I am officially turning into a tea geek

On Friday, I had to get out of the house (I'm working today instead -- one doesn't waste a 60-degree day), so I had an outing to Tea Zone, the little tea shop in Somerville that I keep stumbling across online. It's a lovely little store, with lots of good-looking tea: not exactly cheap, but certainly less than TeaVana.

The main point of the trip, though, wasn't for tea, but for teacups. I'm doing tea often enough that I'm starting to get dissatisfied with normal tea balls: they're a mild pain to clean, and they often don't let the water flow through the tea enough. When I was in Tosci's a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the cute little teapots they use, with big built-in infusers, and started looking for something of the sort.

So the Tea Zone trip resulted in two teacups with their own built-in infusers. One was this model, with a mammoth infuser that almost fills the cup. It turns out to make a truly fine cup of Genmaicha: intensely green and flavorful. As hoped, it works better than a tea ball, because it doesn't get filled and gummed up. The only weakness is that the infuser has no handle, so getting it *out* of the cup when everything is 180 degrees is a little challenging.

The other (which isn't on the website) is elegant black ceramic. Same basic concept, but with an extra piece, a sort of spatula that the infuser sits in, to make it easier to remove. The infuser isn't quite as large, but is still twice the size of the average tea ball, so I have high hopes for it. We'll try that one soon...

I am officially turning into a tea geek

On Friday, I had to get out of the house (I'm working today instead -- one doesn't waste a 60-degree day), so I had an outing to Tea Zone, the little tea shop in Somerville that I keep stumbling across online. It's a lovely little store, with lots of good-looking tea: not exactly cheap, but certainly less than TeaVana.

The main point of the trip, though, wasn't for tea, but for teacups. I'm doing tea often enough that I'm starting to get dissatisfied with normal tea balls: they're a mild pain to clean, and they often don't let the water flow through the tea enough. When I was in Tosci's a couple of weeks ago, I noticed the cute little teapots they use, with big built-in infusers, and started looking for something of the sort.

So the Tea Zone trip resulted in two teacups with their own built-in infusers. One was this model, with a mammoth infuser that almost fills the cup. It turns out to make a truly fine cup of Genmaicha: intensely green and flavorful. As hoped, it works better than a tea ball, because it doesn't get filled and gummed up. The only weakness is that the infuser has no handle, so getting it *out* of the cup when everything is 180 degrees is a little challenging.

The other (which isn't on the website) is elegant black ceramic. Same basic concept, but with an extra piece, a sort of spatula that the infuser sits in, to make it easier to remove. The infuser isn't quite as large, but is still twice the size of the average tea ball, so I have high hopes for it. We'll try that one soon...