(Just a heads up: this post contains affiliate links, as well as the background behind how I came to use them. Because I’ve historically not been an affiliate kind of gal.)
When I was in seventh grade, my basketball coach told the team that drinking soda during the season was bad for our game.
I stopped drinking soda and never started again.
When I went to Germany for a month in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school, all I drank was water and the occasional milkshake (though I preferred them too thick to drink through a straw).
In Germany, like many places overseas, when you ask for a glass of water, they serve carbonated water. Unfortunately, carbonated water is disgusting. And so, on that trip, I learned to drink tea.
In the decades since then, I’ve come to enjoy both hot and iced tea. I’ve learned a bit about the different varieties (black, green, white, oolong, rooibos and other herbals, etc.) and at what temperatures to steep them.
A friend in grad school made the best (unsweetened) hot chai I’ve ever had. I watched her at least a dozen times and was not able to recreate it to the same standard.
Also in those decades, I became more aware of plastics and their profound negative effects on both our bodies and the environment.
I was frustrated the day I learned that many (most?) tea bags contain plastic or are made entirely from plastic.
While many changes I’ve made to my habits were fairly immediate, my switch to loose leaf was slow and non-linear. I finally reached the point where I only drink bagged tea when I’m not home.
Three or four years ago, a friend gifted me a little canister of Moroccan Green Mint tea. I drank it as part of my winter tea rotation. When the weather warmed up, I drank plain black iced tea and forgot about this little canister.
Fast forward to 2020 and I rediscovered the last cups of the Moroccan Green Mint, and I was so glad I did! I ordered a larger quantity and it quickly became my go-to tea in the mornings.
Added bonus: the tea is organic.
Added bonus: the place it was from is local.
Since then, I’ve ordered several tea samplers from them, keeping the envelopes from the flavors I like best so I remember what to order when it’s time to buy more tea.
There haven’t been many that I didn’t like.
I’ve also started experimenting with which of my not-plain-black teas taste good iced so I have options over the summer when I don’t want a hot drink.
The combination of the retailer being a local mom-and-pop place, combined with their teas being organic and delicious, led me to decide to become an affiliate.
I’ve never done that before and sometimes find affiliate-ing to be a little … slimy?
But I’ve come to buying my tea from them exclusively, and I feel good about sharing my enthusiasm for their products while getting a small reward for doing so.
The link to the Moroccan Green Mint is an affiliate link. And it’s some tasty tea.
Please remember, if you’d like to try it or any other tea from their site: it’s loose-leaf tea, which means you’ll need something to strain the leaves. I have a variety of teapots and steepers, but most mornings, I steep it in a measuring cup, then pour it through a small strainer like this one (not an affiliate link—just for reference) into my travel mug. It gets the job done and is easy to clean up.