How do you organize your teas?

Firstly, I have a Spreadsheet on my laptop that’s sorted by tea company, alphabetically. Under each company name I list all of the teas I own from that company by tea type (and then highlight each type of tea using a different colour). That way I can quickly skim through my spreadsheet for either certain companies or tea types – anything like that.

In addition, next to each tea on my spreadsheet is a ‘rating’. Either “N/A” (meaning I’ve yet to try it), Don’t Restock, Restock, or Unsure. From there, I also mark down whether it’s Bagged, A sample size/amount, In a Tin, or Not in a Tin. This plays into how I store it.

For the actual storage, I have a fancy chest with many teabag sized compartments that I keep all my individually wrapped teabags in. Anytime I want a bagged tea, I know to look in there. All my matcha is kept on a shelf in the freezer, regardless of what amount I have of it. So for matcha, I just automatically search there.

All my tea in tins is kept in a large closet in our living room – grouped by tea type. I also use the DAVIDsTEA store tins since they’re coloured and allow me to quickly see what kind of tea each grouping is. Any tea not in tins but in bags that can stand upright are also kept in the same groupings (those are the ones marked “No Tin” in my spreadsheet). The exception here is about 10 to 20 tea bags/tins that I keep in a kitchen cupboard for immediate consumption. I rotate those out with the closet teas every week or two weeks.

For the teas in the spreadsheet marked “Samples” (which aren’t Matcha, since those are always in the freezer), I keep about 10 to 20 (similar to tins/bags) in a drawer in the kitchen for immediate consumption as well. These can be things that are close to being sipdowns, that I’d just like to try, or whatever the case may be. The rest are sorted into large ziploc bags by tea type (clearly labelled, of course) which are kept in the back of the closet where the rest of the tea is. This system allows me to find any tea I could possibly want to drink within minutes.

Example 1: I want Della Terra’s Cinnamon Bun. Since it’s marked a black tea in a tin I would first check the kitchen cupboard. Since there are so few teas in it, it would be quick to know whether it’s there or not. If it isn’t, I go to the closet and find the cluster of black tea tins and just check for the right one (all clearly labelled on the outside).

Example 2: Red Leaf Tea’s Eggnog Matcha… Well, all matcha is in the freezer, so I just look in the freezer.

Example 3: DAVIDsTEA’s Queen of Hearts, which is labelled Mate and Sample. Since it’s not in the immediate sample drawer I head to the closet and find the ziploc marked Mate. From there I can find the correctly labelled sample. It’s also marked “VariaTEA” so I know who it’s from, just like I do with (mostly) everything I’ve received from someone else.

:)

Everything’s in tins/painted mason jars that block out light. I use a shelved glass curio in our dining room, those wheeled pull-out drawers you’re talking about, and my morning staples live in stacked tins on my kitchen counter underneath my low hanging cupboards where nothing else fits.

I have a fantasy of finding (or having someone build me) a big roomy traditional looking card catalog and storing teas that way. Would be so gorgeous.

For teas I’ve yet to try and note/decide if I want more of, either from swaps or company sample sizes, I group them by type (straight black, flavored, morning blends and earl greys, oolong, green, white, no caf) in big ziploc bags and store them in a big opaque lidded Rubbermaid tub that slides under a table in the living room.

Organized chaos is how my stash is organized. I got about 200 teas. Everything is in nice tins that don’t match on a tall bookshelf.

The order goes like:
By company (ie, Butiki teas together)
By tea type (ie, straight teas)
By tea blend scent to reduce contamination (ie, mint teas together)

Teas will also be grouped in combinations of those above sections – ie 52 teas that are fruity black blends. In the event of having only a couple teas from various sellers, they’ll just be grouped by type and blend.

I also have some teas in their own tin that are under the following conditions:
Quarantined. They will stink up my entire stash! ie, Lupicia’s King of Fruits
Super favorites that deserve their own tin. ie, Mandalas’ milk oolong
Teas that came with their own tin.

I also have one special tin, “The Slush Tin” – I dislike these teas. They get unloaded on friends. There is also is a giant jar that I put all my packaged tea bags in.

Tins are grouped, sort of. Most of my herbals are in one corner of the bookshelf. My favorite teas tend to be on the left, probably because I’m left handed.

I also have a number of large tins as my “haven’t opened yet” teas, divided by tea company and tea type. They are also sorted by “to be reviewed soon for Oolong Owl”

Oh. and all my pu’er is separated by raw or ripe, in boxes, in my dresser.

PS. None of these tins are labelled. Unless the tea came in a tin with a label on it and that tea is still in said tin. Sometimes I never remove the old label as I need the tin asap and like to confuse myself.

PSS. I somehow remember where everything is, though once I hit 200, I lose track or can’t find a certain tea sometimes. I blame multiple tins that look similar and I need to go paint or modpodge the tins. I will sometimes blame my tea owls moving my tins out of order.

You probably don’t want to follow my model.

