How much tea do you have on your cupboard right now?
If there is a previous thread with the same topic, please let me know. I did a brief search and couldn’t find one, but perhaps I missed, because I would think this would be something people thought of!So, I ran out of my last tea bag couple days ago. I’ve ordered a total of 140 tea bags (different kinds, of course) and 250g of loose leaf tea, and I’m hoping they arrive soon. I’m giving away about 40 tea bags to couple of my friends to try, but I’m keeping the rest.
And it made me wonder, how much tea do people usually keep at a time? Tea doesn’t last forever, and you can’t really live with kilograms of tea even if just looking at them warms your heart.
I was tempted to buy about five flavored blacks from Lupicia, but had to stop because I felt like I was ordering too much at once. I tend to do that on rare occasions when I run out of tea completely before I buy new stuff, leaving me tea-less for several days. Today I went to Panera and had a cup of Ginger Peach (Republic of Tea), but I really can’t drink lots of tea with my student budget when they are $1.50+ per cup.
So, how much tea do you have on your cupboard right now? Is that what you normally have? Do you ever feel like you have too much?
Me: None right now, will have 100 tea bags and 250g loose leaf tea hopefully sometime during the week!
I have three canisters with varying amounts of decaffeinated tea, one tin of caffeinated tea (Twinings Vintage Darjeeling), one tin of chamomile flowers, and a bunch of individually foil-wrapped teabags from St. Dalfour’s, Taylors of Harrogate and Harney & Sons (individually foil-wrapped teabags last a good long time).
Things are a little crazy right now because I just got the Traveling Tea Box and ordered the Golden Moon Sampler. I looked in my work tea drawer and counted 28 different kinds of tea in there! At home it is worse, and I need to pause and get my head on straight! It’s not only that I have too much, but I have more quantity than quality right now.
Ideally, and what I’m going to work towards now that the OMG there are so many teas to try mania has subsided a little, I’d have about 15 tins of really excellent tea at home to choose from, and a few smaller tins at work where I decant some good sippers and multiple steepers from my home stash, plus a little basket of samples, teas that I swap with other Steepsterites and friends, etc…
I’m the kind of person who would rather have one high quality string of pearls rather than twenty average necklaces, or one really good fountain pen rather than many junky disposable pens, or…you get the picture :) I want to bring that sort of approach to my teas, too.
I definitely agree, but I also can’t shut my tastebuds off lol. Most teas sound so good!=D
Thank you for sharing!
Theoretically I just need big tins of: 1) Chinese black to drink straight 2) breakfast blend or Assam CTC to drink with milk 3) Flavored Black to drink straight or sweetened and iced 4) Flavored Black to drink with milk.
And I usually stick to this, except that I keep searching for my favorite for those four categories… and always end up with other tea and samplers.
I agree Gander, I have a few “staples” that I must always have on hand no matter how large my stash, but most of mine are sample sizes. Those are 8oz. I also purchase Adagio’s custom blends which only come in 4oz. Unfortunately my local tea shop only sells by the ounce and another shop I occasionally go to only has 4oz tins of a lot of teas (especially their brand). The exception; however, will be my purchase of my favorite chai- I’m buying an entire pound of that!:)
Gander – theoretically my Perfect Dream Cabinet would include (ooh this is fun!!)
-Fantastic Assam
-Fantastic Chinese Black
-Fantastic “Breakfast Blend” Black tea
-Fantastic “Afternoon Blend” Black tea
-about 6 flavored black teas (including an Earl Grey and Mariage Freres Marco Polo forever!)
-four excellent green teas, perhaps one of them flavored
-a plain organic Rooibos
and one basket filled with odds ’n ends. My Perfect Dream Will Power would have me almost finish a tin before deciding if I wanted to repurchase that tea, or try a new one to fit my category :)
(I still haven’t decided if I want to include white teas or oolong teas in my Dream Cabinet)
JacuelineM, I love the thought of a “Dream Cabinet/Coupboard/Stash” thread. hint hint;) Haha, dream will power! I LOVE IT!
