2019 Year of the Sipdown Challenge
February sipdown goal met! I have 10 days left to make headway on the stretch goal, too.
How’s everyone else doing?
My tea consumption has been down this month, as I’ve just been overwhelmed with some things going on right now. The stress/depression has kinda taken me away from the tea hobby a bit at the moment, so I’m not sure if I’ll make my goal this month, which was to get my count to 500 by the end of the month. I’m at 506 at the moment. On the plus side, the sipdowns I have been working on have been larger 1-2 ounce bags of the older variety, which I appreciate clearing out. I’ve had to rearrange things again so I really need to clear some more space, as I’ve inherited some teapots from my grandmother’s estate (the only thing I asked for; I just couldn’t bear the thought of them going into the estate sale, even though I don’t have the space for them). Many of the extra pieces (the sweets holder, milk container, sugar bowl, etc.) I still had to pack up in a box and put in my closet, but I at least managed to get the teapots into my cupboard. I really do have to free up more cupboard space, though! They are beautiful British-style teapots, though.
I’m sorry to hear that you’re feeling stressed and down. I have been incredibly stressed as well recently. I woke up every day last week with a headache, which I thought might have been stress-induced. Now I’m thinking it might be the Valerian I was taking to try to make me sleep better that was giving me the headaches…
I am right there with you. I’ve had so many hours taken away from me at work with no warning that it’s affected my ability to actually live my life, to the point where I would actually be better off if they had fired me. I had my first panic attack in over 2 years and I’ve been feeling like I’m not as over my depression and GAD as I thought I was. I haven’t drank any tea outside of the regular kind, partly because I’ve been too busy job-hunting and patching together my life to document any fun teas on Steepster, and partly because I completely lost my taste for 6 weeks or so there after a couple of nasty colds, a flu, sinusitis and tonsillitis. This year is not going the way I’d hoped so far!
I hope things start going better for you soon.
I’m going to easily meet my stretch goal for February. Very excited that I’ll be 2 for 2 going into March.
So my sipdown total for February was 15. Less than January (21) but it has also been a rough month for me and my tea-drinking has been down. I was actually surprised I managed even that many… I did just squeek in getting my tea count down to an even 500.
36 so far for the year. Still putting emphasis on my oldest larger bags which do take some time to work through, and when I just start getting really sick of one and need a break then I start picking off samplers/single servings. Right now teas that I remember picking up on vacations that I took quite some time ago now have been ones I’ve put at the forefront, heh.
Sounds like good progress to me! Your sipdown count is just about on par with mine for the year.
That still sounds really good! Especially if you haven’t been purchasing anything to replace them!
I’ve done no ordering! The only tea I ordered at all this year was when 52Teas had Foggy Coconut, because 52Teas… you never know when they’ll have “your favorite” in stock and will reblend and sort of have to jump on it then and not later. I also just recently placed an order with Mandala, but it was just to buy that Smart Soak cleaner, because even soaking in vinegar overnight I sometimes have trouble getting really heavy scents to want to come out of my infusers, and that is going to go with my cleaning stuff and not take up space on my tea shelving, heh.
This is going to be stupid, but I have only been drinking Tea for the last 5 months could somebody tell me what a sipdown is?
Oh then mine is only 5 for the last five months since i started drinking tea. Untill My Job starts in a couple of months I have had to use tea bags but, the machine I use has a removable filter so I just dump the tea out of the bag into it may just be me but it taste better because you do not taste the paper of the bag
I’ve had that problem before too. The brand I buy to fill with my loose leafs is biodegradable corn fiber, which don’t leave “papery” tastes in the water. I also tend to not have issues with the food-quality nylons that sachets are made out of. A lot of the cheaper paper bags in grocery store teas I will cut open and steep in a gravity well steeper because I will taste a paper or cardboard taste in my tea otherwise.
Sooooo, my life sorta went tatas up there for a while! I had some personal problems as well as health issues which affected my ability to give tea my full attention, as well as my ability to taste what I was eating and drinking. My sense of taste is almost fully back now, and my life is still falling to crap but I’ve came to terms with it, lol. I’m feeling positive and ready to make a serious dent in my stash again!
Welcome back! My last month was pretty crazy and awful and my tea-drinking suffered as a result, too. I think I’m just now starting to fall back into a somewhat normal pattern again!
Past the midline of the March goal as of tonight. Feeling optimistic I’ll at least meet my goal. And since I am taking a few days off toward the end of the month, I may even meet my stretch goal!
New March goal – get my cupboard to 325 (only 4 sipdowns, setting an easy goal to ease myself back in gently)
I really wanted to get 25 sipdowns in this month to drop my count down to 475, but that seems a bit lofty. I have gotten through 10 so far which is by no means bad. If I only focused on samplers it would be fairly easy but I’m focusing much more on “bigger” packages because that is what takes up the space and it is space I want back. Guess I’ll just have to see how it goes!
I think I need the “progress” that comes with smaller sample sipdowns in order to keep up my motivation… if I focused on larger packages, I feel like I’d lose interest because the numbers wouldn’t be changing!
The numbers don’t ultimately help my problem, clearing space does. I have no physical space in my tiny apartment for more tea right now. Drinking down the large packages actually makes space on the shelving in which I could order something and set it into that spot on the shelf, so it becomes more meaningful for me.
Somehow I managed to make my March goal… I got in 27 sipdowns and dropped my inventory total to 473! Also cleared up some space just by rebagging a lot of teas from the packaging they came in into the packaging I use for trading (I guess it’s a little more compact, or at least works a little more nicely on my shelving for space concerns!), and I plan to give away a lot of stuff that I just had way too much of a single tea (stuff that came in 100g/4 oz. bags cause I seriously can’t drink that much) which I’ll be posting sometime soonish. Taking some of the “load” out has made the shelving situation a bit better. I got through quite a few larger bags (huzzah!) as well as a decent handful of samplers.
I can only hope to aim for about the same next month, but we’ll see. I did take advantage of the five free samplers from TeaVivre which is going to set me back slightly. Currently I’ve been focusing on the oldest stuff and things I remember picking up on vacations I took some time ago and doing a general attack by company. Usually I do warm tea in the morning, iced tea in the afternoon, and an herbal in the evening, and drink samplers on the weekends. Since that seems to be working pretty well, I’ll probably continue with that.
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