My Tea Corner

This is my tea corner.  Someone on Reddit asked to see it so I figured I would write about it on here too.  As you can see it is very messy, though I did straighten things up a little bit.  And for the record, this is not all the tea.  This is the "everyday" tea.  There are dozens of bags of tea and herbs on a shelf on the other side of the kitchen too.  They are a combination of tea, cooking, and herbal remedy supplies.  I keep the dehydrator and my soap making supplies over there too. You do not need to see it. Very messy.

I'm not a fancy sort of person. I have an $8 electric kettle and a cheap tea pot.  The pot is the fuzzy knitted thing on the right. Yes, I use a tea cozy, and I love it.  My tea stays hot for hours in it's little sweater, knitted by my sister-in-law.

I have a combination of bags and loose-leaf, but I prefer the loose leaf on most occasions. My favorite is black tea, especially chai.  I like black tea with sugar, and I'm pretty fond of milk in my tea.  I like green tea with floral notes--especially jasmine and rose.  You can see a 1lb tin of jasmine green tea that I got at a local Asian grocery store for only $6. (Asian markets are awesome for cheap and interesting tea.)  I like fruit-flavored teas. I confess one of my favorites is in teabag form: Salada's White Tea with Plum. I'm also drinking a blueberry black tea in bag form lately that is lovely. (I've been craving blueberries for weeks now...)  Herbal stuff is good too, and I like rooibos with vanilla or hazelnut flavoring. Teavana had an awesome fruit and macadamia nut rooibos, but I think it's been discontinued. :(

Other top favorites for me:
Davidson's Chai
Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose Festival Green Tea (This smells AMAZING)

I make a lot of my own tea blends, sometimes going as far as dehydrating my own fruit to put in them.  (There's a tub of dehydrated orange slices in there somewhere.)  I start with a plain tea base and add herbs, spices, fruit, and flavorings to them.  It's a fun hobby.

I'm a big fan of thrifting and I like to pick up tea-related kitchen stuff.  Right now I'm very into 1950's restaurant ware--really heavy-duty tea cups and saucers.  And that nut dish with the squirrel (it's full of tea bags) is one of my most prized possessions.

This corner makes me really happy, even when it's gross. (Pretend you can't see the ring stains on the counter.)  And while I have tons of pretty cups, I almost always drink out of my Worf mug, because he reminds me of my mother. (My mom doesn't look like Worf, she just really likes Star Trek...)