Wednesday, April 9, 2008

The Art of the Tea Tin


A friend at work recently visited our local Chinese grocery to pick up something for a child's school project. Hearing her talk about the visit reminded me of when I discovered this place a while back, thrilled to find that in addition to bubble tea, they also carried many tasty and inexpensive teas in colorful boxes and tins. My favorite find was this 4 ounce tin of Jasmine Tea. It's delicious tea, it was just $1.85 (wouldn't these be great tea party favors?), and I even like the tin.

That set me to thinking about some of my other favorite tea tins. This one, from Whittard of Chelsea, once held Earl Grey Tea and is probably my favorite tea tin of all.

This pretty green tin is from Fortnum and Mason in London. Their new tea tins are lovely as well, but I'm partial to this older design in "Fortnum and Mason green," which I realized is as iconic over there as "Tiffany blue" is here.

And chocolate rose tea is in this blue MarieBelle Tea tin, whose design I like as well. I've seen empty tea tins used as flower containers and makeup brush holders, but I seem like to mine best on display above the kitchen cabinets where I can see them frequently. How do you use your old tea tins?

5 comments:

  1. What lovely tins you have. For a while I had a plethora of Harney & sons tea tins. Since they were so much alike, and I had so many, I decoupaged over them. I now use the decorated ones to hold my dry paint brushes.

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  2. Oooh, yes! I have lots of favorite tea tins, too! Those are lovely!

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  3. If the tin has a large enough opening, I use it for storing or transporting jewelry. It is an easy thing to stick in a suitcase and not misplace. And if the jewelry is something I don't want to get scratched, I stick it in a Tiffany bag and then in the tea tin. But most tins have such secure lids,that I don't have to worry about my jewelry falling out all over my suitcase.

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  4. You have a nice collection of tins. They are pretty and colorful. I find that they are also lovely reminders of special tearoom visits. I love to look at my tea tin from the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto that was made for their 1907 Centennial Tea. Also, a lot of tearooms have special labels for their tea tins. One of my favorite labels is from The Tea Room in Savannah.

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  5. Hi, I am from Bratislava Slovakia and I am tea tins collector too.
    http://caj.brejovci.net

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