At the Tea Table with Tracy Truong of Traces of Water

As a busy full-time teacher, Tracy Truong uses art therapy to help her find moments of peace during her limited free time. She started practicing and sharing her watercolour regularly with her Traces of Water Instagram community. Delicate florals and pastel colour palettes fill her feed that she refers to as her “tea garden”. A quick look at her work will show you that she not only incorporates vintage teacups into the photographs of her watercolour, but she also recreates the patterns and shapes from the teacups on paper. At the Tea Table Tracy shared her daily tea rituals, favourite teacup inspired artwork, and she recalled a special moment that sparked her tea journey.

The kettle is on and I can hear it about to sing. What tea are you going to steep for us today?

Hello there! Thank you so much for having me, I’m excited to be here!

Today we are having Victorian Earl Grey. This is a lavender and rose earl grey tea that I get from Perennial Tea Room. Imagine a traditional earl grey with notes of bergamot, but with blooming floral notes of lavender and rose.

While I like to drink nearly all of my teas straight, I love this earl grey with a splash of milk. It’s comfort and elegance in a cup! 

I prefer my cup of earl grey with a splash of milk, too! Do you recall the first sip that started your tea journey?

Now that I think back on my childhood, tea drinking has always been a staple in all of our meals growing up – from sipping on hot jasmine tea with my family at dim sum, to boiling a large kettle for guests when they arrive.

Although I was accustomed to drinking tea at each family meal, I hadn’t necessarily developed a taste for tea. I did notice it brought grown ups around me together, either over the dinner table or over the phone.

The special moment that sparked my tea journey was when I must have been about 12 or 13 years old. My mom took my sister and I to the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco.

Inside this luxurious hotel is a gorgeous restaurant called The Garden Court that served lavish high tea. It was a Sunday afternoon and we walked through a sunlit lobby that opened into a huge glass-domed atrium, with giant marble columns, and literally a dozen gold chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The walls and moldings were all gold.

I was blown away by the elegance from the moment we arrived. To this day I can’t remember why we were there – we were SO out of place!

As a single parent my mom enjoyed taking us on small outings in our area, but elegant high tea at the Palace Hotel was not expected. 

So the three of us enjoyed fancy tea service, and delicious brunch foods served on tiered stands. It was a dream!!!

This was not the tea time I knew: steaming hot dim sum plates & greasy dumplings, with people fighting for the attention of the dim sum ladies rolling their carts around.

My sister and I felt so special being on this date with my mom. We really didn’t know what we did to deserve this magical experience of western style high tea. 

This is a memory I have since cherished, not only because it was my first time experiencing tea drinking in this way, but because it was a special time the three of us did something spontaneous.

I know how intentional this must have been for my mom to make that happen. Since then and into my adulthood, I enjoy going to high tea rooms in the city and on vacation.

I even have a large collection of teacups and tiered stands for tea parties for Easter Sunday, Mothers Day, or even afternoon “grading parties” with teacher friends. 

As an artist/watercolorist and 4th grade teacher, what are some of your daily tea rituals today? 

By day, I’m Ms. Truong and in the evenings, the rituals of tea, painting, and Netflix take over. As soon as I’m done grading papers, I wind down for the night with some watercolor. I love putting on a pot of jasmine or herbal tea and setting up my canvas for an evening of peaceful painting.

Education is a passion of mine, and I’m currently in my 7th year. Being a teacher is exhausting. It’s invigorating, heart breaking, and inspiring, all in one. Throw in an ongoing pandemic and you’ll be amazing with what teachers can accomplish with what little resources we have!

What I’ve learned over the years is that I can’t forget to take care of my own mental health. That’s where I discovered art therapy.

My practice in watercolor was born out of necessity at the height of the pandemic to find healing and self care within myself.

Painting brings about mindfulness as I watched the water move across the page organically, creating beautifully imperfect bleeds and textures over a hot cup of tea. 

Take us on a virtual tour of your studio space.

I’ve nurtured a protected space for creating in a corner of what we call the “craft room” where you’ll find a huge and messy table of watercolor paints, watercolor warm up papers, my cricut machine for paper crafts, a tea light warmer for my teapot, and graded student work covered in paint smudges.

There’s always a fresh pot of tea, and a mini tablet where I binge re-runs of Friends. 

I found Traces of Water when I was looking at photos of vintage teacups on Instagram. In fact, you often take inspiration from your Royal Albert teacup patterns. What are some of your favourite tea related artworks?

Thank you again for finding my work on Instagram! I have a huge collection of vintage teacups, and I’ve incorporated them into photographing my watercolor. They just pair so nicely together!

Here are some of my favorite works, and you’re welcome to check out the rest of my art journey on Traces of Water Instagram page.

I love taking inspiration from my teacups because it not only takes me out of a painting rut, I’m able to practice sketching and shadows from one of my most loved possessions – my teacups!

My painting style (not surprisingly) is dainty florals, and using patterns and shapes from my teacups is both joyful and energizing.

Speed Round:

Black, Green, Yellow, White, Oolong or Puerh?
Oolong

Hot, Iced or Cold?
Hot…Unless we’re talking boba! Iced oolong milk tea with boba is other worldly.

Teapot, Infuser or Gaiwan? 
Teapot

Straight, Sweetened or Latte?
Straight

Cheese or Chocolate pairing? 
Cookies 😛

Choose one person, living or passed, celebrity or family, that you would like to have tea with. What would that tea time look like?

I’d love to have tea with my most memorable high school teacher, Ms. Buchanan. She taught an English Literature class when I was in my junior year.

You might not think so today but junior year Tracy in high school was an uninspired teenager who didn’t apply herself. Typical teen angst, am I right?!

Ms. Buchanan encouraged a love for literature in me like no other teacher has before, and opened up a new world of reading! She was one of those “take no shit” teachers with a heart of gold – and really turned around high school for me.

I am absolutely certain she has touched the lives of many youth, and inspired them to succeed. 

She is long retired now, but I’d loved to have her over for tea and talk about crazy stories from her years as a high school English Lit teacher. 

Find Traces of Water:

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ABOUT THIS SERIES: Tea tells stories and when connected with humans, more are created. That’s where the idea for this blog series, At the Tea Table, originated. With this series, The Cup of Life asks tea lovers around the world to take us inside their tea lives to share their favourite steeps, spaces, routines and more. Meet some of your fellow tea drinkers here.