My big fat tea confession

Most of you know my love for tea. Tea is something that, for me, is a guaranteed pick-me-up. I drink hot tea 365 days a year. I like tea bags, loose tea, and any other tea in between. I have three teapots that I use regularly, three I use sometimes, but are mostly decoration, and then a few itty bitty decorative ones that people keep giving me because they think I like tea junk (PLEASE!!! STOP!!!). I also have a handy dandy on the go travel tea mug with a strainer built in so I can have tea whenever, wherever. And, as some of you know, the best birthday gift EVER was my hot water boiler so I can have instant hot water for tea anytime.

Today, though, I had to ask myself if I have a little bit of a tea problem.

I finished my Christmas shopping yesterday, but when I was in one of the stores, I noticed that they had a number of Republic of Tea teas that are special for the holidays. Republic of Tea is one of my favorite brands of tea. They can get pricey, although since I've started buying a lot of loose tea from tea shops, I don't have as much sticker shock over spending $9.50 for a thing of tea, especially considering I get 50 tea bags. After justifying and justifying, I bought myself a tin of tea. I decided that it would be my stocking stuffer, since I usually take care of stocking stuffers for the family.

Then today, I was reading one of my magazines and they mentioned a different tea from Republic of Tea that sounded wonderful. Well, okay, two teas. And I am very happy that I could not find them on their website, because otherwise, I may have had to buy some. Which would be very, very bad. Yes. Bad. My tea cupboard is pretty close to capacity right now, and my rule is, when the cupboard's full, I can't buy more.




This, my friends, is my tea cupboard. The top shelf actually is a pull down spice rack with three shelves FULL of tea. My blue teapot on shelf two is the one I use the most-it's my I'm alone all day drinking tea teapot. It has a nice strainer built right in. Best little teapot on the planet.

A few notable teas:
Top shelf: I actually don't like the Tazo African Red Bush tea or the Yogi Peach Detox tea. I just can't bring myself to throw away perfectly good tea. I'm allergic to the banana chamomile tea, because I'm allergic to chamomile, but I give it to my kids. The big gray box is the decaf Earl Grey I bought today because I'm drinking my last bag of it now. The white box is my current fave- Sugar Cookie by Celestial Seasonings. My kids like it too. The others are just random teas I drink in when in the mood or keep around for guests who like that kind of tea.

Middle Shelf: I mentioned the teapot. We have limited cupboard space at our house, so that's the only spot I have for it. I'm a bit resentful that I don't get to use that space for more tea. I also keep a box of Emergen-C there, and I'm not sure why. The orangish box is a nice bagged chai I stick in rice milk to trick me into thinking I can drink chai on this dairy free diet. The blue box is my Lady Grey, and I only have one bag left. I should've bought it today when I got my Earl Grey, but I thought it would be too greedy of me to buy two kinds of tea in one day. The plastic wrapped box is Red Zinger, hubby's favorite. On top of that is Tazo Lotus, which is my fave green tea. The silver bag is a lovely loose mint called Mahgreb Mint that I got at a local tea shop. Behind my teapot, I have a number of similar bags of other lovely loose teas.

Bottom Shelf: The brown bags are all assorted loose teas from local tea shops. You can see a red container of lotus seed tea that my FIL picked up for me in Cambodia. Next to it is a detox tea I like. Next to that is my favorite bagged Jasmine tea, Jasmine Pearl, made by Two Leaves and a Bud. Then there is the good old standby, Lipton, and YES, I DO drink Lipton. Next to that is some of the Traditional Medicinals tea I keep on hand for colds.

AND... behind all of the containers of tea you can see are more containers of tea. My tea cupboard is PACKED.

So how can I possibly want more? Seriously, I am a sick woman. I justify this all by saying no one ever hurt another human being under the influence of tea. Well, maybe they did, but the Surgeon General hasn't come out with a warning about it. And frankly, the more tea I drink, the less I want to hurt people. If you see me in an "I want to hurt people" mood, give me a cup of tea, and I'll calm right down.

You know, the more I look at this picture, the more I'm convinced I can fit more tea in there. I'm going to InTea on Tuesday to meet my BFF and her daughter, my daughter's BFF, so we can attend the Teddy Bear Tea. Which means I will probably bring home a bag of their tea of the day, because I can never resist. *sigh* I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but there are some green bags toward the back of the bottom shelf as well as behind the teapot on the middle shelf- those are InTea bags. If I moved my Emergen-C, which really belongs with supplements, and not tea, I'd get that box space back. And surely if I moved things in my OTHER cupboards, I could put the blue teapot somewhere else, freeing up that space, right? And if I found a good home for the icky detox and African Red bush, that would give me more room there, right?

Anyone want to come over for tea?