Opening Tea Tins! (Help!)
Hi everyone!
So, I just got my first order from Adagio, with all of these adorable little sampler tins and I’m squealing all over the place!
But these tins are so darned hard to open, and I’m terribly afraid of spilling my tea all over the place (this nearly happened when I opened my Irish Breakfast!). Do you guys have any tips or techniques for opening tea tins without a tea explosion? These little guys are packed to the brim, and I don’t want to lose a single leaf or bud!
Thanks in advance!
I ask the hubby to do it. Hehe!
Kidding – sort of. I typically have to wiggle the little lid for a bit to ease it off without spraying tea everywhere. Nails can be beneficial to the process (but can also hurt if you aren’t careful). But ultimately slow lifting of one side, then the other tends to work best. Some of those little so-and-sos can be tight!
Have fun with your first loose leaf!!!!! YAY!
I do the wiggly too. It also depends on what’s in them. Some of the additives makes the edge of the tin and the lid a bit sticky so they’re harder to open. I’m not sure if it’s just because I got used to it, but it seems like mine got a little easier to open over time.
The only down side to that is most men have larger hands which can make opening a tiny tin like that even more hard. I have SMALL hands (size 3 ring finger) and even I have a hard time. I don’t have finger nails, I wonder if that’d make it easier?
Ditto on what Auggy says. Their lids aren’t on super tight all of the time, but sometimes you’ve got to give it a good wiggle. I’ve got a metal file that I stick in the side and work around the edges sometimes, and that can help tremendously, but it also has to be done with some care.
All I know has already been said. Wiggle ‘em. After the first couple of uses they become much easier to open and close :) I love those tins, they’re so cute and handy!
Whoo! The wiggle technique works! Thanks so much, lovelies! :D Before I read this, I was sort of doing the “pry one side open until KABOOM” technique, which was not working.
If anyone is curious about what I ordered from Adagio… I picked up the IngenuiTEA because I had heard from a friend that it was a great beginner-ish teapot thinger. As for the rest, I figured I’d try the loose leaf versions of some of the bagged teas I’ve already tried. That way I could make a great comparison between the two, and see really what I was missing with loose leaf!
I have:
English Breakfast
Irish Breakfast
Earl Grey Bravo
Yunnan Jig
Peppermint
Chamomile (for my mom, and the $1 sampler was too good to pass up)
Decaf Ceylon
Gunpowder
Nothing TOO exciting yet. It’s all very basic. I’m excited about the gunpowder, because it’s going to be my first loose leaf green, and I’ve never tried it before. I’ve heard it’s smokey and interesting. Plus the shape of it is really intriguing me.
I just went through and sniffed everything like a psycho, or like a kid that hasn’t had candy in years. And let me tell you, it smells SO much better than bagged teas. It’s ridiculous. So much fresher and cleaner and… tea-like.
I probably won’t be able to get in a cup today until way later. :( Thanksgiving has me super-busy, and I probably shouldn’t be typing this out here right now, but I’m just so damn excited! :D :D
Whoo! Stay tuned! Golden Moon sampler is due to be at my house by Monday!
THE INGENUITEA IS THE SHIZZ.
Sounds like you’ve got some good stuff to work your way through! Enjoy the Thankgivinsanity!
Yay! I can’t wait to see what you think of the loose! I love their Irish Breakfast – soooo good!
And ditto to what takgoti says – Ingenuitea is awesome. I keep it at work for my emergency tea sessions and have given three of them as gifts. Very nifty!
It is amazing, but I HATE that it’s plastic. I’d much rather steep my tea in glass, but sadly I can’t find one… :(
Seeing as I use a teaspoon to hand when I’m getting the tea out of the pot, I just use the other end of the spoon to prise off the lid. Never too difficult!
My only advice would just be to go very slow. Open it in stages rotating it so you lift each corner a little at a time and evenly.
I have to admit to not being an advocate of tea tins in tea packaging. I find it difficult to bring myself to throw them away (or even to recycle them). Since I have a hard time throwing them out, I tend to keep them in the pantry for god knows what.
I don’t even consider them necessarily to be a good value – they must cost more than cheap foil bags, or vacuum packed bags (which are just as good when properly sealed) and the customer pays the cost for them = more expensive tea.
In the end, when you drink as much tea as we do in my household, we actually avoid buying tea (for personal consumption, not for the professional tastings we do) from companies that package using tea tins. I don’t need anymore of them standing around, and I’ve long run out of alternate uses for them.
Peter
—Editor
http://leafboxtea.com
They save me lol. The 1st time I buy any tea I buy it in the smallest amount possible. I have over 30 teas in my stash, can you imagine if they’d all be 4oz tins? lol. I also prefer them over bags because there’s no chance of them crushing. Great for taking your favorite teas w/ you when you travel. Although I do have more than I’ll ever need.
My family saves up tea tins and coffee canisters and other hot drink tins for the purposes of packaging gifts. They’re very useful for packaging stuffed animals (assuming they are smaller) and other soft things for wrapping.
I just read this oooooold thread and laughed at cofftea’s comment about his 30+ teas. I’ve been getting a lot of samples lately and just organized the newest ones into twelve 3-oz tins, I have about 25 tins of various sizes now, with 6 empty ones waiting for new occupants. Oh, what to buy next???
I need to stop letting myself buy tea if I don’t have empty tins. I live in a dorm. I have ~20 tins. I have ~60 teas. NO ONE NEEDS THIS MUCH.
Prying with a spoon handle. That’s what I sometimes do :-)
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