Tea

The outline of a proposal to drastically scale back the federal deficit unveiled Wednesday offers a real challenge to President Obama. The ambitious plan, which sends a whole herd of sacred cows to the slaughterhouse, is exactly the kind of thing he came to Washington promising to champion — a real solution to the nation's problems that have been perpetuated by partisan gamesmanship for years. This is something that can't be done without changing the culture of Washington. But the proposal is, just as significantly, a test for the tea party and its newly elected champions in Congress.

Demonstrators filled Annapolis City Dock - one of hundreds of anti-tax tea parties held Wednesday across Maryland and the nation - to toss tea bags into the water in protest of the economic policies of President Barack Obama and Gov. Martin O'Malley. Articles, Pages 2, 3, 12

Ocean City Come 3:30 every afternoon, Thelma Conner, a spry, white-haired woman, steps away from her executive duties to pour tea.The venerable 79-year-old, who owns the Dunes Manor Hotel on 28th Street, takes her place next to a silver service set in the hotel's Victorian-style lobby and hands each guest a cup of hot tea -- served in real china, of course.It's tea time in Ocean City.For an hour each and every afternoon, the hotel's lobby is filled with guests sipping complimentary tea, nibbling crumpets and cookies and exchanging small talk.

A Baltimore woman is suing the Hardee's fast-food chain, claiming the tea it sold her was a "defective product" -- that is, so hot it burned her leg.Stephanie Washington-Bey charges Hardee's with failing to label her cup with a warning that the brew she bought Jan. 24 at the Hardee's at 2000 N. Howard St. was scalding hot, according to a $150,000 suit she filed Wednesday in Circuit Court."

At one time Sunday afternoon teas were quite the fashion. The gentry would dress in their finest clothes and while away a few hours sipping tea, eating cakes and catching up on the latest gossip. The annual Victorian Tea at Tudor Hall in Bel Air is reminiscent of this pleasurable pastime.Tudor Hall noted for its distinctive architecture, was home to the acting family that included Junius Brutus Booth, considred the greatest tragic actor of his time, and his sons Edwin Booth and the infamous John wilkes Booth.

Q. Please end an argument in our household. My husband is a coffee hound. He can't start the day without two or three cups, and he keeps the coffee pot going all day long. He works from home and usually keeps a cup of coffee on the desk right next to his computer. He must consume six or eight cups a day. I prefer tea. Whenever I suggest he cut back, he says I drink as much tea as he drinks coffee. According to him, that means I'm getting just as much caffeine. But I think tea is good for you and coffee is bad. I sure could use some ammunition for this discussion.

Edgewood residents want their own County Council representative.That was the message, accompanied by tea bags, delivered to the council Monday by more than 30 Edgewood residents at a public hearing on aproposal for new council district boundaries.In an impassioned speech, Edgewood resident B. Daniel Riley compared his community's lack of representation to the situation American colonists faced in 1773, when colonists protested taxation without representation by dumping tea into Boston Harbor.

Americans have always been ambivalent about tea. Colonists angered by British taxes dumped 342 chests of it into Boston Harbor on Dec. 16, 1773, - and tea has gotten mixed reviews in this country ever since, trailing coffee and colas in popularity. But that may be about to change. Not only are Americans drinking more of it in chais, lattes and other exotic drinks, tea also has become a hot new seasoning in preparing dishes from meats to mousse. "Over the last 10 years, tea has been coming into its own in this country," said Joseph Simrany, president of the National Tea Council, a New York-based trade group that tracks tea sales and trends.

Books by Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary shared shelf space with a new generation of writers at the Point Pleasant Elementary School Authors' Tea last week. Budding authors from the fifth grade discussed their poetry and prose with visitors, pausing only to sign autographs.The idea for the tea evolved as teacher Maurine Larkin searched for a way to pique the students' interest in writing. She began to think in terms of how professional writers create and promote their finished work."A tea was something that a real-life writer might do when they had finished writing a story or a book," said Larkin.

It was "Thyme For Tea" at the Ferndale-Linthicum Senior Center on Friday as Friendly Thyme Herb Club members turned the building into a lovely English country inn.The Bereavement Center of Hospice of the Chesapeake is offering a free support group for adults grieving the suicide death of a loved one.The group meets on the second and fourth Monday of every month from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. at hospice office, 403 Headquarters Drive, Suite 1, Millersville.The...