What are your tea goals?
While I have liked tea, I’ve never loved it like I do now, especially seeing how loose leaf trumps tea bags everyday. I’ve been converted. I can’t go back to tea bags!
But, anyway:
- Try a tea in each category
- Never go over $10 for a tea tin (I’ve learned that glass jars are just as good)
- Discover and use Internet sellers with great reputations.
- Invest in a tea kettle that’s cute but durable.
- Convert my mother into drinking one or two cups per day. She’s a coffee addict.
- One or two cups of hot tea a day and at least 40 oz. of iced tea daily.
- Get over my anxiety about black tea (I think it’s the caffeine intake and the strength of the tea itself that’s freaking me out.)
That’s it for now. : )
For the black tea bit, try using slightly cooler water and steeping for a bit less. The cooler water (I steep mine in 195F ish water, about what I use for my oolongs) will pull out less of the caffeine, making the cup less astringent. And starting with a shorter steep will let you play with how you like it to taste. Just a thought! :)
If you keep your tea in a cupboard, glass jars are fine. Or you can dip the outsides of the jars in paint – maybe that bake-on stuff? It’s the light you want to avoid.
Lots of my teas are in glass jars, in the cupboard. I’m finding I prefer the jars to tins. Mostly because I like to have lots of variety but small amounts. :)
Thanks for your replies! I really appreciate them and I will use them! I bought some glass jars today. I can’t wait to use them.
I’ve been using glass too since I found a bunch of half pint (might be pint) jelly canning jars in my Mom’s attic. Since I don’t have the cabinet space and keep my tea stuff on a shelf over my sink, I ended up painting the outsides with a couple layers of cheap craft paint I got at Joanne fabrics.
I tried both a regular acrylic paint (which isn’t meant to use on glass) and a gloss acrylic (which you’re supposed to use on glass).
The gloss came out, well, glossy and smooth feeling, though with a dry tackyness. Not wet, but if I leave it sitting for a few minutes and then pick it up, it sounds like it’s unsticking from the tabletop. I keep waiting for the paint to peel away everytime I pick one up.
The regular acrylic dried with a powdery kinda feel and wanted to chip easily. I solved that by painting a layer of modge podge I had left lying around from another project. It came out with fine grooves from the brush, but it’s smooth and doesn’t seem to want to chip anymore. As an added bonus it also doesn’t have the same strange tacky/stickyness the gloss acrylic has. I’m actually planning on painting a layer over those to see if it gets rid of the stickyness.
Just thought I’d share if you ever wanted to/planned on painting your jars. Lol.
My only issue was that I wanted metal screw top lids (essentially canning lids) that were all one piece. Unfortunately the only ones I’ve so far been able to find have been plastic. So I had to superglue the lid to the rim to make it one piece. They’re working for now, but I wish I could find something better.
Hey Shadowfall, here you go: http://www.fillmorecontainer.com/Single-Piece-Canning-Lid-G70-Gold-Button-P276.aspx
Shadowfall, thanks. I never considered painting them. Off to my nearest craft shop!
ShayneBear, thanks to you as well!
I never steep my black teas more than 7-8 seconds for the first steep. Otherwise I too find them too strong.
I use mason jars too, but painted with chalkboard paint so I can write what’s in them and change it when I need to :)
This worked for me: http://www.amazon.com/Rust-Oleum-206540-Chalkboard-Brush-On-30-Ounce/dp/B0006BAEI6
I have a new goal, to discover new tea vendors online and create a list of those who offer shipping at reasonable prices to Australia.
Get better organized at marking what tea I use when I make a pitcher of iced tea. I often have 2-4 pitchers going at any one time. I brought in a big thermos of tea today that I just love, and I can’t recall what tea I used to brew the iced tea!
i’ve totally been having this problem too! at any given time there might be 2 or 3 mason jars of various tea in the fridge plus my takeya pitcher, and i was labeling them at first but i got lazy and now i’ll have one that’s been steeping towards the back of the shelf for a couple days and be like “whoa this is amazing, what is this?!” and of course i have no idea. ack!
Adding yet another goal to my list. I’ve rediscovered a mature camellia sinensis plant in my parent’s garden and want to have a go at harvesting my own tea in the spring. I’m not expecting great results but it sounds like it would be fun/educational.
That is so awesome! You will have to let us know the results. Do you know how they ended up with a camellia sinensis plant?
My current Tea Goals for July:
1 Drink each of my teas at least once this month. There’s currently 308, LOL, but I drank 11 today!
2 Try to sip some of them down or maybe give some away so that I don’t have quite so many!
3 Make sure Sil has as many teas as I have, mwuahahahahahahaha!
:D
OK…..
But I am mailing your new box today. Let me know if there was anything special I was suppose to put in it
Don’t feel too bad about the size of your collection. My collection (tea only, not including tins/teaware)is worth more than my horse, horse’s tack, horse’s cart, and my car, combined……
Lol @ #3. And here I was thinking I have alot of teas at 138, and about half of those are ones I’m planning on getting rid of in swaps or something. How do you people do it? Where do you keep it all? I can’t even imagine having that much. Not to mention I have a hard enough time deciding what to drink with the teas I have. Lol.
Admittedly, I have tea all over the place, LOL.
I have one of those corner kitchen cabinets full: black teas on the bottom, flavored blacks & greens on 2nd, herbs & tisanes on the top shelf.
Then I have a free standing 4 shelf thing with various boxes filled with various themes: whites, roasted oolongs, TOMC, TOMCR, etc
And a row of tea trade boxes, currently on top of the radiator in the dining room (I can put them there since we’re not using heat right now).
And my Puer collection…on the 2nd floor in my office
I AM counting all teas, including samples
Shadow-mine is all contained in my tea bookcase. It was only when I got up past 300 that I started to feel overwhelmed. It doesn’t take up nearly as much room as you’d think because its not all 2+ ounces or anything :)
When I had 250+ teas, I would say over half of them were 2-5 cup samples and so they all fit together in one drawer. Doesn’t take up a lot of space. Now that I’m down to 123 (woo!), my tea collection is made up of a larger percentage of sizeable amounts of tea. Which of course makes sipdowns that much harder!
Yesterday one of my students gave me a 4 shelf bookcase with glass doors, 54" tall, 34" wide, 16" deep. As soon as I figure out where to put it, somewhere in the dining room, it will hold a mix of teas & tea paraphernalia. :)
To drink one tea, for the rest of my life, and grow in my enjoyment for that tea.
I like this idea. I wouldn’t want to drink ONLY one tea, but it would be great to have one (or 3 or 4, being realistic) reliable go-to tea(s) that I would always have on hand and drink at least several times a week.
I could never narrow it down to one tea, but if I had to narrow it down to one category, it would be Black, without a doubt!
I think it would be really interesting with a complex tea that ages well, to see how your experience of the tea changes as you both age together. It sounds quite poetic.
Personally I live to try new things. I have a few that I always come back to but am always exploring.
I highly doubt I could even narrow down to just 1 type of tea….I’m too much of a variety hound!
Just had to revive this thread…to much fun.To be really present when I drink my tea, not to be so distracted. So, to be mindful and grateful with every sip, each cup…but not to be all intense about it, just a gentle intention.
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