Meet Liza Gusler, Colonial Williamsburg Product Manager
Twenty years of working as a curator with Colonial Williamsburg's stellar collection of antiques was ideal preparation for her current job developing dining wares, lamps, and decorative accessories inspired by antiques in the Foundation's vast archives. Liza is a confessed "chinaholic." Her favorite busman's holiday is to haunt flea markets, antique shops, and tabletop stores.
Porcelains And Parlors: Tea Traditions of 18th-Century Entertaining
"Tea came to Virginia from China, via England, in the early 18th century. By mid-century, the tea party was the fashionable new entertainment ritual among Virginia's gentry. Tea parties were a particularly feminine amusement, enjoyed in the parlor, a new social space in plantation and town houses in the 1750s. Hostesses competed to have the latest status symbol tea tables, along with tea equipage in pottery or porcelain, silver or pewter. The Industrial Revolution arose partly to fuel the demand for teapots!"
Read more about how tea changed 18th-century England and America
See Liza's responses to your questions about entertaining