My tea was a mess.  I sort of tried to keep it in 3 containers–one blacks, one herbals and one everything else.  But it was totally unappealing and confusing and all the bags were different sizes and I would end up forgetting about the awesome tea I had.

Until today! I went on a taxonomic spree!

My new sections, totally skewed for my tastes in order of size are:

Herbals (Hibiscus, Mints & Chamomiles, oh my!)

Earl Greys & Flavored Blacks (i.e. almonds mainly)

Chais (I <3 all kinds of them)

Greens & Whites (I don’t love either)

Unflavored Blacks (Breakfast Teas & British stuff mainly)

Iced Teas (mixes, and tea you can brew cold)

Drink Mixes (Kool Aids, Tang, Emergen-C powder)

Now, this goes against most things I teach people to do.  I mean, ideally there would be a large box called Blacks and there would be boxes inside called Flavored and Unflavored and inside Flavored would be Earl Greys, Nutty, Fruity, etc.  But I have three bags of fruity black tea, and I don’t want to open up 3 matryoshka-like containers to get to them!  And Drink Mixes aren’t even tea!  What about Tisanes?  Well those aren’t invited to my house.  And when I want Hibiscus tea, I have to remember I have herbal non-caffeinated hibiscus tea in the Herbals and Green Hibiscus in the Greens.  Harumph.  Real things can’t really be polyhierarchied, unless I split it into two bags which seems a step too crazy.

Even though my system isn’t perfect, I can take heart that 1. it’s just tea and 2. it works! At least I made sure to use consistent plurals.  This taxo project was constrained by the number and size of tea containers I own.  The latter is not a constraint I usually deal with.  And my hatred of Tisanes was sort of like a political issue that constrains real life projects.

Only organizing digital things makes me forget sometimes how people look for tangible things.  Or maybe that’s an excuse to try and get a lesson out of my compulsion.  Either way, come drink some tea!