2016: How Much will you spend on tea this year?
I spent $564 in 2015 October- December alone! Oops…lol I was building my cupboard back up.
My goal is to spend $550 total for 2016—that’s $45/month (something that should be reasonable ;p).
Not including teaware.
January $46.50
- Cuppa’ T————$32
- GCTTB5————$14.50
February $75.50
- DAVIDsTEA—-$59.50
- Cuppa’T————-$16
March $59.75
- DAVIDsTEA——-$41
- Zen Tea—————$18.75
April $0
May $46
- DAVIDsTEA———$22
- Damn Fine Tea—-$24
June $16
- DAVIDsTEA———$16
October $49
- GCTTB 6&swap—$26
- DAVIDsTEA———-$23
November $152
- Whispering pines—$111
- A Quarter to Tea—-$41
I worked out how much I spent on tea in the past six months.
It scared me into working out just how much tea I have – it’s got to be close to 10 kilos, which is almost a year’s supply if I go through about 30g a day, which is about my average.
So the order I put in this morning will be my last until at least 80% of my present stash is gone, which should be sometime around Autumn.
Unless, of course, I see a really, really good tea that I just have to drink or die.
Ha, I know – sometimes I wonder if so much tea could be bad for me. Today was an exceptional day because I’m off work – 4 different black teas from the Discovery series of What-cha, an aged shou mei from the White2Tea teaclub, an assam silver needles, Teavivre’s bailin gongfu (2 pots of this, om nom nom), and I’m just about to start on my second pot of gaba oolong from Taiwan Sourcing – so today I’ve gone through about 50g. Apparently here in the UK we go through more tea per person than anywhere but Ireland and Turkey, and I figure that if I can keep my consumption up, we can deffo get the top spot by the end of the year :)
What style of brewing do you do? Do you not do multiple infusions? 30g seems like an exceptionally high amount!
Here’s a day I brewed 70g: https://www.instagram.com/p/9ANhVFxYKK/
Another heavy’ish day: https://www.instagram.com/p/6a2BH0RYKn/
Taste testing Dian Hong: https://www.instagram.com/p/5sktHzxYEc/
Taste testing white: https://www.instagram.com/p/6gCir2RYB6/
Trying my new kettle: https://www.instagram.com/p/7WeTHtRYH5/
Both on separate days of the same week:
https://www.instagram.com/p/5UpNL_xYGw/
https://www.instagram.com/p/5CV54aRYB5/
These are photograph representation of what others do as well; I know for a fact I’m not the only one who brews up 30g to 70g a day without realizing how much was just used because it’s normal.
I do multiple short-ish steeps, not quite gongfu style, but not quite western either.
When you break it down, it’s not really a terribly high amount – I have a couple of pots of black tea with breakfast before I go to work, which is about 5-8g for each pot depending on the tea, and I get about three steeps out of each – so, yes, I have 6 cups of tea with breakfast, but my black tea teapots are 150ml and 200ml – so not the smallest cups in the world, but not like starbucks sized monsters. Then either before work or straight after I get home, I have a gaiwan (70-80ml) that I steep some green tea in – and I use about 3-5g depending on the tea, steep the tea 6 times (but usually combine 3 steeps in a small mug, so its two smallish mugs of around 200ml) – I do that with a two or three mostly greens and sometimes whites, then in the evening/night I have 2 or 3 pots of GABA oolong, using about 5-10g for each pot and resteeping about 6-8 times – but I’m sharing the evening tea with my housemate so I get about 3 or 4 150-200ml cups for each pot.
So black tea in the morning is 10-15g, green and white teas are about 10g, and then anything from 10-20g for the evening oolong, so very roughly 30g a day.
On weekends I have time for extra teas here and there, so I suppose I average more than 30g – but I should add that drinking so much tea is a recent thing, about 6 months or so, since I started buying lots of sample sizes, so wanted to fit in an extra pot or gaiwan of tea here and there, and then if I find a tea I love, I get a decent sized stash and go nuts for it for a couple of weeks.
Last years totals: $350 on tea and $130 on teaware. This year I hope to stick to my original budget of $240 on tea, and I’m only planning on purchasing fresh Spring greens and MAYBE a black friday sale. My goal will be $50 for teaware; though I have everything I need at this point, I can’t guarantee that something won’t grab onto my heart!
