Confessions of a Tea Junkie

I admit it. I'm a tea addict. Want to see the extent of my addiction? Take a gander at my "tea station"...

Here we have a crammed-full cabinet of various loose tea in airtight bags, a few tea bags for desperate circumstances like camping, as well as coffee and creamers for guests. On the counter sits a mug of freshly brewed genmai (japanese green tea), my electric tea kettle, an infuser waiting for it's second infusion of genmai, and my spoon for measuring out loose dry tea leaves.Even worse: I'm also a tea snob. I don't do teabags. When we went camping, I really "roughed it" by using Tazo teabags. But at home, it must be fine quality (or better) loose leaf tea.

I wasn't always a tea junkie. I'm a Georgia girl; for me, tea was always iced, and sweet as syrup. And it went well with ANY meal. Of course, if biscuits and/or cornbread were involved, it was even better. There's nothing wrong with that... I still drink my share of sweet iced tea, particularly when a family get-together is involved. But several years ago, I went to a baby shower at a lovely little tea house near here called Tea Leaves & Thyme. It was all so cute, and the mismatched china and fancy teapots and accessories were just right up my alley in the decorating department. And the scones this place makes!!! OH. MY. GOSH. I am absolutely convinced that heaven has a tea room and it is full of these little bitty scones with plenty of lemon curd and ammaretto-flavored whipped cream. If you live anywhere near here, you MUST go there. So it began innocently enough. I just thought it would be cute to get a little teapot. Maybe some vintage teacups. See... it would all go with the decor of my cute little kitchen:
So I did a little research on how to make a proper cup of tea. From there, I discovered some of the amazing health benefits of tea. And the plethora of adorable tea-making paraphenalia. I now have all kinds of teapots, from tradional English teapots, to my cast-iron Tetsubin Japanese teapot, to a lovely Chinese Yixing clay teapot (a 30th birthday gift from my dear friend Lisa). I'll hold back on the lesson on teapots for now, but Yixing teapots are awesome!!! But because I drink 4 to 6 mugs of hot tea every day, fishing the tea leaves out of there gets kind of annoying. So mostly, I just use a plastic infuser to brew it right in my mug. And most of my teapots just serve to make me smile by looking cute on my shelves, alongside my cookbooks and various cups and glasses.Now, allow me to introduce one of my very best friends:
♥ My electric tea kettle. ♥
I LOVE this thing. My Australian neighbor, who has tea-time every day (I love that!), has one, and I liked it. So my mom got me this for Christmas. This is probably THE best gift I ever got! Certainly the most used! Just fill 'er up (with filtered water, of course, so as not to throw off the taste of my tea!) push the button, and in a matter of seconds, it's ready to pour. Aaaaah, tea. I think I'll go make a cup now. Have a wonderful day!