show and they’ll see, but they won’t really understand,” said Middleton, explaining that she first held the event five years ago and found that increased familiarity with the dancers and the roles they played created more excitement about the ballet.

Marshall Allen LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE -- Modernist architecture pioneer Whitney Smith has died, but his sense of style and structure will live on in the Japanese Tea House at Descanso Gardens. Smith, 91, died March 13 of natural causes at his home in Bend, Ore. He designed the Descanso Tea House in the 1960s, when he operated the Pasadena architecture firm Smith and Williams. The firm produced many award-winning national and Southern California projects, including private residences, schools and community buildings.