DIY Tea Decision Maker #drinkwhatyouown

If you’re anything like me you probably have a large amount of tea in your house, yet somehow you still find yourself steeping the same two teas regularly. A large tea stash can be overwhelming when trying to decide what tea to start your day with or what tea to relax with in the afternoon. With my reoccurring #drinkwhatyouown challenge I have been trying to get better at finishing teas but also reorganizing my stash. Doing so allows me to find some teas I forgot I had in the first place! So, I decided to create something that I like to call my tea decision maker.

The Inspiration Behind the Tea Decision Maker

Over the holidays I made a tea advent calendar with teas that I already owned. I called it my #drinkwhatyouown tea advent calendar. It was a very last minute advent calendar. I made it the night before the start of it and so I just used materials that I already had in my home. I went through my tea stash, picked out 25 teas that were almost done or just suited the holidays and wrote them out on pieces of construction paper. Shuffled them up and numbered them 1-25. I cleared off my cork board and pinned them in order ready to reveal the tea of the day the next morning.

Easy peasy. Nothing fancy and you know what?

It was SO exciting! Since I shuffled them before numbering I had no idea what tea was set for what day. Every morning I was eager to flip over the piece of paper and read the tea I had to drink.

I love the idea of tea advent calendars and had quite a few in the past. But, I didn’t need anymore tea truthfully and I didn’t have time to make something quite elaborate.

This #drinkwhatyouown tea advent calendar really helped me finish off teas in my stash and best of all, I felt it improved my daily tea routine! Not once in December did I struggle to decide what tea to steep for myself or others. It was really nice to have the decision made for me. Sometimes I still drank my usual morning cup of Assam or matcha, followed by my tea of the day.

Of course, those 25 days didn’t help me drink my entire tea stash. Since I revealed each tea of the day on my Instagram stories during the advent calendar season (you can watch them in my #drinkwhatyouown story highlight) I had others join in and also ask what I was going to do after the holidays were over. That’s when I started to think that I didn’t really want my advent calendar to end. I wanted to continue this tea decision maker but without counting down to something.

A Fun & Simple Way to Decide What Tea to Steep

So, instead of using my cork board and numbering, I went back to the room where I keep my teas with just a pen, paper, scissors and a tin.

STEP ONE:

Go through your tea stash. Find teas with small amounts left first and make your way up to ones that are not even open yet. Set as much as you want aside.

STEP TWO:

Cut out strips of paper and write down the name of each tea. Be specific. Don’t just write “black tea” or “Japanese green tea”. Write “Darjeeling 2nd flush” or “Sencha”. If you have more than one, you can get even more specific and write the brand. The more specific you are, the better. This way when you randomly select a tea for the day you’re just looking for that exact tea, not wasting time deciding which sencha in your stash to drink.

STEP THREE:

Fold all of the strips of papers you wrote teas on and add them to a container of some sort. You can use a jar, Tupperware, empty tea tin, or even a teapot that you no longer use. If you can, attach a piece of paper that says “#drinkwhatyouown challenge” to the lid of your tea decision maker. I used an empty tin that used to hold a selection of tea samples. Since it is a tin, I was able to somewhat decorate it with these tea themed magnets from Tea Thoughts. I also attached my sign on the lid with the magnets.

STEP FOUR:

When you want a tea but are feeling indecisive, pull out your tea decision maker, give it a toss to mix it up, then randomly select a piece of paper. See what tea is on the paper you pulled out, find it, and make it! Repeat this step until your tea decision maker is empty. You can keep adding more teas to it as it gets lower or as you add new ones to your stash.

If you create your own tea decision maker to join my #drinkwhatyouown challenge, please use the hashtag when sharing on social media! I will be sharing some of the teas I drink thanks to my decision maker on my Instagram stories, so feel free to follow my challenge there as well.

Tea Buying Ban?

Does this challenge mean I’m not buying anymore tea? Not necessarily. That doesn’t have to be the case for you either. I simply just want to encourage myself to finish off some teas that I already own to make room for new ones! Once you finish off a handful of teas, you can reward yourself with a new tea 😉

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If you are looking for more tips on how to drink more tea (more specifically what you already own), check out this blog post here.