Teleidoscope

Fri, Dec 29, 2006

Tea and Gadgets

Posted at 11:01 am MST to Technology

I'm snowed in again by the new storm. I should probably be careful where I surf on the web: last week when I was snowed in I ended up ordering some high-tech tea gadgets I don't really need. They arrived during the lull in the snow, so I may try them out this afternoon.

When Whole Foods first opened in Boulder, they used to carry lots of different teas from The Republic of Tea, both loose teas, which are really very good, and tea bags, which are really very lame. More recently Whole Foods have tended to stock mostly the tea bags, especially for the herbal teas and decaf varieties, which are the ones I'm supposed to drink.

I've ordered teas and equipment directly from The Republic of Tea in the past, so I'm on their email list even though it has been four years since I ordered anything. (The ship-to address attached to my account was still the corporate housing address in Oregon, which I left at Thanksgiving 2002.) Last week, while checking my ISP's spam filters for false positives, I found an ad from The Republic of Tea so I spent some time browsing thier web-site.

I ended up ordering a half dozen tins of tea: several of my favorites and a few new ones that looked interesting. I also browsed their tea equipment and my inner geek took over. In addition to various imported teapots from japan and China, Republic of Tea sells Bodum tea presses and other Bodum tea equipment. I bought a pair of hand-blown tea glasses that don't need handles because they are double-walled, and a tea trivet/warmer with a place to put a tea-light candle to its proper use, and a high-end Bodum Tea Press that is all glass and stainless steel.

A Tea press is a teapot equipped with a central brewing basket with solid sides at the bottom, and a plunger. When your tea has brewed long enough, you use the plunger to squeeze the leaves down into the bottom section, where they are trapped and no longer able to affect the brewed tea.

I have an older Bodum tea press in my corp-housing equipment stash that has plastic handles and plastic brewing basket, etc. It works well, but after a while the basket has gotten stained and dingy looking, and I always hesitate to run it through the dishwasher, which is probably what it needs. The new one with the metal brewing basket, which I'll keep for home use, is dishwasher safe.

I also got out a box I had been hoarding of Sassafras Tea, which the local King Soopers used to carry until a year or so ago, and searched for it online. It turns out that I could order the boxes of teabags through Amazon. But I also found another source, San Francisco Bay Coffee Company, which offers the loose tea as well as the teabags, in 4 ounce packages or by the pound. That order did not arrive before I got snowed in again, but at least I can drink my last rootbeer teabags knowing that I will soon have more sassafras tea available.

I love the internet.

permanent link || trackback || 0 comments || Add a comment