Tea Spree

Friday is a good day for confessions, is it not? Regardless, I must confess to my most recent indiscretion – a tea shopping spree.

Here’s the thing – Yixingware is expensive, or expensive to me, anyways. If you could get a nice Yixing pot normally priced at $36.95 for $18.47 (yes - a full 50% off), wouldn’t you go for that? And if you found two Yixing pots for $18.47 each, thus getting two pots for the price of one, wouldn’t you take advantage of that? Yep, so that’s what I did. It was a three-day only sale through the Teas, Etc. newsletter (for subscribers only – go sign up!), so it’s not like I could just wait, either. A sale like that doesn’t come along often, so I felt I had to jump on it right then. So I went to their site, and nabbed a large black plum pot, and a smaller yellow cranes pot for myself.

But wait! There’s more!

Along with that sale, another offer allowed me free shipping with an order of $50 or more. So rather than just pay for priority mail on my $36.95 order, I had to order a couple of teas as well, to take advantage of the free shipping offer. Teas that I will never use in my Yixing pots, because they are flavored. Teas that should be rather tasty: Raspberry Twist, and Ginger Peach. Unfortunately, had I just paid for the shipping, I’d have gotten my order much more quickly – it won’t be here until next week, because apparently their free shipping equals FedEx rather than priority mail. But I can live, I suppose.

Of course, after I ordered those two fabulous Yixing pots, I had to take stock of what I had, and decide which teas the new pots would be seasoned for. I already have 3 Yixing pots seasoned for Irish Breakfast, raw puerh and cooked puerh. So I decided that the black plum pot will be seasoned for my organic bohea, and the yellow cranes will be seasoned for Yunnan (gold/jig).

With that decided, I concluded that since I was ordering *anyways*, I may as well order a refill for my recently depleted stock of Yunnan Jig. So I placed an order from Adagio for that, as well as a sample of their Mambo blend and a lapsong sample. I figure I like the Bohea, may as well try some newer lapsongs now. Perhaps my tastes have changed to enjoy them? And Adagio’s teas are more subtle than many, so I figured it would be a good place to start.

I also noticed that my container of Irish Breakfast was getting low. Can’t have that with such a good, everyday tea! But I’ve decided I prefer Stash’s IB to Adagio (Stash’s blend is a bit stronger), so I placed an order from Stash as well, for 100g Irish Breakfast and a nice tin for it, and a smaller amount of Doomni Est. Golden Tipped Assam (which just sounded yummy and malty, though we’ll see). And as I was looking through the site, I spotted a lovely Cobalt Blue Yixing set consisting of one teapot and two cups. In a fit of impulsiveness, I added it to my shopping cart, and quickly checked out. I haven’t decided what tea the cobalt set will be seasoned for yet. Possibly the Organic Nilgiri that I really enjoy.

So now I have three new Yixing pots on their way, and several more teas. I think I may have a little problem…though I’ve managed to stop there this time, and not go…uh…overboard.

Tomorrow’s project: I need to rearrange the tea cabinet again, and the teaware cupboard to make room for these new additions.