So for my daily dose of caffeine, for right now I'm stuck drinking tea. Just for some retrospective on coffee versus tea, I either have to drink six cups of white tea, three cups of green tea, or two cups of black tea to get the same amount of caffeine that I was getting from one cup of coffee. I used to drink an easy four cups of coffee a day. Oh yeah, and herbal teas don't have any caffein, it has to be some sort of green, black, or white tea to get any caffeine. Guess I better start, which means I have to dig through the parent pantry.
Opening the Pantry
So I started looking through, found some lemon zinger and tossed that towards the back. Then I found my Dad's ice tea, which I don't know why he buys since he almost never drinks it. Tossed that to the back too. Then I came across a green tea and thought to myself, YES! Well, that was until I read the label...
What I found was Celestial Seasonings Green Tea with a familiar (and slightly racist) chinese man as the label. If you have ever been on the tea tour at the Celestial Seasonings' factory, then you should recognize him from the first video they show you when you walk in. He's the cartoon character that has the tea leaf fall into his cup.
Well, I turned over the box and searched for an expiration date. Now for those that don't know, tea is good for approximately two years after it hits the store shelf. It has nothing to do with the leaves rotting or molding, but more to do with the flavor slowly seeping out and making the tea less strong. I found the expiration date, October 3, 2003. No joke, this tea had been bad for almost a decade and it was fresh on the shelves over a decade ago! I was actually extremely surprised, as was my Mom when I showed her the box. We pitched the old tea in the trash and then saved the box, because the artwork has changed since then (I believe it is now a green dragon).
But wait, that was not the only Celestial Seasonings tea I found in the pantry! Just under the green tea was another box, much bigger than the previous one, filled with iced black tea. This is my fathers, which we all know because he is the only one in the family to drink iced tea. Anyway, I noticed that the artwork seemed to have a different style from even the green tea box showed above, so again I turned it over and looked for the expiration date. November 23, 1997 was when this tea was supposed to be pitched. That's a decade and a half of this tea living in their pantry since it went bad! We again tossed the tea and saved the box.
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Top of Green Tea
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Side of Green Tea
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Top of Iced Tea
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Side of Iced Tea
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Finally, after searching just a little bit longer, I found some green tea and some early morning grey tea that was still good. Just in-case you were wondering if I ever did get some tea for my cup.
The Letter
When you find something that is nearly a decade old, you don't just save it for yourself in this world. Instead, you go online and find the manufacturer and send them a letter. Personally, I would find it interesting if they wanted to see the pictures I took and I would love if they would even send us some free tea, since they can use the pictures and letter I wrote on their website. Anyway, here is the letter I wrote to Celestial Seasonings on their website.
I know it is not too long of a letter to them, but then again I'm guessing they get at least a few dozen of these, if not hundreds, a day. So if I get a reply, I'll update this blog later, but for now I'm going back to drinking my hot and spicy green tea!Dear Celestial Seasonings,I just wanted to let you know that while digging through my parents pantry in search of some green tea, I came across two peculiar things. The first was a Celestial Seasonings Green Tea with a best by date of October 3, 2003. The second was a Celestial Seasonings Iced Tea with a November 23, 1997. I took some pictures if you would like to see. It was interesting to see the artwork on the box.Sincerely,
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