I drink two to three cups of tea a day, and my usual tea of choice is PG Tips, a bog standard British brand that I started drinking when I lived in Wales. It’s smooth but bracing, unlike most of the weak swill available in America. Since moving back to the US, I’ve made a point of buying PG Tips from my nearest local British import shop, because even if the products are a bit more expensive, I want to keep those shops in business (and when dark chocolate digestive biscuits leap into my basket, what am I supposed to do?). For many years, that shop was Rosie Lee’s in Ventura, CA.

I found a good shop near me outside of Portland, which also houses a lovely little tea room. They are responsible for my addiction to lemon-flavored shortbread: they carry a local baker’s brand and oh, it goes so well with a nice hot cuppa.

Unfortunately, they stopped carrying the really big boxes of PG Tipps (which I think were 360 bags), so I got on their call list and picked up a couple 240-bag boxes when those arrived. But the last time I was there (for a tea luncheon with Morgana), they had no PG Tips at all.

Disheartened, I turned to Amazon. If I couldn’t find PG Tips at my nearest British shop, I’d just have to go the cheapest route to tide me over.

At which point I found 1150 bags for $40, which is mind-blowingly cheap. One click, and they were on their way.

Unexpectedly, they arrived in one big bag.

Labeled “catering size.”

I’d assumed a bulk shipment of smaller boxes. I normally decant my tea bags into Talenti ice cream containers to keep them fresh. But that’s usually one 360-count box of bags.

The result this time was this:

I have enough tea for a year and a half. And this is what it looks like.

As long as I have a way to boil water and can get my hands on real milk, bring on the apocalypse!

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