Patreon From the Land of Tea Nov 2022 Old California Tea Rooms
From Mystic Tea Room
In this installment of "From the Land of Tea," we take a sneak-peek look at an upcoming page that will eventually be on display to the public. As a Patreon supporter, you have access to the page one full year before the public does.
- Patreon Release Date: November 28th, 2022.
- Public Release Date: November 28th, 2023.
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We return again to Rooms by Location. These are old postcards, and each one has a caption explaining it, and some have additional text. These images will eventually be on display at the Mystic Tea Room web site. As a Patreon supporter, you have access to them one full year before the public does.
To place this work in context, please read the following introductory pages
California
The Tea Rooms of California vary greatly in style, but two aesthetic themes stand out from the rest: The Craftsman or Mission Style Tea Room and the Cantonese Tea Room. California had no Colonial tea room history to exploit, and no great connection to Jolly Old England, but at the height of the tea room craze, Mission style oak furniture, which had first become popular in California, could be found all up and down the coast, and lent itself well to the conversion of small homes, lodges, hotels, and shops into tea room spaces. The influx of immigrants from China, began during the Gold Rush of the early 1850s and continued on as Cantonese workers came to provide labour on West Coast railroads during the late 19th century. When the development of the railroads was completed and families settled down, this wave of immigration left in its wake hundreds of Chinese tea rooms, restaurants, and gift stores, all along the Southern Pacific line, "On the Road of a Thousand Wonders."
Pasadena
catherine yronwode
curator, historian, and docent
The Mystic Tea Room
