Request to Tea Merchants
Most tea merchants have well thought out distinctive packaging for shipping their teas. But I wish that they would ship tea with removable and reusable labels of what they are. When I receive a tea I take it out of the shipping pouch and put it into double lidded metal canisters. But then I often don’t know which is which. Sometimes I have to shake or even open two or three canisters before I open the one I wanted.
Fortunately many teas sound differently when the canister is gently shaken and don’t have to be opened. But I wish there were a transferable label that I could just temporarily affix onto the outside of the canister so that I’d know which one had the Wenshan Baozhong 2012, or the Wild Pu-erh, Spring 1999 or even the every day Irish Breakfast.
i use those little sticker label and mark it when it arrives and then if i put it in another container i pull the label off and attach it.
What about cutting the pouch around the label and taping it to the canister? Or perhaps you could purchase removable labels for your tins and make your own label.
Yes, this. If you’re throwing the pouch out anyway, take scissors to it. I just wedge it in between the tin and the lid. It’s a system that has served my well for years and I always know what’s in my tins.
Yes I do that now, still it seems inelegant and sometimes the label gets dislodged and lost
Not to shine too much praise on Missy or anything… but…
We have:
1) a Dymo label maker (such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/LetraTag-LT-100H-Personal-Label-Maker/dp/B000II09IM/ref=sr_1_2?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1344484974&sr=1-2&keywords=letratag)
2) a roll of magnetic tape (such as this one: http://www.amazon.com/MagnaCard-Magnet-Tape-inches-MT10510P/dp/B0030GF2M2/ref=sr_1_1?s=office-products&ie=UTF8&qid=1344485008&sr=1-1&keywords=magnet+tape)
And poof, you can instantly make your own customized, removable, reuseable labels that stick to your tins! Now, if you only use wood or porcelain containers, this won’t work terribly well for you :)
DAVIDsTEA seems to send an extra label whenever you order 100g of tea (i.e. whenever they send you a tin), but it isn’t reusable. Upton will add as many extra labels as you want for some fairly nominal charges. other than that, I haven’t had any companies send (or offer to) extra labels. So I stick with magnets :)
It’s fantastic. And I should give kudos to my coworker, Mary, who randomly one day asked me if I had any use for a label maker she was getting rid of. I brought it home, and Missy instantly thought of the magnets.
Blurry picture: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v359/Telepathboy/Tea%20and%20Things/Magnet-Top.jpg
Ah, Dylan, just what I need, more time to spend fussing with my teas, another apparatus to purchase and keep on my kitchen table and more supplies to keep fully stocked for my tea drinking obsession.
As it is I have two tea trays one bamboo one clay, with usually several pots in them, an electric water kettle with thermometer and a Clear2O water pitcher plus a canister or two of tea on my kitchen table every day. Next to it, four 3 foot wall shelves with tea pots, tea canisters and strainers, cups, bamboo tools and various other accoutrements. My girlfriend thinks I’m crazy as it is and clearing the table for dinner takes 15 minutes.
But it’s an excellent idea!
David’s sometimes sends extra labels with 50g of tea – at least, I got them with my last order. Teavana sends little clear ones similar to the ones you get in-store, but the printing on these can be iffy.
I typically take my teas out of their packages and put them in my own tins as well. For labeling I just use sticky notes and tape them onto the front of my tins.
Blurry pic for all:
http://i1050.photobucket.com/albums/s410/feralanima/canister.jpg
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