tea and crumpets (even though I don't know what those are besides a pastry) ;)

Charlotte grinned as she lead Ping into the kitchen area. She began heating the water and started looking through the cabinets.

"Are there any specific flavors of tea yo prefer? We have just about anything you can think of." She said with a smile.

"Oh also are there any pastries you want we ha a lot of different kinds baked here daily. And if we don't eat them here at the palace within two days it goes out to the troops and villagers." She told him. "Just look around and see if any thing catches your eye." She told him.

"Um, surprise me," Ping said. Might as well try some new things while he was here, even if that new thing was a different kind of tea. He glanced over to where Charlotte was pointing at the pastries and he got an excited grin on his face. No doubt Mulan would react the same way. If she got her hands on a few pastries, she was in heaven. Even as he thought of her, he reached over for some donuts and wrapped them in a napkin for her later. No doubt she would be thrilled when he showed them to her. "Jeez, the cooks sure do bake a lot for so few people who live here," he said as he grabbed a donut for himself and started munching on it.

Charlotte smiled as she pulled out one of the more fragrant teas she liked. "Well I do like a variety and father doesn't care what I give out for free as long as I don't 'waist' any of it before hand. I ask for a lot and try to eat one of each before having them given out. I figure if I can give some good sweets out to the children and soldiers then why not. This way poor parents don't have to spend their hard earned money on sweets for their kids and can use it for things they need. It's just one less thing they need to worry about." She explained.

Finally the tea pot began to whistle. "There we go." She pulled the pot off the heat and pulled a more ornate tea pot forward. She put two sweet smelling tea bags in and poured the scalding hot water in.

She let the water and tea mix as she pulled two matching tea cups from the cumbered and put them on the table, followed by the hot tea pot. "Have you picked out some sweets? This tea is mild but it smells so sweet it mixes great with almost any sweet. It's called Berryblossom white." she smile as she smelled the sweet blue berry and white cranberry scent. She then sat and waited for Ping to join her.

"Well, that's good," Ping agreed. "Better to give out what's left than waste it." Ping's family had gone through some hard times with less food than usual, and it wasn't something he wanted to go back to anytime soon. Hopefully, his parents were better off now that he and Mulan were soldiers now. He ate the last bits of his doughnut as he went to sit with Charlotte, glancing at the tea for a moment before taking a sip. "Ooo, wow, this is good," he said, smiling at her.

Charlotte smiled and took a sip of her own. "Just wait. When it reaches this perfect middle ground between warm and cool it has the tiniest hint of its fruity origins." She stood and choose a few cream puffs. She put them on a plate and sat back down.
"So what kinds of foods do you like Ping?" She asked curiously as she took another sip of tea.

"Oh, almost anything really." Ping gave a little shrug of his shoulders. "You know me. My stomach is still in it's teenage boy mode. It's hungry practically all the time." He laughed. "Although, chicken pot pie doesn't sit really well with me for some reason. Don't know why. Never been able to stomach it."

Charlotte smiled and nodded. "I'll keep that in mind and make sure the cook doesn't make any of that." She broke open a cream puff and licked out the cream before taking a bit of the pastry and another sip of her tea.

"So is there anything you like to do?"

(ooc: Ping were are you? )