Tea For Two. Or Four. Or Sixteen.

Have I mentioned how much I enjoy tea?

Oh, right.

Because I haven’t shut up about tea for nearly a month now, one of my friends—who I haven’t seen in forever—sent me a Facebook message saying that she wanted to go to Teavana with me.

Again, this post is not sponsored.

I could think of nothing more fun than meeting her at Teavana, getting her completely addicted to their tea, and then heading across the mall for a bite to eat so of course I said, “Absolutely!”

Sabrina and I met as planned, grabbing a sample of tea on the way into the store.

The whole time I was in the store, by the way, I was repeating to myself “You don’t need anything today. You don’t need anything today. You don’t need anything today.”

We tried another tea sample and then went to check out the infusers. On the way, I discovered what looked like travel tea containers. They were very sparkly.

Sabrina and I laughed and laughed and laughed at the idea of packing tea to go in one of those containers and while I was all, “Oh hahahaha there’s no way I would ever buy one of those,” secretly I was thinking, “If only they weren’t so sparkly, I’d buy one right now…”

We tried another tea sample while we stared at this sign, wondering aloud if the monkeys really are picking the oolong tea.

It may have been the tea making us giddy but I think I may have even acted out “monkeys picking tea”. I told Sabrina I would not be able to rest until I found out if Teavana was using, as she said, “monkey labor,” so we asked the saleswoman. As it turns out, monkeys don’t CURRENTLY pick the oolong tea. What we were told is also on their website, with the exception of the part about the monks “definitely having a bananas-for-tea trade situation with the monkeys”:

“As legend has it, ancient Buddhist Monks trained monkeys to gather the youngest leaves from the tip-top of wild tea trees for this special Imperial Reserve blend. The legend lives on, now with the deft hand-plucking of the broken, evenly sized leaves that unfurl to create a light, orchid aroma, and the highest grade of oolong in the world.”

Okay.

We had another tea sample, and debated whether Oprah’s Chai tea was strictly for the holidays.

Then we had another tea sample and Sabrina decided it was time for her to make some purchases. She stood there listening to our saleswoman provide tons of helpful information in a highly accessible and friendly manner, which EXACTLY is how I got addicted started, that day in New Jersey with Liz. The first one’s free, kid.

Another two or four tea samples later (frankly, I stopped counting), I was laughing uncontrollably as Sabrina picked out some tea to go with the infuser she was buying. Have a nice day indeed, Teavana.

We chit-chatted all the way across the mall where we met Tracey for dinner, and at first she couldn’t get a word in edgewise. I blame the fifteen or sixteen tea samples we ingested, and the excitement over Sabrina’s bag of tea goodies because OMG TEA!

I was in hysterics again when she showed Tracey her new infuser and explained how it works. I mean, look at this.

It was such a fun evening sharing the Teavana experience with Sabrina (and later, Tracey). By the way, I didn’t buy anything for myself, though I am sort of wondering if I need a sparkly travel tea container.