This lucky tea owl got to participate in a traveling tea box!
A traveling tea box is a tea package full of tea goodies pass-mailed around. Whatever tea you take out or sample, you replace with teas you own, then you mail the box to the next person. Of course, these boxes take quite a bit of organization to pull off and trust that they don’t get lost. Some tea boxes are shipped around the world! This particular one I participated in was for US only, to save on shipping costs.
There are a couple travelling tea boxes going around on Steepster, but I’ve also seen them on other tea communities and even one on Ravelry (a knitting/crochet community).
Anyways, this tea box in particular started on the east coast of the US, made its way across the country, then south to me. After I’m finished with the box it will be heading east again.
Opening the box – boom! Massive tea smells! Everything was packed very nicely, but I was so excited that I ruffled through the teas before I realized I should of taken a picture first.
Owly is very impressed with the box! He helped me dig out all the teas.
Let’s drink the tea! I counted all the teas – about 80! Holy cow! Also checked to see there are 20 unflavored teas. It was like having access to someone’s entire stash of tea.
I spent the afternoon with the kettle on, sniffing each bag, sorting ones I want to sample and drinking tea.
What was really cool about the Traveling Tea box (in no particular order)
1. I loved seeing and being able to try local tea products – tea companies I never heard of or don’t have access to. I’ve never seen this tea seller before:
Whoa, I think this tea is from the Zoomdweebie tea bar! FYI, they got a crowd funding campaign to bring back the teabar.
2. Sampling teas from places that I didn’t know carried loose leaf tea. OMG IKEA tea! I love IKEA, in fact, all these teas are covering my IKEA kitchen island.
3. Seeing personal favorite teas that makes me happy to know others love them too.
PHATTY CAKE! Owly stole this one for himself. He was annoyed the packaging didn’t have an owls on it though.
4. Since I order most of my tea online these days, I really miss out on being able to smell teas before buying. (maybe that is a good thing as I figure I’d buy more tea.) I found a few teas that appealed to me smell wise to sample, that I wouldn’t of normally purchased.
5. Encountering weird tea that I didn’t know about. What the???
6. Finding REALLY WEIRD local tea blends. Yes, this needed its own separate point. A black tea blend with peach, tomato and sage.
It was surprisingly not bad. I think it was the tomato. This one is staying with me
7. I also got to sample some fantastic pu’er that I now need to buy.
8. Drinking so much tea you get a jittery, yet mellow caffeine high.
First day, I was jittering all over the place. Days later of increased tea consumption made me really mellow. I remember a day I walked into brazilian jiujitsu class feeling way too mellow and relaxed. I was too nice for competitive sparring, but so relaxed that no one could beat me.
Owly got really tea drunk and passed out.
The entire traveling tea box experience was lots of fun and I will probably sign up for other tea boxes. If you want to participate, be sure to check out Steepster and other sites and participate in the community. From what I can tell, some tea boxes prefer people that are active in the community in hopes they don’t lose the tea box (as it has happened before!)
Anyways, I’ve drank what I wanted out of the box so it is time for me to send it back. I’ve packed up the box really nice.
And picked out some teas from my own collection to replace what I drank out of the tea box.
Hmmm, I think I should add more, I drank a lot of tea!
