finish all the tea on my tea shelf

I can barely believe it, but tonight I drank my very last cup of tea from my longtime stash. I am so pleased to be done, and I think I learned a lot more about my taste preferences in tea from all the sampling I did during this project. And after all that old stuff, now I’ll really know if fresher tea tastes better! :)

Tonight I finished off my last two tea bags, so now I’m down to only the one tin of loose tea. This means I either have to get up early enough every morning to put on some hot water before work or start drinking tea in the evenings, but it also means I’m almost at the end of this goal!

This morning I finished off the last of my tea from England – and I bought it nearly five years ago! Now I’m down to one box of tea bags and one tin of loose tea, which I think is reasonable enough to meet the goal by my challenge deadline.
I also have a tube of Crystal Light pink lemonade and powdered ice tea mix, as well as some add-to-water-bottle fruit drink powder that my husband bought for himself. Hoping to at least make a dent in that by the challenge date, too!

Used up my last two bags of green tea to brew a big pitcher of iced tea. Also used up the last drink mix we got in New Orleans (2005). Now that it’s autumn weather outside, I hope to finally finish off this goal!

The tea shelf in our kitchen was really a “drink shelf,” in that it also held some other drink mixes (think stuff like Crystal Lite, not booze). Over the weekend I mixed up a strawberry lemonade powdered mix that we got in New Orleans circa 2005(!!), and it was pretty bad… Once I wash the pitcher, we’ll try something else. It’s crazy how long we have had this stuff. Never again!

In tea news, I had two tins of loose teas – one orange and one peach – that I always combined to make an awesome tropical tea. I had used up enough of them that I just blended them together into one tin. So much for feeling like I made a dent now that it’s one full tin! ;)

I had a few bags of chai teas, which I do not enjoy but have a friend who does. I offered the tea to him, and dropped them in the mail a week ago. That’s several bags out of my life, and steps closer to finishing all this old stuff.
Despite how hot it is outside, I had a cup of hot tea this morning (loose tea from Boston – very tasty), and brewed myself a small pitcher for iced tea, now cooling. It’s all baby steps forward!

I’m probably the only person in SoCal crazy enough to drink hot tea during the summer, but I so want to finish this goal! Today I finished off a very small tin of loose tea that I’ve had since January 2005. It was a souvenir I picked up in London, more for the cute design of the tin it was in than for the tea (that was kind of a bonus, I guess). I have two more small tins of British tea left – down from four originally! – some flavored loose tea from Boston, some assorted tea bags from a friend, and a bunch of tea bags for tea that I think will make for pretty good iced tea. Compared to where I started, this is REALLY manageable.

It’s going to be 100 degrees today, and I started my morning with a cup of hot tea, but also brewed a small pitcher of iced tea for later.
Hopefully I can keep making a dent during this hot summer by having some lazy mornings and iced tea!

I finished up another box, and have my last full box of tea at work for coffee breaks. In addition, I have plenty of loose bags, and lots of loose tea. Still lots to go, but things are looking up.

When I started this, I had tea taking up over half a shelf in my petite pantry cabinet. Some of the tea was seven years old! It was ridiculous.
I can now say that if my existing teas weren’t so old (2-4 years), it would be a reasonable amount for a tea drinker to have on hand. I still want to finish all these teas so I don’t have so much OLD stuff on hand, but it’s amazing how suddenly the progress had made a dent!
I’m proud of the focus I’ve given this—to enjoy what I already had (hoarded), and save myself $2 a day on buying tea at a coffee shop!