'Tis the Season for Tea

Well come on, you didn’t think I couldn’t end the year without one more post about tea could you?  As the title states, it would be quite hard not to.  The cabinet that Joan and I dedicate to tea which is normally on the brink of overflowing has now finally reached its brink.  I got so much tea for Christmas that I don’t know where to store it all.

Some of the problem though actually goes back to my birthday at the end of October.  My in-laws gave me a small 20 oz Bee House teapot that I had been wanting for some time.  I needed a smaller pot for when I make puerhs or green teas.  Second, Joan gave me a membership to TeaSource’s “Tea of the Month Club.”  Basically, I get a free (well free to me) 4 oz package of tea every month.  Whereas they normally send the tea to club members, we live so close that we just go there every month.  So no longer do I just want to go to TeaSource every month, but now I actually need to go there.

 Birthday tea...

That then brings us to Christmas.  I might as well just simply list where we got all the tea from.  First, Joan and I got a $20 gift card for TeaSource from some friends of ours who live in Wisconsin (which we used when I had to go in for my December “tea of the month”).  Second, I got a package of tea from one of my sisters via our sibling Secret Santa gift exchange.  Then we also received more tea in the mail from some other friends from Chicago.  Fourth, I received some tea from an aunt and uncle of Joan’s.  Lastly, my brother-in-law Pete gave me another gift card to TeaSource (which I’ll just have to use in January).  Oh wait, I also got a book on tea as well, The Story of Tea.

 

 and all the tea from Christmas.

I couldn’t begin to describe all the various kinds of tea I received.  They’re all great tea though – which does make a very difficult decision when I want to brew a pot or a cup.  Even with sometimes making multiple large pots of tea a day, I think we’ll be bursting with tea through next summer.

I will mention this though.  Since getting the “Tea of the Month” membership I’ve discovered that I do actually like green tea.  In November I used my membership for a gunpowder green tea which I do enjoy.  However for my December tea I got Houjicha, a green tea that unlike most green tea is actually roasted.  It’s not black like a black tea, but lightly browned.  It gives a hearty roasted quality to the green tea flavor.  While Grand Keemun is still my favorite black tea, Houjicha is now my favorite green.

And lastly (I think this is it anyway) if you’re a chai lover, you haven’t really had a great chai until you’ve had one from TeaSource.  You can get them fresh from their Twin Cities locations, but luckily they also provide the recipe and the ingredients for sale.  From the TeaSource you basically by two things: their chai spice mix and their Breakfast Assam tea.  Mix 1 tablespoon of the spice mix with one can of sweetened condensed milk.  Let this rest in the refrigerator overnight.  Then just brew yourself a cup of the Breakfast Assam tea and add one tablespoon of the chai spice goop (TeaSource even uses that word in their own instructions) to the tea and stir.  Trust me it’s AMAZING.  Blows any other chai out of the water.  In fact you should be buying the chai spice and Breakfast Assam tea right now!  It’s that good people!!!

Mmmm... chai goop...