Tea and working freelance
Hello. I’m new here, so I don’t know if this particular issue has been discussed. I work, mostly at night, as a legal proofreader. What that means is that my time is booked through various agencies; I show up, sit down and get to work for anything from 4-16 hours. It’s common for me to work 8-12 hours. Since I’m not a permanent worker, I don’t carry a teapot. While I work at one office fairly often (usually several times a week) temps are not allowed to leave anything anywhere. I’m also at the mercy of whatever water heater is available (usually a Flavia or Keurig machine), and while sometimes I bring my own tea, I usually drink coffee because the on site tea is usually execrable. I do have a double-ended tea brewer/bottle that I found on eBay. I love it.
I’m looking to hear from other tea lovers in similar positions to find out how you handle getting your daily cuppa. For instance, I’m booked for three days straight at the same company this week, so I might actually bring and leave a small teapot and mug. I’m hoping to work 12 hours each day, so I’ll need my tea. Besides, when one works that many hours, one needs to be cozy.
So, any thoughts, recommendations or war stories? Do you bring you own sugar packets/honey straws? Do you bring a small container of Battenburg cakes and cookies? Do you treat yourself to your own version of elevenses at 11pm? I’ve been tempted to bring in a whole tiny cooler bag of afternoon tea goodies just for the fun of it since I hardly ever get to see much daylight. So far as I know, I’m almost always the only tea drinker on shift, or at least the only one who seems to care about these things when working where I do.
How about a Timolino?
http://steepster.com/teas/teaware/28999-timolino
It has a stash for loose leaf tea, and an infuser. Keeps the tea hot for hours as well. Depending on the temp of the water you have available green teas might be your best option.
I usually bring sample sizes of loose tea in little zip locks (either tea I’ve swapped or I put my own tea in a little bag.) and then I use a travel cup with a “big basket” infuser from Republic of Tea. Depending on the tea, sometimes I’ll bring a creamer and some sweetener. Not ideal but doable when on the go :-)
When I’m out of my office, I’ll typically use a timolino or other infuser mug with sample size teas that I bring myself. Sometimes I’ll end up using tea bags, but I always brings ones I got from Harney or some other source better than the ones in the office.
I sometimes do make up my own teabags and bring them with. I have the T-Free tea bottle/infuser and I use that. A few places I’ve worked at have Tazo or Twinings, so I usually take a few extra bags since it’s easier to carry something that’s pre packaged. I’ve also been making display teas in the T-free with the filter out, but the container doesn’t allow them to be seen in their full glory.
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