Gushing over tea-related gifts!

I don’t get to see what I got until tomorrow morning, but I strongly suspect that a particular box under the tree is a Harney & Sons giftbox. ;)

A friend of mine who’s a huge tea lover was moving to Victoria in the middle of this month and I sent her on her way with a cute little bamboo giftbox from Numi Tea that had the entire collection of their bagged teas.

I got my aunt an IngenuiTEA as well (the green sampler) as well as some other samples. I know she got me some tea (she told me when we were at Fava Tea Co. not to buy too much), but she forgot my gift. I’ll get it soon though.

http://www.adagio.com/teaware/ingenuiTEA_teapot.html $19 for the teapot alone.
Mine actually came from thinkgeek http://www.thinkgeek.com/interests/moms/96bb/

The gift set is normally $27, on sale for $19. It’s only listed under Gifts, not Teaware which means you basically have to know about it in order to find it:
http://www.adagio.com/gifts/holiday_ingenuiTEA.html?SID=cd4ab2de254223afab6c5670c36d8ae5

I received one tin full of tea from my daughter, and two from my son. All are TeaFountain brand. A Darjeeling TGFOP 2009 Vintage Himalaya , a Darjeeling Rohini Estate extra rare FTGFOP 1st flush, and a Darjeeling Upper Namring Estate FTGFOP 2nd flush Limited Editon. I’m stumped as to what to brew first :).

I got 1oz of Adagio’s white cucumber (bought from my local tea shop, not Adago) and an herbal sore throat soother as well as a $20 Fava Tea Co. gift card. My aunt must not have known I had an 8oz tin of cucumber almost 3/4 full.

I got a Mighty Leaf gift set with the new Tea Top brew mug and Orange Dulce tea, then I got some Tea Forte. I know nothing about the Tea Forte, but I guess I’ll be trying them out to see!

AH! TEA AVALANCHE AT TEAPLZ’S HOUSE!

Seriously! My mom took away my Harney & Sons order, and my TeaGschwendner order, so those both ended up under the tree for Christmas (14 samples of Harney +4 freebie bags, and 8 bags of loose leaf of TG +1 freebie sample).

Then the boyfriend surprised me with that dessert sampler that was featured on Art of Tea that I was craving for weeks (!!). So another 4 teas there.

Needless to say, I was drowning in tea!

I actually didn’t give any tea, because nobody is into it, so that’d be a pretty bad gift.

This is the first year that people apparently noticed I like tea, so I got tons! Got a utiliTEA kettle and Adagio black sampler from my mom; I was surprised that there were 2 blacks in there that I hadn’t tried yet (English and Irish Breakfast). Got 2 oz. of Teavana Golden Monkey from my sister’s boyfriend. Got 2 oz. each of Monk’s Blend and Quangzhou Milk Oolong from an importer in Pittsburgh from my dad. And then I had a Rishi order arrive on Christmas Eve with five new teas to try. Today is all about sitting at home, watching the snow fall, and trying as many as I can!

I sent my mom a PersonaliTea porcelain teapot from Adagio, plus tins of Ceylon Sonata and Irish breakfast tea, plus Adagio’s holiday sampler, cause she’s more into flavored teas than I am.

I got the Harney & Sons Guide to Tea (so far, excellent!), and a tea leaf reading cup and book called the Cup of Destiny!!! I haven’t tried to read my leaves yet, but the cup is very beautiful :)

I gave one tea related gift to a friend – I embroidered a tea towel that I dyed with tea with the words “Tea Time” and a tea cup, and I also included a tin of Harney & Sons Kenilworth OP. She seemed to like it!