Hello all and welcome to Sadia’s Tea Party, on this blog page we’ll keep you up to date with all things tea.
Sadia’s tea parties offer a unique and vibrant experience, hosted by artist and tea hostess Sadia Ur-Rehman, using the idea of traditional afternoon tea, stirring it up a little with the addition of specially designed themed parlour games and an international theme that’ll allow you to travel the globe whilst you sup on your tea in fancy china.
The tea parties were born in late 2010. From January to March 2011, Sadia hosted six tea parties at Valentines Mansion as part of the project ‘A Local Dialogue’. Using tea as a connector, ‘A Local Dialogue’ is an experimental approach to working with words and language for a project that inspires residents of a particular local area. As an avid tea lover Sadia decided to host the tea parties for local residents, creating a communal space for local people to meet and discuss the local area.
‘’The idea for the tea parties came about from my own love of the beverage and how a good cuppa can be the setting for a really good conversation. I wanted to create a space where strangers could connect and engage over a conversation and I thought about an activity that all communities and cultures shared, and tea drinking seemed apt.”
Each tea party served a different type of tea from a different part of the world, guests were able to experience how tea is drunk in South Asia, North Africa, Persia, China and of course England. An authentic experience was provided with each tea party, Sadia also set a topic of conversation about the local area and history designing fun and interactive parlour games for guests to play.
Since then Sadia has taken her tea parties to a number of locations including the National Maritime Museum and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. Sadia even met the Queen in a special performative tea party as part of the London Pride Festival. In 2013 Sadia plans to take her tea parties far and wide, keep up to date with all delving’s and developments on this blog!