No really, free tea!

/r/tea posted it and now I've got people in FA sending it our way so its time to share the love!

https://www.teamonger.com/samples/

Have at it Tealovers!

Share in the comments what flavors you chose or if you, like me, went for the surprise selection!

-JasmineScales

That's right folks, its contest time again!

"DRINKING TEA MAKES ME FEEL..."

The theme is inspired by my recently seeing this image (which I claim no ownership of)

Rules:
1) Come up with something that portrays how drinking tea feels or what it means to you without blatantly stating it. (aka try to avoid writing "tea makes me feel" on or in the piece)

2) Entries can take any form. Digital or traditional art, sculpture, poetry or haiku, photography, whatever you want!

Note: Any entry requiring photographs must be high quality, no blurry photos please!

Note: Traditional pieces are not required to be mailed in but it is encouraged (pieces would be used as display at meets and cons)

3) Use of the group mascots is encouraged but not required as seen here. You are allowed to use your own characters.

4) All entries must be able to fall under the "General" rating on FA. They do not need to be posted on FA but the links must remain active untill the contest ends. Dead links will be disqualified.

5) All entries must be created by the person submitting them.

6) Max of 2 entries per person.

START DATE: Now 1/16/2014

SUBMISSION END DATE: 3/16/2014

(That's 2 months to get your submissions in!)

Prizes:
First place: Tea! (to be decided later)
Second place: Tea! (to be decided later)

I was browsing my local Walmart looking for a new sweetener to try when I stumbled upon..

THIS HORROR

BEHOLD ITS NUTRITIONAL LABEL

No I did not buy any, I was looking for a low carb sweetener and, somehow, though it it sugar free, it is not low carb. Not that I would want to buy that anyway. It terrifies me.

What do you guys think?

-JasmineScales

Or almost at least! In 3 days we will have been going for a year! We are also inching up on the 1000 members mark. Pretty good first year I think!

Now, let us all celebrate with a gigantic, outrageous tea party.

-sips-


-JasmineScales

Lets all enjoy a cup together to celebrate the holidays! I Hope you all get plenty of tea this season.


I've got some Twinings, Winterspice just for the occasion. What are you all sipping on this lovely Christmas Morning?

-JasmineScales

What do you guys spend on your tea? I'm not talking about the average box of black bags from the local store, i'm talking about when you want your fancy stuff! Though if you go through as much tea as I do you might want to count your total tea costs every month (Sometimes I wonder if a drug habit would be cheaper! But not as tasty...)

So whats the most you've justified spending on our shared addiction? Ever turn down a new brew based on cost?

I know I stretch my tiny canisters of matcha for as long as possible, I love the stuff but dang does it cost!

Sorry its been so quiet everyone, I have been computerless since July. Came home from anthrocon to a dead motherboard >.<

But Now I have a new rig (thanks to the glories of black friday sales) and cant wait to get things going again!

How have all you crazy tea folk been in the last few months?

-JasmineScales

Hello members and tea lovers alike!
This is your new mod speaking, and I go under the name of chaiChuu!

I'm here to help out the Admin of this page, JasmineScales, and to post about all things TEA!

Of course, these our not our actual identites, and are merely codenames.

Who could we be? It is a mystery! ;)
- chaiChuu

So long story short, I have had no computer for a while now and am still on limited access!

That said I am bringing on a new mod to help out around here!

Updates from them soon =D

Lets hold another contest!

But what do you guys want to do? Art? Writing? Recipes?

Please leave some suggestions in the comments!

Lets admit it openly, we all love our teapots. And for all the fancy awesome ones we see there is always that old faithful that we turn to time and time again. And we love it even though its chipped, dented and stained.

Post links to pictures of awesome teapots and tea sets! They can your old faithful or some new crazy design you've found. (check out this crazy design for example!)

Sorry things have been slow fellow tea freaks! Love's been a bit complicated lately but updating should be returning to normal now =D

What has everyone been enjoying over the last month? Any new and delicious finds to share?

I would like to write up a detailed, but easy to understand guide for people who are new to the wonderful world of tea. From starting with good bagged teas to moving on to loose leaf blends.

I would also like this to be a group project! So please comment with any and all advice you can think up, and I will edit it into one big "how to" journal that we can link to people any time we need =D

I'm prepping some watercolor cold press with tea to play with painting on it. It got me to thinking, if I had them scanned at a high resolution would people be interested in them? I know I love using these kind of textures for backgrounds and such :)

Thoughts?

(Lets start a list! When did you know you were a tea lover? What tea snobbery habbits have you developed?)


1) I had an entire pantry shelf dedicated to tea.

2) I scoffed when a family member left the tea bag in the cup while they drank it.

3) "Nooo you need to TEMPER the good china tea cup so it wont crack later!"

