Mystery Holiday Tea Tasting Game

We played this game this week, to put a little "mystery" into a mystery/masquerade tea, birthday party. It turned out to be enough fun (for adults as well as children), that it might make a nice addition to any holiday party.

First of all, I picked up an assortment of holiday teas - ones with crazy, and fanciful names, like "Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride" or "Nutcracker Sweet".

Then, I prepared paper cups - enough for each player to have one cup for each type of tea, labeling them with letters on the sides, and the names of each tea on the bottom.  I mixed it up for each player, so what was in cup "A" or "B" or "C" for one player wouldn't be the same for the player next to them.

I brewed a mug of each type of tea (easily enough for 8 players), being careful to keep track of which tea was which...

...so I could ladle a little of each tea into the cups with the matching names on the bottoms.

I served the samples up to the players with a playing card - a piece of paper marked with the letters of the cups, and the names of the teas.

Then, while I read the description of the teas from the sides of the boxes, the players sampled the tea from the cups, and tried to match each of the cups' letters to the correct names.

Some of the teas were pretty obvious, while others were a real surprise.  It proved to be a great way to have some fun together, get a little sample of a number of different teas, and pick a holiday favorite (Celestial's Sweet Pumpkin Harvest for us) at the same time.

It's great to be a homeschooler.