Tea for a song!

It is cold. You want some nice hot tea to warm you up and feel all cultured! Most tea is extremely cheap. What you are paying for is the tea bag. Forget the tea bag and cut your price by probably 90%. Get thee to your local health food store that has bulk spices and such. Find the loose tea. My store had probably 15-20 types to choose from. Most women I know probably have 50 tea bags of questionable vintage at any given time. That's because you might want to try a new type but that means buying 10 or 20 teabags. Then next month you want to try another kind leading to another 10-20 teabags. Buying it loose means you just buy the amount you feel you will use in the next 6 months or a year. Tonight I decided to try two new kinds. I got enough for perhaps 7 or 8 cups of each and spent a grand total of $.38. Give the interesting sounding varieties a whiff and if they appeal to you buy as much or little as you want. You just need a reusable tea ball or other delivery device. This costs a few dollars and if you drink much tea it will pay for itself in no time! It also allows you to control the strength of your tea unlike a one size tea bag. In hot weather you can also brew a very strong cup and once steeped you can pour it over ice water to make equally inexpensive iced tea. No more bottles of store bought iced tea!!! Total waste of money! You can also make your own tea bags using coffee filters that you sew shut with cotton thread on the sewing machine (cute gift!). But honestly...you can't really get easier than a tea ball. If you want to get REALLY creative you can even make your own tea blends by combining favorite kinds or adding a dash of cinnamon, rosehips, ginger or lemongrass. Now get steeping!