4) Tea stained fingers

5) "Whole milk only, how dare you use skim in your tea!!"

6) I watch the bubbles appearing on the water to check it's warmth.

7) I yell at my father because he wants to drink it before it finished to infuse.

8) I get a mini heart attack everytime someone puts sugar in it.

9) Same thing when someone says "chai tea".

10) My idol is Uncle Iroh.

11) I grin with disdain everytime I see someone drinking some lipton.

12) Which tea my fursona is drinking is actually an important factor.

13) You keep different pots for different kinds of tea, just so you can brew and display them traditionally.

14) You have four yixing pots because you can't pick a favorite flavor to brew.

15) You have your brew times planned down to the second.

16) You can do a gong fu ceremony and still have your fingerprints.

17) You know how to make puerrh not taste like fish.

18) You get twitchy when you hear someone try to pronounce "Rooibos."

19) You know what countries your teas of choice come from, and know what countries you favor.

20) "I don't like tea" WE CAN'T BE FRIENDS.

Apparently the convention center forbids them from allowing people to bring and share food and drink. You can have food and drink but only if its just for you.

That said we can still plan up a group members meet up at a local restaurant or in someones hotel room :)

Any ideas? =D

I've heard from a lot of people about the certain ways they prepare their teas. So lets have a discussion!

Hot tea? Cold tea? Morning? Evening? Black? Green? Herbal? Boil the water? Don't quite boil it? Honey? Sugar? Milk? Some ancient family secret? Come on Tea Lovers! Spill it all (just don't spill your tea!), what defines YOUR perfect cup of tea?

Hello all!

I will be attending AC this year and I got to thinking. It would be amazing to get a bit of space at the con for an official meet up and tea swap!

We could gather up some electric kettles, jugs of water and lots of styrofoam cups, and sit around swapping tea for an hour. I would bring a large selection of my own teas but would strongly urge people to being their own favorites to share and swap =D

But before I look into the details with the convention staff...

Who else is going? Would there be interest to take part in such an event?

Lets all chill out and have a cup of tea

Good evening fellow tea addicts!

We are getting a god number of reviews going now (with more ready in the wings!) and thus a problem has started to crop up. Conflicting opinions.

I would like to have a fair way to handle these. I was thinking that perhaps we could post multiple reviews in the comments of the original review, then average the scores?

Yes? No? Other ideas?

You guys are amazing, a lot of people have been commenting and noting to ask about way's to help fund the group. So here's a little info to clear things up. If you have any other questions, just comment here and we will let you know!

What will funds go to?
- Contest prizes and giveaways
- Art for tea-swag to be sold for group funds and charity
- Hosting events at conventions/fur meets
- A few other things we are planning... ;)


How can you contribute?
- Donate directly via paypal (just send us a note!)
- Host a design sale or art auction for us
- (eventually) Purchase tea-shirts or other tea swag from out shop
- Spread the word about the group. Write a journal or make some fan art!


┌─┐
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ಠ_ರೃ Questions? Comments? Ideas? Let us know in the comments!

Let me start this off by saying we are not looking for free work here. Artists have to eat (and tea costs money!).

So first off, we would like to get simple refsheets made for our mascots. (In progress! Woohoo!)

Second, we would like to get some tea-shirt/swag designs made.

Now the group doesn't have much in the way of funds for now, so If anyone knows an artist that would be willing to make any of those on a discount or would wait for payment till the shirts start to sell, please let us know!

Please know that we do need to be a bit picky with the quality of art that goes on the items being put up for sale. So please don't be offended if we turn down an offer. We are also up to working with multiple artists!

Lastly! We are open for suggestions on our first charity! We would ask that it please be something animal related, and that can accept donation though paypal or creditcard.

So lets all pour a cuppa and start looking around! With this many tea lovin furs we are sure to have things rolling in no time!

Discuss.

So us mods (all currently 2 of us) were discussing ways to raise some group funds. At the moment the contest prizes are coming totally out of pocket. And then it dawned on me, what if we did a charity drive of sorts? If this goes over well we would love to make it a normal occurrence (every few months maybe?).

SO HERE'S THE CONCEPT!

*We run a charity drive, we have a few ideas for how to do this to start, but more would be welcome!

*90% would be donated to a good cause.

*The remaining 10% of donations would go into the group fund. This would help pay for tea prizes and giveaways.

Some of the ideas we had included:

* Selling/Auctioning the leftover designs from the mascot contest (All with the original artists permission)

*Designing and selling tea-shirts though spreadshirt or some other similar site.

*Completely open to other suggestions

Newest suggestions:
*Art auction. Artists donate their services and we auction off an art bundle, winner gets lots of tea related art of their character!

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR OPINIONS IN THE COMMENTS!


On a separate note: WOW GUYS. Seriously, this group has exploded faster than we ever could have hoped for! Lets keep this momentum going!