Friday 1 May 2020

Tea Time May Day! Lomonosov Tea Set & Czech Crystal Glass serve Sakura Pocky & Vappu Tippaleipä

Hyvää Vappua! May Day is calling for the aid of le thé de haute! The traditional picnic session at Kaivopuisto in Helsinki central has been cancelled due to the outbreak of pandemic, still the happy hour of afternoon tea is, and never will be postponed. 

Also known as The Imperial Porcelain Factory, Lomonosov is a producer of hand-painted ceramics in Saint Petersburg. Established by Dmitry Ivanovich Vinogradov in 1744, and was supported by the Russian tsars since Empress Elizabeth. In 1925, on the occasion of the 200th jubilee of the Russian Academy of Science, IPF was given the name of the academy’s founder, Mikhail Lomonosov, which became recognized as Leningrad Lomonosov Porcelain Factory. I especially adore the tea set during USSR period (1922-1991); therefore, hunting all my current collection at flea market/secondhand in Finland, the backstamps of each masterpiece is either cobalt blue or orange crimson LFZ monogram, some with “Made in USSR” stamped in red. The Lomonosov daisy teacups set design pattern at tea time today is a combination of intersecting lines of 22 karat gold accents with inverted African daisy in the hues of royal purple and cobalt blue. I first spotted this teacup pair with extra two tea saucers at price of 14 EUR, then I completed this mini set with a sugar kettle by revisiting Helsinki Secondhand before the first of May, 2020. Comparing to Lomonosov famous cobalt blue collection, African daisy is more of spring/summer touch, assuredly perfect to mix and match with colours of pastel pink or violet purple. 

私は POCKY JAPAN chocolate cookiesが大好きです! Invented by Yoshiaki Koma and first sold in 1966, named after the Japanese onomatopoetic word pokkin (ポッキン), POCKY is chocolate-coated biscuit sticks produced by Ezaki Glico. During the sakura season among April and May, Pocky promotes the limited edition ‘Cherry Blossom’: Pretzel with browned butter scent, coated with cheery milk chocolate, garnished with Japanese sea salt and granulated white sugar; its fresh sweetness is balancing the Strawberry Rose black tea from THÉ HUONE. Boiling the water up to 90-97’c, adding a teaspoonful of white sugar, after 3-5 minutes the tea is ready to serve. 

Tippaleipä dates back to the early medieval Persian world and later spread to the whole Europe. Around in 1879, German immigrants brought tippaleipä to North America, which are made by pouring batter into hot cooking oil in a circular pattern and deep-frying the overlapping mass until it turns golden-brown. Our K-Supermarket version is crispy with powdered sugar, not only exceptional superb with Ladurée crystallised violet petals, having a piece chocolate by Café-Tasse in lait caramel salé or lait noix de coco, both containing in cocoa minimum 35%, is more pleasure to enjoy together with rather bitter black tea. 

As for the photography, the dark red roses naturally turn into deep purple after withering away, in order to match the strawberry rose black tea, I scatter the dried rose petals and pinkish rosebuds to make the tea table much more lively. And quartz liquor glasses and saucer from Czechoslovakia are transparently showing the sakura pink Pocky sticks and crystallised violet petals crystal clear, enhance the hues of roses and Lomonosov porcelain. Also I recycle the empty cosmetic boxes, preferably from Christian Dior, for its shining silver varnish to offer as my eco-friendly reflector during the process of photography. 

SHARE:

No comments

Post a Comment

Blogger Template Created by pipdig