My Mediterranean Atlantic cruise was a 12 day trip with a day or two on each end for travelling and time zone craziness. Previous cruises I brought simply a travel tea tumbler to do grandpa style, along with a double walled stainless steel tumbler to double as hot water storage for tea or ice water for non-tea use. I’d often use the travel tea tumbler as a pseudo teapot. I found after a couple of days I got really bored with grandpa style and cold brew tea, so for this trip, I brought a teapot.
I looked for a few weeks for the perfect travel set up. I wanted a teapot rather than a gaiwan for ease of use and no need to bring a filter. After not finding something the right size, I ended up bringing a Taiwan Tea Crafts clay teapot. I sort of had it assigned for heicha, but didn’t use it much. The clay doesn’t seem too porous and I simply didn’t care. It was the only teapot I could think of that was inexpensive loss if it got broken, a comfortable volume, and looked nice. For cup, I brought a Mountain Stream Tea’s double-walled stainless steel cup. This cup is lightweight, not hot to drink from, and feels indestructible. The only con of this cup and teapot combo was I either needed a bigger cup or smaller pot, as I was constantly having to underfill the teapot. Other items I packed was a coaster and a tea towel, which were both incredibly handy in not making a huge mess. A pitcher/waste bowl would have been a great addition, but I got by borrowing an extra mug for rinse dumping. What worked well was wrapping my teapot in a tea towel, putting my setup in a locking Tupperware container. Later in the day I would wash the towel and let everything air dry in my cabin.
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With all this teaware, I needed my own tea. Cruise ships still have crap tea. They are trying but my owl tea snootery has greatly outpaced them years and years ago. The main tea selection on a cruise ship is bagged Liptons, Twinnings, and Bigelow, and I can pay $2-$3 a cup for the “luxury” Mighty Leaf tea bags. Some cruises I’ve been on offer loose leaf but for upwards to $8 a serving. For all those prices, I could bring some good puer, white, or oolong tea from home. I brought 520 grams of my own tea. With uncertain water, I always go for teas that can tolerate flexible steep times and temperatures such as shous and oolongs. Because I’m a caffeine junkie and will experience mighty jet lag, I brought 30 grams worth of matcha. This case, all Pique Tea’s Sun Goddess Matcha as it is prepackaged into servings.
I would start my day hitting the breakfast buffet and snagging a light breakfast. With my breakfast, I wake up with a shot of matcha.
I fill up my stainless steel tumbler with hot water and head for a spot to have tea. There aren’t too many 5-6am jetlagged US west coasters on board wandering around the ship, so I had my pick of prime tea drinking spots. One day I had tea at an empty bar. Another time in the piazza. My main spot was a nightclub that overlooked the back of the ship. I would have 2-3 gongfu sessions while I knit, watched downloaded Netflix shows, eating buffet food, and during the knitting circle group.
I am kicking myself not bringing a teapot sooner on a cruise – it works really well. I had good tea with this little teapot and it never got boring as I had brewing options.
It seemed excessive to bring an entire puer cake, Crimson Lotus Tea’s 2018 Beneath an Emerald Sea, but I felt it was a good sailing theme tea.
2018 Beneath an Emerald Sea is a fine tea to slop lower or higher temperatures. I found taking a whole cake turned out well as it was space efficient and sturdy. I did not bring a puer knife, I did fine breaking pieces of tea off with my fingers or a butter knife.
I noticed no ill effects using a variety of teas in this clay teapot as it isn’t that porous, and no particular tea was used long term. As a surprise, my pot responded well to White2Tea’s Milan Dancong, so this might be a dancong pot. In the end, I drank 233 grams of the tea I brought.
In the late afternoon, when I wasn’t eating gelato in whatever city I was in, I did the cruise ship afternoon tea. I love the sitdown afternoon tea as there is live music and the staff bring trays of mini sandwiches, cakes, hot scones, and cookies. Of course, I brought my tea set up to afternoon tea and I would sit for 45 minutes grazing on my plate of mini treats and drinking tea.
I didn’t have too many sea days, but when we did the cruise ship does their best to have things for you to do. I was content sitting around the boat drinking tea all morning, but in the afternoon was I busy shopping and doing cruise activities. We did a flower crown class which the owls enjoyed.
There was also a watercolour class.
I’m stuck with Princess Cruise line as the food is just something else. Their food is really good and is presented fancy. Tea Owls do love their Prime Rib (they consider that payment for all the work they do) and we got two Prime Rib nights! We also had a Beef Wellington, Lobster, and NY steak nights. Here’s a random assortment of food I ate.
And the best meal, the dessert.
In the end, I had a great cruise. There was something relaxing about sitting on a big boat, eating good food nonstop and drinking tea without my phone beeping constantly.
I have a detailed post about all the cities I visited and things I bought during this cruise here.
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