Hello, 2023! This year marks 11 years of Oolong Owl tea terror – a continuing case study of a tea hoarder and tea guzzling addict. Every year, since 2015 I have posted how much tea I own and drank. I’ve kept up with my tea stash spreadsheet, though it is in dire need of inventory to ensure the numbers are correct.
2022 was eventful and busy for my personal life. I lost 50 lbs (then gained some back over the winter holidays) and struggled with a few health issues. My life was busy with many non-blog tea and non-tea projects. The 4 rabbits I have, Benson, Lucien, Tira, and Aoife, are a handful and need daily special care.
Template of my Tea Stash Spreadsheet!
Save a copy and start keeping track of your stash. I highly suggest tracking your tea stash before it gets out of control! Spreadsheets are forever, flexible, and unitaskers – you’ll never be at the mercy of an app or website.
This is the method I used to track my personal tea consumption.
Previous Years
2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021
Oolong Owl’s 2022 Tea Stash
The majority of the tea acquired was from monthly tea clubs and they are out of control. When I did purchase tea, it was entire cakes or bricks.
My stash ratios stayed the same but slowly grew in oolong and sheng puer from all the monthly club teas. Then I hit Advent Calendar Season. I had three advent calendars – Bird and Blend Matcha and two Vahdam ones – which jumped my stash count. Now the tea stash numbers are the highest it has ever been! Yikes!
Oolong Owl’s 2022 Tea Consumption
I kept tracking my daily drinking until October… then it fell apart as I was in a spinning wheel competition and got way too busy. I was looking at the numbers, and I was drinking more or less the same as I have always been – around 15 to 17 grams of tea a day, just over 500 grams a month, or 6 kilos a year.
I have truly set a tea routine of gongfu in the morning (4-7g), Matcha afternoon (2-3g) or black tea (8-12g), afternoon gongfu (8-15g), and sometimes an evening herbal tisane (2-5g). If I deviate too much, things get ugly.
Either way, it is a good thing to know how much tea you drink to keep your buying habits in check or know how much to buy for sales or harvest season. I slightly dented my stash as I didn’t buy as much as I drank, despite the stash count going up.
What tea types I drank changed in 2022. I seem to have consumed a lot less sheng puer. My tastes went heavy on matcha, hongcha, shou puer, and heicha. Since I made big changes to my diet, I think my tea habits adjusted to it. Matcha has always been my pre-workout, and I like making milk tea protein drinks. Sheng and some oolongs tend to make me hungry so I drank less of those. My body seems to really enjoy shou in the morning. Life stresses commands I get messed up on Fu brick. My white tea and oolong stash are currently on “forget about it so it ages” status.
I cannot open the shou pumidor, bad things happen.
2023 Tea Goals
Slowing Down on Ongoing Monthly Tea Boxes – this will be hard as it is regular easy content, but I am buried in tea and spend a lot on tea clubs. It is time I pull the plug on all of them. I may step in and out on interesting ones, but I won’t be consistently keeping up with them. Having two clubs is a lot of tea. Without tea clubs, I still have enough tea stash review content for years.
Downsize and Reorganize – I feel like this every year – I have too much tea. I would like more space in my tea room. If I don’t do it soon, my rabbit Lucien will do it for me. This jerk loves getting into my tea shelves.
Tea Articles – I feel like I want to do this every year, but with less review content. Removing clubs will kick my butt to do fewer reviews and other things. I feel I’ve opened many avenues and have been active for a long time so I can take a few risks.
I still hold onto keeping my writing bias-free and without tea vendor interference, even though that makes me less money. If you enjoy my work, there is the option to throw some tea bucks at Oolong Owl Kofi (one-time donation or monthly option) to help with hosting costs.
