MANSFIELD — Braxton Daniels wove his way around the circular tables, pouring hot tea into dainty China cups for a crew of boisterous eighth graders.
Daniels stepped out of his tea house on North Main Street Friday afternoon to bring the timeless beverage to students at The Richland School of Academic Arts.
Eighth grade history teacher Dan Jones invited Daniels and his crew as part of a unit on the Boston Tea Party.
Each table was set with a black cloth and a laminate place cards, each detailing the name of a Boston Tea Party participant and some facts about their life. School founder and curriculum director Shellie Gorman leant her China for the event.
Students tried five flavors of tea — all ones the Sons of Liberty threw overboard during the famed colonial rebellion.
Jones sought out the collaboration after a summer trip to Boston with his family. The Joneses visited The Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, where they got to sip teas thrown overboard while looking over the Boston Harbor.
“It was just a surreal event,” he said. “I wanted to bring this back for my students.”
Jones’ wife Gretchen, the school secretary, baked scones and made ham and cheese tea sandwiches for the students. Mrs. Jones also prepared clotted cream, a common topping for British scones that takes nearly 18 hours to prepare.
“She’s getting a hug after this,” one student quipped.
Tasting history
Before the party began, Jones stood in front of the small buffet.
“The teas are arranged lightest to darkest and they smell drastically different,” he told the students.
“As most of you know, coffee was not the choice drink. Tea was served every day, almost every meal. Who can tell me the quantity that was thrown over?”
Multiple hands shot up. The answer? 90,000 pounds. Jones grabbed a golden bag from the counter behind him.
“Just so you know,” he said. “This is a pound of tea.”
Students had mixed opinions on the teas, but Third Cup employees said the kids tended to prefer the lighter flavors.
Alyvia Buckner said she’s not much of a tea drinker, but enjoyed the varieties she tried. Her friend Kaylin Gilbert agreed.
“It’s not what I expected, but in a very pleasant way,” Gilbert said.
Gilbert sketched a design for a sticker into her notebook — a mug of tea with a daisy on it. Below the mug, she wrote the words ‘Spill the Boston Tea.’
“I put sugar, I put cream in it, but somehow it still tasted kind of funny,” said eighth grader Malyah Moore after trying her first cup.
Amariana Eatmon disagreed.
“It was amazing,” she said. “I highly recommend.”
Even though she wasn’t a fan of the tea, Moore sympathized with the frustrated revolutionaries who threw crates of it into the harbor.
“I want to know why people still followed them, even though they were taxing them, even they had no representation at all, they still wanted to be loyal to the British,” she mused. “That don’t make any sense to me.”
Jones said he hopes to make the tea party an annual event for his eighth graders.
“If instead of just talking about it, we can engage the senses in history, all of a sudden it becomes a real event and they’re able to relate to it better,” he said.
“These sort of immersive experiences last a lifetime. They will always remember their Boston Tea Party.”
Grace McClenathan, an employee at 3rd Cup Tea and Jones’ former student, said she enjoyed worked with the students.
“I think that our community outreach is what really sets us apart from other regular tea shops or whatever bubble tea shop you might go to in Columbus or wherever else,” she said.
“Our focus on getting kids to do fun stuff like this is what’s important.”
Want to have your own Boston Tea Party? Some of the flavors of tea thrown into the harbor were Singlo, Young Hyson, Lapsang Souchong, Congou and Colonial Bohea, according to Charleston-based tea company Oliver Puff & Co.
