The Tea Collection
One of my favorite things to do when a visitor is at my home, is to offer them a cup of tea. It sounds like a normal thing to offer a guest, but there’s an ulterior motive which is not to make sure everyone is properly hydrated, even though that is important. It’s really so I can act out this little sequence. First, I’ll put on the kettle and ask what kind of tea they’d like. Then I add “Maybe you should just come pick one out yourself”. When they’re close enough to see, I open the tea drawer with a dramatic flourish, like a magician’s assistant in a sparkly unitard. If I’m lucky, my guest will be the accommodating type and I’ll get a lot of oooohs and ahhhhhhs. Once someone even said “Gawd damn, that’s a amazing tea drawer!” and I not so humbly agreed. Actually I’m pretty sure I yelled back at them “I know!, right?!” The thing is, it’s not a fancy tea drawer. It’s just well stocked and well organized. There are options from all decaffeinated flavor categories that are sold as individually wrapped tea bags. There’s milk teas, like earl grey, chai, and Teccino; various chamomile combos (vanilla cham is my favorite); a range of citrus and floral teas, heavy on the peaches; stress relievers and immunity boosters, obviously; a big section for mint; your ginger and digestive aids, and a green tea option for my mom. Me and the youngest do not agree on whether dandelion belongs with the milk teas or digestives since it’s technically good for tummies, but much more drinkable with a splash of milk. He wins because when I cleaned out the drawer for this article, I had way more space in the milk tea section, and no room left next to the gingers, which highlights an important point about organizing; systems that are made to be adaptable are easier to manage.
This post isn’t only about tea. It’s also a celebration of weird little hyper organized collections that make people happy and how fun it is to show them off. I’m lucky to have one drawer that’s just the right size to hold nothing but tea, and the amount of tea I own is restricted by the size of the space I have to store it, which is another tenet of organizing. Choose your storage spot and cull your collection down to fit. Following that one practice can keep a happy collection from turning into a distressing problem. I will never claim to be a minimalist because I also believe It’s absolutely okay if the things in your collection aren’t useful. Ironically, I only drink one kind of tea 95% of the time, but when I want something else, I need options. One of my kids is also a same-tea-every-cup kind of person, but the other one likes to be surprised, god bless him. Supposedly, tea expires in roughly 6-12 months, but that doesn’t mean it’s unsafe to consume. Your brew might taste a little stale or have weakened health benefits (relatively speaking). I try to keep a dessert tea in stock called Glazed Lemon Loaf, but after too long the loose tea bag turns into a solid little block, clearly past its prime. Airtight containers are the way to go if you want optimum freshness, but ease of access is higher up on my values list, and my tea drawer wouldn’t be as impressive if you couldn’t see all the bags lined up, flavor coordinated. To keep them organized in the drawer, I keep them in the boxes they came in, or at least the ones I had on hand when I first designated this drawer for tea. Considering the cardboard boxes were made to hold tea bags, it seemed unnecessary to go out and buy something to hold tea bags. Using boxes from the recycling is my favorite (and cheapest) way to organize small objects. If you tetris them into a drawer or larger box snugly, you won’t even see the sides.
In the spirit of the monthly purge, I cleaned out any tea I suspected was older than two years, which freed up space and meant I got to buy more tea. Cheers to small, hyper organized collections!