2019: How much will you spend on tea this year?
2017: $1,857.95
2018: $717.91
I have gotten better with my spending over the years which is good. Now I am focusing on sipdowns and trying to drink up the older blends (which is almost all my teas that are now over a year old). I have no spending goals but I do have a limited budget so hopefully in 2019 I spend even less than what I spent in 2018.
January: $40.26 CAD
Lupicia: $27.50 USD = $40.26 CAD
GRAND TOTAL: $40.26 CAD
Your jump between 2017 and 2018 is really impressive! I think that speaks volumes of your sipdown goals and what 2019 can bring! :-)
@Mastress Alita – I think I realized in 2018 that I bought way too much tea in 2017 and needed to get my cupboard under control. Hopefully I can keep up the sipdowns and tea drinking in 2019 without getting bored and seeking out 1000 new teas. Haha.
And @Roswell Strange, you work for a tea company in a tea lab. I think you having a lot of tea makes sense. We can just call it research.
I have never kept track, but my guess is I spend $750-1000.00 yearly, which includes tea wear.
2016 & 2017 about $1000
2018 $828
Goals for 2019:
1. Sip down older teas.
2. At least try all pu’erh in my house.
3. Keep White2Tea club – a lot of cool stuff comes in it.
4. Overall tea budget – $1000. Minus White2Tea club ($360) leaves $640.
January
Lupicia $65.50
Mountain Stream Tea $50
Little Woods $20
Mountain Stream Tea $20
February
Little Woods $24 (work tea restock)
April
Little Woods $14 (work tea)
May
Mandala Tea $85
June
Mountain Stream Tea $52
July
$0
August
White2Tea $325 (-$100 Holiday money) = $225
September
Midwest Teafest $140 total
- Single Origins $34
- Emilie’s Fine Tea (Damann Freres) $7
- Shang Tea $68
- Jing Si Tea $14
- The Tea Smith $7
- Nepal Tea $10
November
White2 Tea $104.70
Bitterleaf $75.15
Mountain Stream Teas $77.35
Beautiful Taiwan Tea $38.48
Grand Total $991.18
I think I’m doing pretty well this year. Just made my first major purchase since January and I’m making progress in drinking down my cupboard.
August – I need to work on the pu’er more. Currently failing at goal #2. I need to work on this. I do have a bunch of single serving dragonballs… Making progress on goal #1
8/25 – I broke and bought from White2Tea (free shipping!) which almost put me over. I have the MidWest Teafest coming up in September which will.
9/10 – Officially over budget and my tea count has skyrocketed.
Black Friday sales what can I say?
I’m done ordering tea for the year. Overall total (including tea club) $1351.18
1. I’m still acquiring tea faster than I’m drinking it. Tea club is bad for that. I’ve made some progress on the really old teas. I did make it through a lot of the teas – heavy roast oolongs and such that I don’t like.
2. Puers still in progress. Been drinking a couple of shous lately. Found that if I drink shengs at a lower temperature I like them better i.e. less bitterness.
3. Keeping the tea club.
4. Over budget. I bought a lot of white tea.
5. Tea count still stalled at about 250 (still have several tea to put into spreadsheet) true count probably higher.
I’m really focusing on sipdowns this year and getting my cupboard under control, so ideally I would spend nothing, but allowing for things like my cousin in Japan getting Lupicia for me while he’s over there, maybe sales or closures, I will set a contingency budget of £100.
Like many of you, I dropped the ball on tea spending in 2018 and still have lots of older teas to finish. Case in point: I just had a 2016 Chou Shi King of Duck Sh*t Dancong from Yunnan Sourcing that tasted like faint florals and regret. I want to sip down my pricy dancongs and Taiwanese high-mountain oolongs before they disappear.
My goal for 2019 is not to spend anything on tea until May or June and then limit myself to $600 CAD. (I’m already eyeing some winter oolongs from Tillerman, so we’ll see how that goes.)
Edit: Well, I managed to restrain myself from buying tea for the first half of 2019, but not so much for the second.
June:
Floating Leaves: $35 USD (blind oolong tasting sets)
What-Cha: $113.86 USD
July:
Chaozhou Tea Growers Dan Congs: $20 USD
August:
Lochan Tea Ltd: $40 USD (lots of second flush Darjeelings)
Taiwan Tea Crafts: $63.79 USD (spring oolongs)
September:
Mountain Stream Teas: $30 USD (100 grams of fall Li Shan, plus a honey oolong)
November:
Beautiful Taiwan Tea: $90 USD (wood-fired teapot)
December:
White2Tea: $37.45 USD (Black/white Dan Congs, plus a couple black teas and my first ripe puer)
Teakruthi: $26.91 CAD
Thetea.pl: $112.95 USD (Bug-bitten, high-mountain, and Hong Shui oolongs)
Yunnan Sourcing: $62.71 USD (inexpensive black teas to tide me over until spring 2020)
Even though I haven’t acquired nearly as much tea as in previous years, my cupboard is far from empty. Still, I’m tempted by TTC’s winter oolongs … The struggle continues!
The reviews of Tillerman’s offerings have been positive and I’m interested in trying them, but I have to finish my winter 2017 oolongs before buying more tea! This might mean waiting till the spring catalogue is out. I look forward to reading your comments!
OOOH this sounds like a chalenge.
So far in January
29.90 USD – Yunnan Sourcing
22.00 USD – Mandala Tea
49.00 USD – Adagio Teas
13.75 USD – Adagio Teas
I’m getting a bunch from Adagio Teas because they seem to have cheapo versions of high quality teas. I’ve been trying their cheapo versions, picking ones I like, then graduating to high quality. Like how I tried Adagio “Golden Monkey” then put in an order to YS for Bai Lin Gong Fu. We shall see how well that works out for me.
I’m trying to keep my tea budget fairly reasonable this year. I know, in recent years, I’ve definitely spent north of $600 and I have a cupboard full of canisters and samples to prove it. Going to do my best to drink down as much as I can.
I did sign up for a tea subscription to Sipsby. Definitely worth the price so far in my mind. Also, the hubby and I have made a little resolution to try a new tea date once a month for 2019. Looking forward to diving deeper into Chicago tea culture. Taking those two things into consideration, I’ll set a budget of about $250 for the year.
My goal is to stop buying from the same few places whenever there’s a sale. I have my eye on a few new (to me) tea brands, and I hope to prioritize trying those once I’ve finished the mountain of tea in my house. I hope to keep spending near $300.
Whoops, it’s August and I’ve passed my goal spending. But since I manage to keep my stash relatively small and fresh, I think I’ll forgive myself (;
I did much better in 2018 than in previous years. Tea purchases totaled $346 and teaware only $58. Forcing myself to sip down some of my stash helped and I mostly stuck to tried and true favorites.
I’ve already racked up $82 in tea purchases this year with my Taiwan Sourcing and Yuuki-Cha orders. Still aiming to keep my total below $500 in 2019. I’ve been coveting a Jade Leaf hand made shiboridashi for a while now. I’ll buy it if that’s ever back in stock, otherwise I don’t see too many big teaware purchases down the road.
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