A few tea-adjacent things have happened recently that I wanted to write down before they slip away.
Frieren and tea swaps
A colleague and I started watching the newest season of Frieren together. We made a little ritual out of it — screen on, subtitles on, tea on. I brought jasmine pearl, because of course I did, and she brought genmaicha, which I'd never actually tried before.
I loved it. The toasted rice gives it this nutty, almost savoury warmth that I didn't expect from a green tea. She really liked the jasmine too, so now we've basically traded favourites. I think that's how it's supposed to work — you share something you love, someone shares something back, and you both walk away richer.
Frieren is great by the way. If you haven't watched it yet, go do that. Bring tea.
You can rebrew loose leaf tea
I genuinely did not know this until embarrassingly recently. Loose leaf tea — the good stuff, not teabags — can be brewed multiple times. Some teas even get better on the second or third steep. Oolongs especially seem to open up and change character each time.
I've been treating every brew like it's disposable, throwing out leaves after one cup like some kind of barbarian. Iroh would be disappointed in me. But now I know, and my jasmine pearls are getting two or three rounds easy. It feels like discovering a cheat code for tea.
The office coffee problem
Speaking of things Iroh would disapprove of — I drink way too much coffee at work. It's not even good coffee. It's the kind of coffee that exists purely because there's a machine and it's free and the afternoon is long.
I need to start bringing my own tea to the office. A small thermos, some loose leaf, maybe one of those little infuser bottles. It would be better for me, it would taste better, and honestly it would be a nice excuse to slow down for five minutes in the middle of the day instead of just inhaling caffeine at my desk.
Adding it to the to-do list. I'll report back.