All shoved on a shelf in my tea cupboard. Some in tins, some in zips. Matcha double sealed in zips in the freezer. I don’t maintain a large tea library though – if my shelf starts getting too crowded I drink or share it down before getting more tea.

Not to sound glib, but our teas go into glass or ceramic jars with no labels. My rationale:
- If I have so much tea, that I don’t know what I have, then I’ll never drink it all before the less memorable ones go bad.
- If a tea gets forgotten about, it probably deserved to be.
- If I can’t tell what a tea is by looking and/or smelling, then I don’t deserve it.
- My pu-erh goes in a different place, which is what I mostly drink anyway.

Even though tea is a religion in our house, it is rare that we have more than 10 different varieties at any given time (excluding my pu-erh collection). In fact, if we get more than about a half-dozen, we start to get rid of some in one way or another.

I’ve never understood the drive to have countless varieties – unless you don’t mind drinking stale tea. On the other hand, our bookshelves are lined with books we’ve never read … another thing I don’t understand.

I keep two varieties of pu-erh opened most of the time as my daily staple. Also, a couple of oolongs, a red, and a white or green. One or two other “easy” teas for company, and that’s all I’ve ever felt the need to keep around.

That’s our personal habit. Of course, we manage inventory a bit differently.

The only tea I own is from David’s, and I buy a sampler bag first (about 20g or less) to decide if I like it and a tin if I do. So I’ve got 25 tins of tea in a drawer. Grouped by tea type with a coloured piece of paper taped to the lid (so I can see what type when I first open my desk drawer). I don’t feel the need to have more than 25 different types of tea at home, either, so I group them the same way. Same type of tea goes together on the shelf, label always facing out.

I drink a lot of tea in a day, but not enough not to have tea go bad if I have so much I forget about what I have. I’m like Brent above: if a tea is forgotten about, there’s a reason. And I, too, don’t like drinking stale tea.

Wow, roswell, that’s some intense organization you’ve got going there!

But seriously, I don’t have nearly enough space to really feel as though I can be organized (look at me making excuses). I have two shelves of a unit in the kitchen, and my tea is all kind of just jammed into place. It doesn’t really make much sense, so I just fumble and bumble about until I find what I’m looking for. At least my samples are stored in a basket separate from the tin collection.

I keep my teas in tins in three kitchen drawers. I like to go in sort of random order so I don’t have them sorted as well as some of you . I also don’t have as many teas and most of mine are herbal. I do have out of season and teas I don’t like very much elsewhere.

I also use a spreadsheet after reading about everyone else’s. I have several tabs – one is in-stock teas, one is for teas that I’ve finished but want to keep a record of, and another is incoming so I can keep track of orders I’ve placed.

For each tea I keep track of the company, name, type, date I rec’d it (so I drink tea before it gets stale!) who gave it to me (if anyone), who I promised some to (if anyone), a rating, whether I’d re-stock it or not and then a column for notes. I also have a column for estimated quantity in oz so I can track how much tea i have roughly by quantity AND by total weight (i.e, I have 150 teas and roughly 151 oz of tea). Then I put that in a another tab of my sheet so I can look at how my stash has grown over time and how quickly. It can be humbling/terrifying.

As for the tea itself, my storage changes depending on the types of teas I currently have in stock. I only have 3 narrow shelves at home so I occasionally have to shuffle things around a bit, but right now I have:
-one shelf full of herbal/rooibos/honeybush
-one shelf of flavoured tea,
-and one shelf of non-flavoured tea.

On each of those shelves I display my tins, or line up my foil bags (like all my flavoured Butiki bags in a nice little line). I also have tins that I stuff all my little samples in on each shelf so I can rummage through for my smaller samples. AND I also have two sipdown boxes – one for herbals and one for caffeinated teas.

It works surprisingly well, and considering I have 150 teas, I can find anything I want rather quickly! And with the spreadsheet I can make sure I don’t re-order somethng I wasn’t wowed by I wish it were as easy to look up my reviews on Steepster but I like the control I have with my spreadsheet.

I tend to buy tea in 4 oz lots, and keep the bags in three large boxes in a spare bedroom. I put tea from these bags into small 1 oz tins that come from EnjoyingTea.com or Art of Tea, plus plastic medicine bottles. These go in the kitchen, in small wooden trays, along with a couple of dozen samples and a scale. This gives me a total of about 70 teas (out of 175) that I have easy access to in the kitchen. I rotate the samples frequently for variety. The tins hold my favorites, though I sometimes vary these as well. A few large tins keep my everyday teas.

I also use a spreadsheet to keep track of my teas. The first page is for tasting notes; I start a new sheet every year. The next is a summary page that has all of my teas, but it is sorted by tea type (Darjeeling, Keemun, Oolong, Decaf, Flavored, etc.) A third page keeps track of my favorite teas and plans purchases. I also have tabs for about half a dozen of my favorite tea companies, tracking teas I want to order in the future but also with a record of past purchases. I also have pages to track travelling tea boxes and swaps.