Because I didn’t grow up in a traditional tea drinking household and because I don’t prepare tea in the traditional manner – with a tea kettle and a tea pot – there are some aspects of that way of doing things that I’m not so familiar with. Like tea cosies, for instance. I had no idea that these were so popular nowadays, and I’d always assumed they were kind of fuddy-duddyish. But that’s apparently not the case. As I noted in a recent article in a thriving subset of the publishing industry devoted to books about tea cosies.

As I started to do some more research into this topic I began to suspect that tea cosies are serious business for some people. Serious business, that is, if you consider that there are people who gather to pit their tea cosy making skills against a field of equally worthy opponents. I ran across several of these competitions without having to look too hard and I suspect there are probably many more.

Correct me if you know better, but it seems that The Fish Creek Tea Cosy Festival, held annually in Fish Creek, Victoria, in Australia, is one of the more noteworthy of these events. The 2014 event took place over the course of nine days and the competitions took place in such categories as Traditional, Aquatic, Butch, and Exuberant Whimsy.

That one’s done for this year but there’s still time to make The National Tea Cosy Competition, which will be held in Dublin in October, 2014. As they note at their web site, “Every medium of craft is accepted. All that we ask is that it is handmade!”

If you act quickly you might also make The Port Eliot Tea Cosy Competition, in Cornwall, England, which will be held in July this year. Or hold off until November, when The Great Exeter Tea Cosy Competition will be held in Exeter, England. Last, but certainly not least, there’s the Tea Cosy Competition at St. George’s Market, in Belfast.

See more of William I. Lengeman’s articles here.

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