For a while I just accepted that I wouldn’t have good tea when I traveled. I drank good tea in my RV, or at Samovar, but would drink nothing but water when I was on the road.
I slowly began to experiment with ways to have tea on the go, and now I really have a whole system down for efficiently carrying and brewing tea on the go.
Matcha
The easiest thing to do is cold-brewed matcha. Breakaway Matcha offers extremely high quality matcha in single-serve packets. All you do is drop one in a nearly-full water bottle, shake it for fifteen seconds, and enjoy. This is always my go-to for my anti-jetlag strategy. As soon as I wake up, I shake up a bottle of matcha.
My friend Eric from Breakaway Matcha agreed to do a special deal for my readers– 25 packets of matcha for $44 shipped. Matcha is very much a you-get-what-you-pay-for product, and Breakaway is the very best.
Tea Bags
Most tea bags are filled with really bad tea in small quantities, in bags that are too small to let the leaves expand. I suspect this is why many people in America think they don’t like tea. I never order tea if it comes in a bag like that.
The best bags I’ve found are Rishi Tea bags. The tea is very high quality, and usually organic. The bags are huge and have a decent amount of tea in them. I like the Jade Cloud.
The service staff on every flight I’ve been on will give you hot water, so you can easily brew one of these bags. I usually ask for two cups of hot water and immediately start the second cup brewing as I drink the first.
Gong Fu Tea Set
I bought a really cool little tea set on the streets of Shanghai near Yuyuan. I found a very similar one here on ebay. It consists of a gaiwan with lid, a “fairness pitcher”, and six small cups. I bought the set on a lark, and then wondered if maybe I bought it because it was cool, not because it’s useful.
But, sure enough, I use it all the time. I got invited to a pot luck New Year’s celebration, and was able to make tea for a bunch of people. I visited my family and brewed tea there. I had a four hour layover in LA and I made myself some nice tea in the lounge.
If you want to be able to boil water yourself, you can get this immersion boiler. Don’t worry about the bad ratings, but do understand that you MUST unplug it before pulling it out of hot water, or it will self-destruct as a safety measure.
If you have this little set, you can bring looseleaf tea (it’s really best for oolongs), or these great little tuocha from Rishi.
Maybe you’re not as obsessed with tea as I am, but I find the small amount of caffeine, coupled with all of the other healthy things in tea, to really be a nice boost to productivity. The matcha in particular is great for regulating your sleep schedule as you travel.
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Photo is some great Taiwanese oolong in an airport lounge with my little traveling set!
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