Tea Club Members Like Tea and Company

This school year the new Tea Club has become very popular. It takes place every Tuesday during upperclassmen lunch, in room B107.

The founders came up with the idea to create a Tea Club on accident, and Junior Jordan Semeniuk said, “It’s kind of ridiculous.”

Junior Savannah Johansen, the president of tea club, said, “I was talking about my day, and it was a day we had Z Club, and she [another founder] thought I said ‘tea club,’ and then our other person was like ‘tea club?,’ so we made a Tea Club.”

Johansen explained how the club worked: “So far it’s just the main people, like founders, have been bringing tea.

“We put the tea in the middle of the room and everybody is supposed to bring their own mug.

“We fill up their tea, and they can use our milk, sugar and honey.

“Then we provide cookies and everything too.”

The teacher sponsor of the club, Aline Hopkins said, “and each time we have a different flavor.”

For their favorite tea flavors, Semeniuk said, “Mine’s raspberry.”

Hopkins said, “I like the apple cinnamon.”

Fellow founder, Junior Elizabeth Calhoun said, “I had salted caramel one day.”

And Johansen said, “I like Egyptian Licorice.”

During the club meetings, Johansen said, “We eat our lunch and talk to each other,” and Hopkins added, “Socializing.”

Semeniuk said her favorite part was, “Being together with our friends, and we get to enjoy the tea and snacks too.”

Calhoun said, “Having a quiet environment too, like sometimes I’ll do my homework while I’m in here drinking my tea, so it’s nice to have a quiet place instead of being in the lunchroom where it’s super loud.”

The tea club got popular very quickly, and many students showed up at the first meeting.

The reason it got popular so fast, Semeniuk said, was “We had social media, we had signs, we had announcements, we spread the word throughout people.”

Johansen said, “We were telling everyone, like our friends, ‘you should come, you should bring your friends, and they should bring their friends, and we should all bring everyone’s friends,’ and everybody came.”

At the first meetings the club was very crowded, and Johansen said, “There were so many people!”

Semeniuk said, “But some people were doing the thing where they take stuff and leave, and so we had to [make rules].”

Johansen said, “Like half of the people left after they got tea, and then it was actually kind of okay in here, towards the end.”

Hopkins said, “So we’ve now come up with some ground rules: you have to stay the whole time, you can only have one snack at a time, and yeah, now it’s gotten so popular that we have competition,” referring to the newly established Cocoa Club.

About their competition, Johansen said, “We’ll see how long that lasts though.”

Calhoun said, “And then like with that, I mean [with] hot chocolate you can’t really vary things.

“Like with tea, you can do different flavors for different seasons, and I don’t know, it just [makes more sense].”

In response, Johansen said, “I mean there’s peppermint hot chocolate, but that is the most you can change it.”

Semeniuk said, “They’re not as serious about it.”

Johansen said, “Now everyone’s starting hot beverage clubs!”

About the club’s success, Semeniuk said, “We’re glad it’s enjoyable for people, and [that it is] improving.”

Calhoun said, “I’m glad it’s a thing, because it’s nice to have one day a week I can just come to relax and not have to be out there [in the commons].”

Hopkins said, “Yeah, that’s what we try to do, have like a calm place and you know, where we can socialize.

“It’s fun, I look forward to Tea Club myself!”

Johansen said, “I still tell everyone in all my classes on Tuesdays to come to Tea Club!”