Tea time: Lesley Crewe’s newest book to launch with a custom blend
Tea is very important to people in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It’s no surprise, then, that there is “an awful lot of tea drinking going on” in the bestselling novels of Lesley Crewe, who has lived in Cape Breton for nearly 50 years.
“Most of the time, if you come to Cape Breton, everybody is around the kitchen table and we’re always drinking tea,” says Crewe. “So, most of my books are about women who sit around a kitchen table and drink tea.”
Crewe’s 15th novel, Recipe for a Good Life, set in Cape Breton – and to be published later this month by Nimbus Publishing – is no exception. The book tells the story of Kitty, a Montreal-based mystery author who travels to Cape Breton for a writing retreat where she finds a loving community and a cure for her incipient burnout.
Not only do Crewe’s books feature a lot of tea-drinking, but they also inspire it among her readers, who often liken reading Crewe’s novels to “sitting down wrapped up in an old quilt” alongside a cup of tea, says Karen McMullin, Crewe’s publicist at Nimbus Publishing.
McMullin took this fact as inspiration when she was brainstorming ways to promote Recipe for a Good Life. “Oh, wouldn’t it be nice if we actually provided the tea?” she remembers thinking.
Crewe was immediately on board, but had one very specific request.
“I said, ‘Well, it has to be something with blueberries in it,’” Crewe says, “because that’s what I call my little granddaughters: they’re my blueberries.” Blueberries also remind her of the summers she spent in Cape Breton as a child, visiting her grandmother. “My grandmother always used to get us to pick blueberries – and I was lousy at it. I would bring back leaves and branches and all kinds of things.”
McMullin suggested adding some lemon so the tea would offer both “the bitterness and the sweetness of life” captured in Crewe’s books. “Plus, [lemon] adds a little freshness, a little zip, which is very much in Lesley’s character as well,” McMullin says.
In her research of tea shops across Nova Scotia, McMullin knew she’d found the right one when she came across Sydney-based Teamancy, which sells artisanal, loose leaf tea blends created by owner Megan MacKenzie.
“Everything about her shop – the way she presents it, the logo, everything – just looked magical,” says McMullin. “It fell perfectly into my lap.”
“[Karen] reached out and was looking [for] just a Breton blueberry tea,” remembers MacKenzie. “Then she told me why she was interested in it, and I was really excited because I am a big reader [of Crewe’s books] myself.”
MacKenzie didn’t have a blueberry-flavoured tea at the time, so she gathered materials and began blending until the tea started to taste as she imagined it should.
“I did three different versions until I ended up with the one I liked the most,” she explains. The resulting Crewe Brew combines dried blueberry pieces, lemon peel, lemon myrtle leaves, and lemon oil with black Assam tea to create a tea that smells and tastes “very, very nice,” in its namesake’s estimation.
Tea, Crewe says, represents “a way of taking care of each other” in her corner of the world.“If you’ve lost someone, somebody sits with you and just listens while you share a cup of tea. Having a cup of tea with someone is one of the nicest things that you can do for each other.”
For MacKenzie, the Crewe Brew has a particular power. “The thought of people out there enjoying a book by a wonderful local author paired with my tea … it’s kind of like we’re all experiencing it together,” she says. “That just brings me such a sense of community and connection.”
The Crewe Brew will be served at all the events Crewe attends to promote Recipe for a Good Life, beginning with the book launch. Samples of the tea will be sent to booksellers who pre-order five or more copies of the book, as well to as reviewers, and the tea will be available for purchase through Nimbus’s website.
“We’re just hoping that Lesley’s extensive audience will both embrace the book and embrace the tea,” says McMullin. “I’d like to think of it as a little thank you to her fans.”
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