Too Many Herbal Teas? Reign In The Chaos With Tea Organization Tips

Tea Time means relaxation time... but not when an avalanche of tea boxes comes flying out of your cabinet. Do you love tea? It makes for more enjoyable sipping when you can reach for your tea collection and find what you need right away. Here's what I did to calm the chaos that is my stash of herbal teas! I got the idea from my mother-in-law, who is extremely organized. You can do it, too.

Supplies Needed:

Pair of scissors
Lots of plastic sandwich baggies
Large storage can (see below)

1. Get a huge can to store all the teas in. You can often buy these filled with popcorn. (Eat the popcorn first, obviously. Makes a great school snack, too!) They usually have a large selection of these cans at Walmart during the Christmas season. I chose one with a wintry outdoor scene, so that I could have it on display all year round.
2. Clear off a table, such as the one in your dining room. Tea sorting can be messy business, especially if you have open, loose bags that may have sprung a leak.
3. Bring out those boxes. The designer tea boxes that they sell, with loose, unmarked tea bags in them, are pretty cute. But they take up too much space. Take all of your boxes of herbal and regular tea, and put them on the table.
4. Open each box, one at a time, to see what's inside. If the tea bags come in little labeled wrappers, that's ideal. Sort all of the labeled, wrapped tea bags into little piles, according to the brand/type of tea. Place in plastic Ziploc baggies and add to your giant storage can.
5. Deal with the unlabeled, unwrapped teas. These also come in pretty boxes – Celestial Seasonings packs their teas in this manner. This is okay if you have just one or two boxes of herbal tea. But if you have a large collection, things can get out of hand. If a tea bag escapes from its box, you may not be able to tell what kind of tea it is. So, pick up one of the Celestial Seasonings boxes of tea. Take the little wax-paper pouch that the tea bags are packed in, which is glued to the bottom of the tea box. Rip it out of the box and put it aside.
6. Cut out the labels to save. Pick up the tea box, grab your trusty scissors, and cut off the front of the box so you have a saved, cardboard label telling you what brand and flavor of tea it is.
7. Label your unmarked teas. Place the label that you just cut out back inside the wax-paper pouch of tea bags. Now you know what kind of tea is inside the pouch, but you've saved room by eliminating the box. Place the pouch, with the label peeking out of the top, inside of your can of teas.
8. Repeat #7 this all of your boxed, loose tea bags.
9. Put the lid back on the huge can. No, wait! We have to test this out now. Open the can back up, and rummage through your tea collection until you find one you might enjoy at this moment.
10. Clean up. While your tea kettle is boiling up the water, throw away all of the old-cut up boxes, and wipe down the table.
11. Celebrate. Sit down, relax, and have yourself a hot cup of tea to celebrate this organizational victory!

Then, call your friends to come over for tea this week. :)

Do you love tea? What's your favorite flavor?

xo, Mom