So tea lovers, what are your other interests? Do they relate to tea in any way?

Hmmm. Unlike most of you, I have lots of time on my hands. (More time than money!) I have lupus, which can knock me flat for a while but I also have good days where I can pursue my interests. So many of my hobbies are on the sedentary side so that I can do them even if I’m stuck in my recliner all day.

Start with tea: I don’t drink the same flavor twice in a day. Half the fun is picking out what I’m going to have next.

Reading: I got the Kindle when it first came out. It broke 18 months later and I immediately went out and got another one. It’s that important to me. I like some fiction and quirky nonfiction. I go to ereaderIQ for free Kindle books.

Thrift stores: On good days I go to thrift stores to buy things like craft patterns to sell on Etsy. I’m still in the beginning stages of this venture but my mom, who is an Etsy queen, is helping me out.

The other thing I have a huge variety of: Fitness DVDs! I do them when my knees allow.

Music: I play ukuklele and am taking guitar lessons.

Crocheting: That has fallen by the wayside a bit lately but I usually go in streaks.

Cooking: I have a large collection of vegan cookbooks and I like to try a new recipe each time I cook, which is not as often as I’d like. I read cookbooks from start to finish, like novels.

Napping: I LOVE NAPS.

Putzing around on the Internet: I have to admit that I’m online pretty much all day, especially when I’m homebound. I usually have three or four tabs going on my browser and I flip through them and check all my usual websites.

Critters: I’m heavily involved in animal rescue. I used to head a LARGE guinea pig rescue in Wisconsin for 10 years. We found homes for over 1,000 guinea pigs in that time.

I’m thinking of volunteering with the Literacy Council to tutor someone once a week to learn to read. That’s right in my wheelhouse since I grew up in a family of educators and I love the English language and reading.

That should be enough.

I love to read. My favorites are mysteries and classics. If it happens to be a classic that is also a mystery (think: Sherlock Holmes) then I am in heaven. Right now I’m reading Gone With the Wind which is fabulous.

Music. I could spend hours searching through Spotify for artist that are new to me, and I have a larger music collection than I probably should. I also love to sing.

I used to be a photographer, and I still love taking pictures. I think my camera is an extension of my arm!

Crochet. Every year I say I’m going to learn how to knit, but I’ve yet to do it.

I also really like to bake, especially bread and pies.

I love sipping on tea while watching movies. They compliment each other very nicely. I just recently re-watched Steven Soderbergh’s Out of Sight. I never read the novel but I thoroughly enjoyed the film.

- I enjoy collecting new knick knacks for my home. This goes really well with tea, as it often means new tea tins, cups, and pots. It has helped my tea collection slowly take over my home for the past two years.
- Some of my pen-pals and I dedicate parts of our letters to the new teas we’ve tried. That’s quite fun!
- I always serve tea at all of our regular gatherings, and it’s been fun to introduce a wider circle of friends to tea. I really love being able to predict which teas who will like. So now my hobbies of D&D and Doctor Who (since we all meet most weeks) have everyone asking for tea.

I definitely think many of my interests are related to tea, or at least in a similar manner to how I approach tea.

The first correlation is obvious: I love complex beer and mead and would love to try my hand at brewing (with tea added!). I don’t drink alcohol very often though for a number of reasons including that I am becoming less tolerant of it. I tend to gravitate toward the higher ABV ones, so often it’s one and I’m done but I love samplers/flights and have done this with Scotch as well. Really should take more notes!

Besides tasting I enjoy the ritual of tea, which is not surprising as ritual and spirituality are a large part of my identity. I belong to Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship ( www.adf.org ). I love creating and participating in seasonal rites, just as I love seasonal beer and tea and tea. Tea actually fits into my home spirituality as I use it as a daily offering.

Related to that I love researching Indo-European cultures particularly Celtic, Germanic and Baltic and more specifically Irish, Norse and Lithuanian. Mythology, folklore, art, all that good stuff! I also research my families genealogy as noted in another thread. Lot’s of ancestry, culture and research, that hunger for finding and collecting information.

I’m also an artist (painting, sculpture, ceramics and textiles) and a bit of a collector, though not as much as the husband. In addition to collecting tea tins (not old ones, I like the washi tins and really this is just from working at Teavana) my husband and I collect Department 56’s Dickens Village, only been at it a few years though.

I love beautiful objects such as statues and candle holder and love home decor. I also love less material yet still visual collections, I can spend hours making collages on the paint program and I love Pinterest.

I’m a poet/songwriter as well, though my subject matter is mostly pagan. I use songs as a praise offering in ritual to various deities, the Ancestors and Nature Spirits. I have recorded and some of these and submitted them to ADF’s podcast Tribeways.

And yes the geekery and fandom as noted on other threads. We’re Anglophiles (the toddler included, many of his favorite shows are from the UK) though it is the husband that prefers the British tea blends (he also studied Japanese culture and language in college but I can’t get him into those greens). We love Doctor Who, Sherlock and Harry Potter and I’m a big Tolkien geek.

So tea fits well into my personality which is admittedly a bit obsessive, but not in any unhealthy ways ;) I also find the scent thing others have noted interesting. I have made soaps before and would love to make incense, candles and oils. I wanted to be an aromatherapist and gypsy in middle school. And am torn between opening a tea house/bar and a pagan/Irish shop.

My passion is for nature. Forests and trees in particular. :) I am a first year Forestry student with my first goal of moving to the Pacific Northwest. I cannot wait!

I’ve always loved photography, I have about 15 cameras… and reading, I love reading books, especially about travel, Alaska, and wilderness survival.

Tea is my newest passion. :)

Agreed—just isn’t enough time to do all the nothing you want to do.

But when there is a little discretionary nothing, I am a devourer of books and lover of paper crafts (particularly card making).

My obsessions other then tea are

Makeup, I am a makeup artist so I have enough makeup to last me my life and someone elses aswell.

Nail polish I think the last time I counted I had 200 bottles. Aswell as nail art and stamping.

My animals, I have 2 dogs they are so spoiled.

And books, I try and read atleast a book a week.

Tea – Drinking and learning about it
Wine – Drinking and learning about it
Body Modification – as someone who practices it as a giver and receiver, part of the community, etc
BDSM – as a pro-Dom, as a lifestyle Dom, as a top and bottom, as part of the community
Reading – non-fiction about neuroscience, some history, human sexuality and reproduction; fiction about some sci-fi and cheesy romance novels mostly
travel – been to 16 countries and 43 states so far and plan more
Makeup – I love to do all sorts of things.. Traditional fresh-look stuff to wildly alternative and experimental looks. I have over 200 eyeshadows and two professional rolling makeup cases to fit all my stuff. Constantly learning and trying new things.

I blog about tea – so yes! I love, love, love writing; it’s my first love (sorry honey). So it’s only natural I would blog about it! If anyone has any items that are tea-related, I’d love to write a feature or post about you. I’m a former journalist, and I write in my job, but I love to help fellow tea friends promote their items. Just PM me or email me at [email protected]. I’m finally feeling better after a LONG bout of daily migraines, so I hope to get my blog back to the awesomeness it once was. ;) Please check out my blog at Keen Tea Thyme: keenteathyme.blogspot.com Thanks!! :)