Share Your Tea Organizing Secrets

I have so much tea in my personal stash and I’ve tried everything to keep things straight. I have even gone as far as keeping a spreadsheet. I’d like a simpler solution and wondered if any of you had any tried and true practices.

Thanks in advance :)

26 Replies
momo said

Hahaha how funny, I was just complaining about how I thought a spreadsheet isn’t good enough.

So I’ll say here too, since mine is at a ridiculous amount, I’m hoping to use a project assignment I have to create something that fits tea better than a document meant for numerical information. I’m thinking so far you’d have the type of tea, name of tea, company, how much of it you have, and where it’s stored. I just have no idea at this point how this would work yet though I’m sure in about 2-3 weeks, I’ll be getting started on finding a way.

But a spreadsheet just doesn’t do it for me. I’m content with how my teas are organized, but to know where each one is would be great, and keeping a location in the information would incentivize me to put it back where it belongs too. It’s still somewhat all over the place (cupboard, drawer, by the coffee maker, in two boxes, plus 5 plastic shoeboxes by type…the only thing by type right now) but I don’t have the space to do much better than that so having a master log on my laptop would be the solution for me.

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Azzrian said

I have a china hutch (cragislist find 75.00) I keep my prized teas in the under cabinet – these teas do not show. My go to teas which are also favorites but great for anytime, a green, two blacks, a white, etc on top of the under cabinet but beneath the glass hutch part. These are all in pretty tins. Also on this area are my pu-erhs mostly samples at this time. I have my pretty blue tea kettle on here as well which sits on a flea market asian tea tray. The rest of my teas are in two baskets – one for blacks and oolongs the other for whites and greens. My tisanes and herbals, rooibos etc are kept with the whites and greens as I really don’t have many whites and my greens are pretty much skimmed down to my favorites. I have one other place I keep teas – that is a pretty self above my microwave which is home to two tea pots and four harney and sons tins and two Disney tins.
Haha
THEN I have one more thing … its my daily rotation shelf. This is a small shelf that I can put teas on that I plan to try the next day. I refill it nightly. This way if I am too busy to make tea my hubby knows which to snag to make for me :) He did this more when he was not working but he is back to work full time now so it rarely happens.
The glass part of my cupboard homes my lovely tea cups, saucers, plates, tea pots, and my growing yixing pot collection.
Now my next dilemma is where to keep my matcha stash! YIKES!

pas2iche said

mind sharing some pics of these two organizing systems? thanks!

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momo said

I am already working on this.
I have too much yarn and I rarely knit, I already cut down the collection before I moved but now I’m going to again, hopefully I’m in town when my apartment complex has a garage sale (it just has to be in my busiest weekends month). So now I have one of those 3 drawers on wheels storage units for tea.

I was searching and I found Bento for Mac would be awesome to use except that it prohibits anyone without a Mac and it’s freakin’ expensive. So I’m going to have to hold off on that part until I talk to my instructor aghhhh.

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Alphakitty said

I have a spreadsheet organized by type (a page for black, green, white, oolong, pu-erh, tisanes) that really helps. It has slots number of steeps, steeping time, company, how much I have left, and some very brief tasting notes. Helps me remember what I have, what I need, and what I like enough to keep as a staple.

Finding them, though, is another matter. I have a whole cupboard for tea but it’s very disorganized—I am going to go through them soon and organize my shelves by type as well so it’s a bit easier to go through.

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Scott B said

I am actually intending on going with a database so that I can sort by type of tea, recommended brew temp, date purchased, company name, etc.

As for physically organizing, all the teas in my overflow area (which are the majority) are organized in cutaway boxes by company. There is no rhyme or reason to the teas in my main area of the pantry-they were just lucky enough to be their first and got the tins.

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I don’t know how organized my stash is, really, but, as a result of my owning and operating my own tea company for several years, I have come to acquire many of the large tea tins (holds about 2.2 pounds of tea), and this is what I use to hold my stash of teas. I label each with the type of tea that I am housing in the tin (in their smaller containers) … that is I have two or three that say “Black Tea” one that says “Chai Tea” a couple that say “Green Tea” and so on. This helps me narrow down which teas are where, so I only need to sort through one or two tins rather than two dozen before I find the tea that I’m looking for.

Of course, these do not house all of the tea that I have on hand, but, that’s how I’ve organized the majority of my stash… my stash keeps getting larger, but my bladder is the same size so I’m not able to drink it any faster than I did before. Which is why I occasionally sell my sampler boxes to help lighten my stash a bit.

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If you haven’t done so already, we suggest that you include the following columns in your spreadsheet:

Tea Name
Type of Tea
Company

As for your tins/containers you may want to color code them respectively- for example, black tea would have a black sticker on the container, green tea would be green, oolong would be orange, etc, etc.

Hope this helps!

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Kiaharii said

I have an excel spreadsheet going, there’s an inventory page, a restock list, and pages for companies that I frequent where I put things I want to order and plan orders I can never afford. As far as actual tea, I use a lot of tins. For samples that have a lot of tea I use the TND4 tins from Specialty Bottle with awesome removable labels (Avery 16460) with the company name, tea name, and steeping instructions. I color code the tea names using the DAVIDsTEA colors because they’re pretty. :) I find I tend to use my teas more if they are in tins vs. bags. For larger quantities I have a mish mash of tins, some from Adagio, some from Speciality Bottle (TWS6), some from DT, and some from World Market. I was using jelly canning jars but they were so heavy. I have some in the kitchen cabinet and the rest are in my study/guest bedroom and get swapped out whenever I feel like it.

Kiaharii said

Oh yeah, inventory pages as company, tea name, tea type, amount, date ordered (I so can see when stuff needs to get used up), and restock y/n, and any other notes. :)

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alright so I read a few replies and now I have a headache lol
the organizing of tea seems to be an issue that mystifies us all. I had everything organized this spring by type (black. white etc) and I kept a chart on the inside of the cupboard. but my collection of tea has grown too large for this cupboard and I now have no organization

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Missy said

I have thought about using a spread sheet but have yet to do so. Currently I have one cupboard and 3 boxes. In the cupboard my teas are organized by type. Blacks have a row, whites have a row and so on. My boxes are for samples for the most part. I have a box for hoarded tea (stuff so good I hardly ever drink it because I do not wish to be with out it.) Samples I have yet to try is in another box with tins for separating types of samples. Last but not least, I have a box of samples I have tried but haven’t earned a spot in my cupboard.

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