January – $32.75
-Whispering Pines Tea order – $32.75
February – $29.55
-Shui xian sampler pack, aliexpress Hello Teatime! – 5.90
-A Quarter to Tea Black teas for breakfast – 23.65
March – $47.64, $10.30 teaware
-TTB shipping – 11.64
-Yunnan Sourcing fresh Spring greens + 2x 50ml gaiwans – 46.30
April – $40.00 + $60.00 teaware
-O-Cha fresh Spring Japanese greens – 40.00
-teaware.house order – 41.64
-aliexpress cha hai – 18.86
May – 8.00
-Lupicia golden honeydew with Dinosara – 8.00
June – 68.54
-Formocha oolongs etc. – 30.00
-aliexpress emergency kyusu – 8.54
-Dammann freres with Dinosara – 30 ish?
Wooo! Frontloading my tea expenses! One more group buy going out and then I’m cut off! No more teaware until next year, and no more tea until November!
I don’t know how much I spent last year. This year I have made a spreadsheet for it. I told myself that $50 a month seems reasonable. My Whispering Pines order a few days ago just put me right around $70 for January… oy. I foresee this being harder than I expected.
I’ve never tracked the amount of money I spend on tea before, and I’ve started a spreadsheet for 2016. I’m hoping that I don’t spend over $1000 this year, but we’ll see how that goes. I was doing really well until I went to the Toronto Tea Festival this morning…oh well.
Thanks for starting this thread, Sil!
My spending has gotten out of control lately and I’m broker than usual, so the name of the game this year is austerity. I need to be about enjoying what I have rather than amassing ever more stuff. To that end, the goal is to spend half of what I spent last year, which was $961.50. So the goal is: $480.75
January total: $61.75
Lupicia: $37.00
DavidsTea: $24.75
February total: $50.00
Ching Ching Cha: $50.00
March total: $59.00
Tea Mandala Coasters: $25.00
DavidsTea (lip balm): $10.00
Chatime (bubble tea): $24.00
April total: $46.00
eBay: $18.00
Chatime (bubble tea): $20.00
Den’s Tea: $8.00
May total: $48.00
WP: $6.00
Japanese grocery store: $12.00
Chatime: $30.00
June total: $99.38
T2: $30.00
Pique: $17.38
Chatime Station: $52.00
July total: $38.52
Gong Cha: $4.63
Te Company: $23.89
Chatime Station: $10.00
August total:$68.02
Radiance Tea House: $43.02
Chatime Station: $25.00
Tea Ave: $23.58
September total: $28.40
Crimson Lotus Tea: $28.40
October total: $66.65
Two for the Pot: $16.00
Davidstea: $50.65
November total: $142.50
Philadelphia Coffee & Tea Festival: $112.00
DavidsTea: $5.00
August Uncommon: $25.50
December total: $26.53
Japanese Tea Class: $15.00
DavidsTea: $11.53
2016 Total: $734.75
Summary: Although I did not stick to my goal, I did spend $200 less than the previous year. I started spending more money on bubble tea and tea houses and less money on loose leaf. The biggest expenditure, again, was the coffee and tea festival.
January:
Zen Tea – $22.35
February:
Libretea – $33.09
Verdant tea – $58.48
Silk Road – $20.00
March:
EsGreen – $50.09
Teavana – $7.50
IDES Tea – $13.05
Yunnan Sourcing – $67.59
April:
DavidsTea – $13.14
Dragon Tea House – $28.26
May:
ESGreen – $32.35
Daoist Meditation – $26.74
June:
Verdant tea – $6.67
Yunnan Sourcing (Mostly teaware) – $60.64
Verdant tea – $18.70
July – $0
August –
Verdant tea – $35
Chinese tea shop in Vancouver – $33
TREASURE GREEN tea co – $25
September:
Vahdam Teas – $27
Verdant Tea – $43.78
Stash Sale – $61
Chayo Tea – $40.55
October:
O5 tea – $41
Chinese Tea Shop – $45.03
King Tea – $23.99
Yunnan Sourcing – $88.00 .. oops
Crimson lotus – $8.30
also bought a nixing teapot from YS ~ $125
November:
White2tea – $22
Verdant – $55.09
Bitterleaf Teas – $135
Wan Ling Tea House – $74.39
December:
Liquid Proust – $55.37
Jalam Tea – $22.00
Yunnan Sourcing – $77.95
Floating Leaves tea – $40
2016 total: $1537.10
Well, I went pretty overboard on tea spending in January. My goal was $500 for the year, but at the end of January, if you include purchases, the tea festival, and shipping for swaps, I spent over $200! Here’s the damage:
David’s Tea -$49.45
Canada Post – Shipping for swap – $9.50
Bitter Leaf Teas flash sale – $38.02
Canada Post – Shipping for swap – $13.14
Chaiwala Masala Chai (Toronto Tea Festival) – $8.00
Samadhi Tea House (Toronto Tea Festival) – $5.00
Secret Teatime (Toronto Tea Festival) – $65.00
Momo Tea (Toronto Tea Festival) – $20.00
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