I would say I had between 200 and 225 different kinds of tea between my home stashes and my work stashes. Most are enough for 1-4 cups, however.
Aw you made me feel good about my own stash until I saw “Most are enough for 1-4 cups”
Right now I’m running out of a lot. I have a several partial boxes of teabags, most of which I only want on rare occasion. I have a few sample sizes of loose leaf, but most, with the exception of my English Breakfast, are only enough for one more pot of tea. I will have to go shopping soon!!
Let’s see.
About 400 grams of Genmaicha (was 1000 g)
About 150 Junan Pure Gold (was 200 g), Bai Mu Dan (was also 200 g)
Around 100 grams of the following: Bleue Montagne (unopened), Ujibashi San no Ma, Touareg, Bi Tan Piao Xue, Smokey Darjeeling, White King of Jasmine and Ti Ji Pearl Jasmine (was 200 g).
75g of Jade Tie Juan Yin (was 100 g), Yang Yan Gou Qing, Goût Russe 7 Agrumes (was 100 g), Fleur de Geisha (was 100 g)
20 g of Cha Wang Jun Chan Yin Zhen (unopened)
10 g of Jun Chan Yin Zhen (was 20 g)
Guess I have some teabags stuck somewhere, but they’re ancient and unused.
Wow, 1kg of genmaicha? You must really like’em! I’d like to buy big bulks of various tea but I’m always worried that I might not be able to finish’em before they lose the scent…
I know it’s a lot, but I think genmaicha doesn’t get stale that quickly and I like to think of it as my staple tea. I always have some, it’s quite cheap and it’s extremely easy to brew. Just a nice everyday tea, and since I drink massive amounts of tea, I like to have a lot of it.
That’s interesting. I would think gen mai cha would get stale easily because of the popped corn and rice. Matcha dusted gen mai cha even more so.
I’m trying to downsize my collection to one favourite of each kind of tea/estate before I buy any new blends. At this stage I have about 60 100g bags and a couple of 250g bags of my favourite earl grey. Yikes…
60 100g bags? Okay, so I’m not that bad… but no, I shouldn’t think that because I don’t want to go off on another spending spree!
GOOD LORD! That’s ~14.5lb of tea if “a couple of 250g bags” means 2! Now you must spill your brilliant storage ideas:P
Haha I work in a tea shop so some were free and most of the rest were discounted… but its still an insane amount. I’ve taken to giving people bags when they come over to visit me, I’d never get through them otherwise!
As for storage, I bought a cheapie white two-door cabinet to put in my kitchen for all my tea and non-pretty teaware (the pretty teaware lives in my china cabinet). My electric kettle and essential teas / pretty tins are on top, the inside topshelf is teaware, and the bottom shelf holds two plastic bins to store the rest (roughly grouped into tea types).
The tea cabinet/brewing station is easily my favourite thing in my house!
You’re so lucky. And your visitors are pretty darn lucky too! Unfortunately I don’t have many tea drinkers around me, or there are tea drinkers but they stick to their favorites rather than try different varieties. And many of my friends strictly drink (East) Asian tea only…
I see yours now! :P I do have more that are more than 4 cups! LOL Just a lot that are more sample-like than huge amounts. Anytime you want to swap…let me know! :)
In my cupboard (i.e. the space under the low table where I do tea) I have about 30 tins of tea, and I just gave away about 7 or so tins. Those range, of course, anywhere from a single-serving to a full tin.
It’s all loose leaf. My mother keeps bagged tea around and I sample it a bit, but I wouldn’t consider it part of “my tea”.
Umm, I have about forty to fifty teas. All of which are 1oz to 2oz. Lots of Adagio tins, argh. Luckily most of my tins are touched and almost finished. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing because I’d hate to see some tea go.
Um…I guess 90+ teas (give or take, some are teabags or sample amounts) would be considered a lot? *blushes *
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