What is the lifestyle really like?

TikTok is right about the coastal granny’s love of tea parties and antique china.

Summer garden tea party.

Antique porcelain is common in some coastal families.


Bignai/Getty Images

Several of the TikTok videos recommend serving tea and using “casual china.” One video specifically recommends a lavender tea recipe, which may be because some types of lavender grow naturally on the coast.

My family picks mint from the garden to make “sun tea.” We chop the mint, put it in a pitcher of water with black tea bags, and leave it in the sun all day.

I also found lemon bread and coffee cake recipes on TikTok, which look a lot like the cakes my coastal grandmothers served. I have spent many happy mornings sitting on the patio, drinking tea, eating baked goodies and listening to the lapping of the waves.

Nicoleta mentions serving these coastal recipes on china, which is perfect in my community, where coastal families often have special serving dishes, usually passed down from father to son.

In our house, we cannot wash most of the crockery in the dishwasher because it is very delicate and at least 100 years old. Our porcelain, like most items in our home, often has a story to go with it: gifted by a distant royal family, saved from the communists during the Russian revolution, used during the civil war, etc.

All of these antiques can make beach vacations with young children a bit challenging, as I constantly worry about my kids breaking something. One of her favorite items is a little chair that belonged to my great-great-grandfather, so it’s from the 19th century. So far, we have managed to keep it intact.

Source: www.insider.com