Learning to Relax, with JING Tea

This month, more than any, I've found it increasingly hard to relax and take a breather. The word "unwind" has never even crossed my mind for more than a fleeting second. I've adjusted to a freelance lifestyle over the past year or two, but I still haven't mastered to art of shutting off from my work. Do you get that? I just keep on going, because I don't want to miss anything, or indeed get behind on deadlines. 

I'm split 50/50 when it comes to tea + coffee, but inevitably drink coffee much more frequently because of the sheer amount of meetings that take place in coffee shops. But, I'm actually a big advocate of tea and its benefits - in fact, I rarely drink coffee at home. Tea is my go-to cuppa. I haven't had any experience when it comes to loose tea, but I was given the opportunity to try a select range of hand-picked Chinese Tea by JING. I was keen to see how loose tea compared with the bagged stuff.

 

I was provided with all I needed to make the perfect cup of tea. A selection of organic loose teas; Dragon Well, Jade Sword + Peppermint, a beautifully designed Tea Infuser, and equally pleasing Tea Timer. Each sachet of tea came with details of the date and province it was picked in. This added an unexpected emotional attachment to each cup - one which I was very comfortable with.

With Hollie's Mum acting as my "tasting assistant", we chose to start with the Jade Sword - for its light floral smell - and we poured the suggested temperature of hot water into the infuser; setting the Tea Timer to three minutes.

What we ended up with was the most delicate and tasty cup of tea I'd ever tried. It did make us question why we've only been using bagged tea up until now! We repeated the process with the Dragon Well (which suggested a different temperature from the first) with similar results - it was a little more nutty, but equally tasty.

 

We ended with a round of the Peppermint Tea. As dry leaves the Peppermint smelt like crazy amounts of refreshing, so we were pleased that the taste was carried through when made up in the infuser. The infuser works by filtering hot water through several tiny cuts in the glass, and then reacts with the leaves in the best kind of way. It was just as relaxing watching the three minute process as it was drinking it the tea.

So, my question to you is, have any of you used loose tea leaves before, and why haven't you told us how good they are?! Do you prefer to relax with tea or keep alert with coffee?

Thank you to JING for provided us with this tea set, all opinions are straight from Buckets.

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Wood & Faulk Coasters

Image source

Perfect to pop your coffee or beer bottle on, these leather coasters by Wood & Faulk are pretty much everything I'm looking for in a coaster. Coming in four lovely colours, Tan, Chestnut, Brown and Black and handmade in Portland, Oregon. They're $30 for a 4-pack, sorted.

Wood & Faulk are a brand I've been silently following for a while now and been itching to feature on here. If you like what you see here you should check out all their over gear, they're got some seriously cool hand made leather accessories.

Visit their shop for more details.

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New Balance 576 Made In The UK - Tea Pack

New Balance are gearing up for the release of this season's limited edition 576 trainer, the "Tea Pack." Each sneaker takes inspiration from a different cuppa, English Breakfast, Peppermint and Earl Grey. Made by hand in Flimby, Cumbria. They've also produced this pretty sweet video to go with the launch.

Very British indeed, if you're making one mine's a Peppermint.

New Balance 576 "Tea Pack" available from End Clothing this August.

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Collect - Tea Tags

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I think I've found another thing to collect, Tea Tags. I don't think a week went by after I started my pursuit into collecting old American stamps before I discovered these tea tag collections on Pinterest (follow me at mat_buckets). I drink tones of the stuff so I may as well be ripping the tags off and adding them to a collection; I think they've got the potential to look really smart in a frame. Similar to my old stamp collection (something I really need to share with you all, some are over 100 years old and have war prints on them!) they're all typically varied in design, shape, colour and country of origin. I'll be turning to eBay and my own cupboards in search of some corkers.

I'll be interested to hear if any of you collect tea tags or anything else connected to tea. Do you guys collect anything in particular? 

Next week I'll be launching a sweet little giveaway, the prize will make a nice Christmas present so keep your eyes peeled for that one.

Weekend Posh Shop

Goods from the weekend, taken with Instagram

You know when you've been to the posh supermarket when you come back with things like this. I finally got my hands on some Einstok, haven't tried it yet but I'm very much looking forward to it. Copella Apple & Pear juice gets 10/10 but sadly I couldn't stomach the liquorice tea by Clipper, has anyone else tried it? To me it tasted like garden peas mushed up.

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Whoa this is actually my 600th post! I can hardly believe I've been writing this blog for so long, I would personally like to thank every person that has taken to time out to read, comment, email and follow in some way. I love sharing but it's the human interaction that really makes blogging worth while for me, I'm glad you guys like the stuff I like. Please bear with me with the makeover, I'm slowly getting there. Thank you for all your feedback up to now.

Tea Total

Tick Tock's Rooibos tea goodness

Straight outta Manchester, Mr Scruff's Make us a Brew

 Teapigs Jasmine Pearls c/o Togs & Clogs

I don't know what's happened to me, 6 months ago if someone offered me a cup of tea I would have said "no thank you sir" but somehow I've become pretty obsessed with the stuff. I maxing out at about 6 cups a day at the moment, too much perhaps. I most definitely used to be a coffee guy but I don't know, I've got a bit bored of the same thing every day, tea seems to much more refreshing. So I've been trying a few different types out over the past few months, I started off with Twinings peppermint and swiftly moved on to a few more interesting blends.

- By far my favourite is Tick Tock's Rooibos tea, which was a recommendation from Daisy of the aptly named Pretty Green Tea. I've seen the packaging tonnes of times when I've been in the supermarket as it's pretty striking, now that I've found out it tastes awesome too. 

- Next up is Mr Scruff's Make us a Brew mint & chili tea, which is coming at us straight from Manchester. Sweet, fun packaging with a cracking cartoon and humours text. Love this one, really refreshing if that floats ye boat.

- Finally is Teapig's Jasmine Pearls, which the chaps from Togs & Clogs sent over a few months back. This was the one that got me right into it, super flavoursome and has quite a kick to it. Great if you're not in a rush. Again really nice packaging and comes in triangular shaped bags.

I'm not swearing off coffee altogether but lets just say I'm branching out. I would really like to hear what you guys drink and if you have any recommendations they would be more than welcome.

I Wonna Go Surfing

Plastic door stops, nice stoking filler - Pedlars

Wooden mini torch, who doesn't need one - Pedlars

Yellow leather gloves, really unusual colour to see on your hands - Norse Projects

 Battersea Power Station book ends, a pillar in the community - Paul Smith

Laptop Note A5 Notepad, never forget - Utility 

New copy of Inventory magazine

Green suede wallet by UKAT, as carried by the original Batak Tribes of Indonesia - LN-CC

Mini woolly hat, cheap and cheerful - ASOS

Chocolate Flake tea, I've not tried it but it sounds like it would be nice and Christmasy - Teapigs

I've not actually been proper "live" for months and months now, just no time so alls I really can do is surf some online shops to see what's knocking about this christmas. Here's a few things I've put together that I would love to see in my stocking this year(obviously I would be happy with the tea!), plus, if anyone is stuck for the partner's pressies maybe this could help?

Is everyone sorted pressie wise? I've not started yet but I've got some pretty sweet ideas. 

On another subject I had a marketing presentation today, was a 30 minute one on a new concept for our trainer brand(Vans), we totally nailed it and I was really happy with the way it went, thanks to everyone's vote of confidence and listening to my continuous moaning on Twitter.