Last Minute Christmas Gift for the Tea Lover: Wal Mart

One quick, and perhaps nearby, place to find a tea-related gift is Wal Mart.  The Wal Mart closest to my home carries this adorable, large capacity teapot.  It is from Wal Mart's Pioneer Woman line of products.  This 2.7 quart capacity teapot is the perfect gift for your tea lover who drinks large quantities of tea OR for someone who entertains with tea.  I fit neatly into both of those categories, so this teapot is a welcome addition to my cupboard.

Afternoon Tea at Ivory Road Cafe in Asheville, NC

I just returned home from a lovely afternoon tea at the Ivory Road Cafe & Kitchen here in Asheville, North Carolina.  This event was a collaboration between Jill Wasilewski of Ivory Road and Jessie Dean of the Asheville Tea Company.  Jill and Jessie host these afternoon teas on a regular basis. The events are always a beautiful and relaxing experience - replete with delicious food, tea, music and company.

my table set for the tea tasting

The event began with a tasting of four different seasonal tea blends from the Asheville Tea Company.  We tasted the teas and selected a favorite.  Jessie then served us each our own piping hot pot of  the tea that we had ordered.  Jill brought a selection of tea treats to each table and we then sipped and ate our way through the abundant servings.

a pot of piping hot pumkin pie chai

Jessie Dean of the Asheville Tea Company

tea and tea wares from the Asheville Tea Company

The Ivory Road Cafe & Kitchen hosts tea events on a regular basis.  I recommend that you explore them if you find yourself in the vicinity of our beautiful mountain town, Asheville, North Carolina.

Last Minute Christmas Gifts for the Tea Lover: Trader Joe's

At this point in the holiday season it seems wise to shop local.  Here in Asheville we have a big "shop local" movement.  And I do, indeed, shop at locally-owned stores and markets. However in this blog post, when I say "shop local" I mean "go in person to a brick and mortar store."

For the purpose of shopping for some last minute gifts, I popped over to our nearby Trader Joe's to see what they carry at this time of year.  I was delighted to find a number of appealing tea-related gifts.  In fact, when I came away from the store, I felt as if I had hit the last minute tea gift jackpot.  Here below are the Trader Joe's tea items that I found most appealing.

This sounds like a delicious caffeine-free winter mint blend.

I often look for tea infused chocolate to no avail.  So I was delighted to find this tea or coffee infused collection of chocolates.

This is a nicely packaged set of teas for a very reasonable price.

Tea infused mints make the perfect small gift for a tea lover.

This tea sounds like the perfect flavored black tea winter blend.

Tea Ornament Giveaway Winner

And the winner is eilandkind!  Send your snail mail address to me at

collage.art.123@gmail.com!

Tea Themed Christmas Ornament Giveaway!

Most tea themed Christmas ornaments that I have seen picture tea pots or tea cups.  I decided to craft one that features actual tea.  This small stoppered bottle holds dry tea leaves and a dangling tea pot charm.  Oh so cute!  If you would like one of these ornaments of your own, leave a comment here by noon on Monday, December 11 (US EST).  I will draw a winner at random from the names that are submitted. And I will pop this charming Christmas tea ornament in the holiday mail to that winner.
***THIS GIVEAWAY HAS NOW CLOSED. *** I will announce the winner in a moment.

Tea Craft Tuesday: Tea Bag Christmas Tree

This craft project idea has been around the web for a while now.  With a quick search, I found it here and here.  It is a cute idea, so I decided to give it a try myself. 

I did not have a great deal of time to work on this project, so I used a small, 6 inch tall foam cone as the base rather than opting for a larger cone as the base for the tree.  And indeed, I completed this project very quickly.

Materials used:
-6 inch foam cone
-individually wrapped tea bags (I chose red and green.)
-hot glue gun with glue sticks
-a scrap of ribbon to wrap around the top of the tree
-a small plastic star

Instructions:
1) Starting at the bottom of the tree, use your hot glue to glue tea bags around the base, flush with the bottom of the cone.  I first glued green bags and then glued red bags to overlap and cover the open spaces between the green bags.
2) Glue the next row of tea bags above that, overlapping the top of the row below.  Continue gluing on tea bags until you reach the top of the cone.
3) I had a gap around the top of my cone, so I covered it with a piece of red ribbon.
4) Next, stick a toothpick in the top center of the cone and add a finishing touch to the top.  This final element could be a star, a ribbon or any small and decorative item you have on hand.

My follow up thoughts:
The tea bags were a bit stiff and bulky to work with, so I wonder what it would look like to create this project with empty tea bag wrappers.  In this case, the tree would, of course, be only decorative.  But I really would not want to tear apart one of these trees to use the tea bags anyway!  Would you take apart one of these trees to use the teabags?  Thoughts?

Tea Themed Christmas Tree

This year as I hung ornaments on our family Christmas tree, I realized that I had accumulated a number of tea themed Christmas ornaments over the years.  So I am starting a new tradition of creating a Christmas tea tree.  Here's the start to my 2017 tea themed Christmas tree.  The ornaments  include tea pots, cups, kettles, and mesh infuser balls.  I look forward to adding to the tree year after year!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!!!

Tea Lover's Book Club

Hello!  My friend over at the blog, Tea With Friends, has started an online book club for lovers of all things tea.  Hop on over and take a look!  The first book will be The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane by Lisa See.  I'm so excited!  In general I don't read much fiction. But I will make an exception for this book and this book group!!!

Tea Stained Tea Shrine