The Devil of Budgeting for Tea

I hate budgeting.

However, I love tea.

So budgeting is a must.

I have two separate budgets. One for tea, the other for teaware. This is because teaware is a "capital investment", AKA something I'll have and get use out of over hopefully many years so long as I take proper care of my items. The teaware budget is more of a slowly accumulating one combined with a maximum spending limit than something I put away for each paycheck. For instance, I've been wanting two very large teaware items; getting a Bonavita variable temperature electric kettle (instead of the Breville One Touch), and a larger gongfu drip tray. However, I don't want to spend more than $100 combined... So as I wait for sales and the perfect drip tray to appear somewhere, the money just gets saved up very occasionally, usually from excess monthly tea budget money.

Tea budget money is saved with every paycheck. I don't save it as a percentage of my paycheck, just limit myself to a maximum of $20/month. I don't buy tea every month. Shocking, I know. Its just that I usually drink shu puerh, and 100g is enough to last me about a month and a half if not two months, so therefore I can spend $50 on a 250g cake one day and not really need anymore tea for about 3 and a half months, theoretically saving me $10. If I'm lucky and find a good deal, I can get a 250g cake for around $30 and save even more.

Its a very fluid system, but it is satisfactory. I also make sure I never buy too much tea that I won't be able to drink before it starts to go stale- aka only buying very small volumes of green teas and most oolongs. I've found tightly balled Taiwanese roasted/aged oolongs will last very well (in airtight light-tight storage containers), but not so much for un-balled ones. I know we've got this mentality in the tea world of having prized tea staches, but unless all that tea can age well, I am now very much so against that. To me, its rather irresponsible to pay for tea that you won't be able to drink before its lost its flavor and begun to turn unpleasantly bitter. But people will do what they do...