2026: How much will you spend on tea this year!?

My personal breakdown from past years:

2025 – $10853.67
2024 – $7178.49
2023 – $9947.51
2022 – $9466.96
2021 – $10399.22
2020 – $7920.87
2019 – $4791.51
2018 – $3929.54
2017 – $3805.50
2016 – $2034.13
2015 – $1998.46
2014 – $1466.61

I didn’t do very great last year in terms of total spending. In fact, I spent a record amount on total purchases. However, the bulk of that was actually on teaware and not tea! To me, that says the mini goals I set that were tea related worked pretty well – so I’m sticking to most of those this year.

Part of why my teaware total was so bad was that I got very into my local pottery scene. Like, more than ever before. I went to more local markets, maker’s shows, and pottery conventions than any other year I’ve lived in Montreal. While I loved supporting those local creators I definitely need to cool it down a lot this year. Hopefully now having a piece in my collection from so many potters/ceramicists will mean I feel less inclined to add new pieces from the same artists…

This year I’m setting an aggressive overall goal of spending less than HALF of my 2025 total on combined tea and teaware purchases. We’ll call that $5500 – or about equivalent to $460/month.

It’s an aggressive decline, but still equates to plenty of budget left for the restocking some favourite teas, trying new things, and still picking up a few special teaware pieces throughout the year. I think the fact I really want to invest in getting more tattoos will help, because the redirected budget from tea/teaware will be going there instead.

To help me stay on track I’ve set some micro goals/rules:

1. No buying new mugs unless they are handmade from small/indie creators
2. No impulse purchases (ie. wait at least 24 hours before ordering)
3. Be more selective of what tea and teaware samples I bring home from work
4. Max of two orders per month (w/ exception for tea festivals & work-related travel)
5. No new tins of matcha until I’ve finished the equivalent number of tins

TEA SPENDING TOTAL: $0.00
TEAWARE SPENDING TOTAL: $0.00

GRAND TOTAL: $0.00

2019 total: $200
2020 total: $195.57
2021 total: $57.20
2022 total: $86.25
2023 total: $66.38
2024 total: $212.63
2025 total: $124.13

My goal is spending $0 in 2026…

So I did pretty well last year over all (minus the gift card) and I’d like to continue along those lines this year. Restock my staples when they need restocking. Limit purchases for other teas to smaller amounts and stick to only doing a handful of those over the course of the year. I don’t need to try everything that draws my interest.

History:
2021 total – $329.44
2022 total – $443.88 (+ gift cards – $190.75)
2023 total – $203.77 (+ gift cards – $84.25)
2024 total – $345.43 (+ gift cards – $100.12)
2025 total – $179.38 (+ gift cards – $102.99)

No exact goal. Lets just see what happens.

Running Total – $0