A Day In the Life of A Part-Time Tea Blogger

This post might seem kinda boring or mundane to some people (okay, most) but I like the everyday routine things we do in life and I think those things are important and should have their due. I decided to chronicle all the tea I drink on a typical weekday and add it all up at the end.

Can I even call myself a tea blogger when I have made precisely zero dollars on this hobby to date? It feels weird calling myself that, but tea enthusiast just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

I started with some cold brewed Colombian black tea, which was made with the spent leaves from the prior night’s session. Because these leaves are spent, I don’t assign a dollar value to this cup. I put about 500 ml in my travel mug and off I go to my super exciting day job as an accountant.

I drink the cold brewed tea at 8:00 am. At 10:00 I will go to make my second cup of tea. I have a small stash of tea at my office and I usually pick one of those to be the office tea of that day. Today I picked Fairhope Oolong from Alabama. I have written about this tea here if you want to know more about it. I typically use about 4 grams in a basket brewer and brew the same leaves three or four times. Today was three times.

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This tea was $15 for 3.4 oz. (95 grams) so 4 grams of this tea comes to about $.63 worth of leaf. Not bad for three cups. This concludes office tea for the day. Now to home.

I won’t drink any more tea until after the kids are in bed, which is about 8:00 pm. This is when I like to do a gong fu session of higher quality leaves and take my time really enjoying the experience or learning something new.

Today was a little bit unique as far as the evening gong fu sessions go. I did something that I have been wanting to do for a long time: a double fire session. What’s a double fire session, you ask? Smoky Lapsang Souchong next to a fire. Smoky Lapsang is my tea. I have never written about it, but I will some day. I am worried I won’t be able to do it justice so I have shied away. But to borrow a phrase from Camellia’s Treaty, It is The Tea That Chose Me. She is good, you should read her stuff.

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The double fire session was well… fire. I love this tea and I love sitting next to fires, so it was pretty great. This tea is from Path of Cha and sells for $9.00 for 25 grams. I used the last of the bag which was about 3 grams. That comes to $1.08. I had 7 infusions of 100 ml each.

I focus on money and price a lot more than most people, but I am an accountant as mentioned above. I am very frugal by nature as well but I will spend money on good tea if it is a good value or is just exceptional quality or exceptionally rare. I break it down for you so you don’t have to. I like to think I’m doing some sort of service by doing that, anyway.

So what’s the total for the day? I had a total of 11 servings of tea for $1.71 worth of leaf. How’s that for value? Consider if you went to a coffee shop and ordered a tea, they would give you a tea bag in hot water that you then have to pull out yourself and charge you $3.00 for it if not more. I would also say that all the tea I had today is better quality and better tasting than that bag of tea you would get at a shop. Something to consider.

I would love to hear more about everyone else’s typical day of tea drinking. This stuff fascinates me more than it probably should. Cheers!