The Essential Tea Companion from 2009 essentially re-purposes much of the content from Charms, Pleasures and Art. In this volume, there is no one author because it is a compilation and even says so. I suspect Kim Waller is the main contributor because of her part in the previous volumes, but this is unclear and unstated in the book. Many of the pictures are of settings familiar from the previous books, but they are different shots of the same setting from those that appeared previously.
In tone, this book is much the same as Pleasures and Art, but there are a few key differences:
-It is very clear that this book is about tea parties and tea things. It's nice to finally have that out there, and have all of the extra bits gone. There are no preemptive interviews, no pieces of random text just stuck in there. Just parties and stuff. Fine.
-The pictures have captions!! The captions don't always tell you the name of the china pattern or the source of the thing, but they do relate the pictures to the text, which is a start.
-Recipes are back, and there are lots of them.
But still and all, the book is very much in line with the concept of Victoria Magazine and the idea that life is or can be a blissful fantasy. For example, there is a section on the prevalence of the silver tea service and how its popularity declined after WWII (which is why you should seek them out at antique stores and vintage sales and snap them up!), but no practical advice on how to polish, clean, store, and preserve your silver tea things, or any of your other tea wares. It's almost as if covering that topic would break the romantic spell of Victoria. It's also a lost opportunity to segue into the joy of home organization, natural cleaning products, and, of course, butler's panties, but again, I do appreciate the clear focus on parties and stuff. And if Victoria or anyone else published a book on butler's pantries, I would buy it for sure!
Next time, I have one last Victoria book to share with you: Table Settings!
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