5 Sources for Tea Steeped in Geekiness

Tea is my caffeine source of preference, and, as with everything, I love finding the nerdy fun in it. Wonderfully, tea has been increasing in popularity in the US for a few decades, and as our discerning tea palates have grown, finding quality blends of looseleaf teas has become easier and easier. Additionally, finding blends that have an extra nerdy flair has also become easier! Here are a five fun sources, both online and local to the Twin Cities, for the geeky tea drinkers in your life.

1. Dryad Tea

This small tea maker may not be local, but it isn’t a stranger to Minnesota—Dryad Tea had a booth in the vendor room at CONvergence 2017. It was there that I first perused its blends, which are all inspired by music, works of art, works of literature, and mythology. Dischordia has become a personal favorite, as has Selkie. I find the teas to be unique and delicious (I have yet to find another blend that uses rosemary to such effect as in Dischordia). In addition to teas, Dryad also offer some fun accessories, like D20 trivets and tea infusers. Find them on the Dryad Teas website or Etsy shop.

Dryad Tea offers various weights of its blends.

2. Mrs. Kelly’s Tea

A local small business, Mrs. Kelly’s Tea doesn’t have very many listed geeky teas—Butterbeer is the main claimant to the classification—but what it does offer is the ability to design your own blend. On Mrs. Kelly’s open warehouse days (check the Facebook page for dates), customers can request custom blends to be created right there as they wait. So if you have an idea for your own geeky brew, you don’t have to look much further than our own backyard.

3. Adagio Tea

Adagio is a larger business, exclusively operating online. While the company itself doesn’t make geeky tea blends, its website offers the opportunity for customers to design custom blends that can be made available for the general public to purchase. Because it is a larger company, the number of fandom blends available is pretty impressive, and you can often find multiple collections that draw inspiration from the same fandom. This it pretty nice because you have more chances to find a blend you like in your particular fandom. Some of the folks that create blends also create beautiful artwork that appears on the packaging. Although it is more expensive, you can get tea in either a sample tin or a five-ounce tin, which you can clean out and reuse, a nice option for those blends with pretty artwork.

Adagio’s tins are a nice option, especially when the artwork is pretty.

4. The Great Tea Road Co.

This local company has a brick-and-mortar store in Prior Lake as well as an online shop and booths at some local farmers markets. While it doesn’t have specifically geeky teas (unless you count tea, Earl Grey, hot), the Great Tea Road has seasonal teas, which have included a Halloween blend in the past. Halloween tends to speak to my cosplayer soul, and I presume I am not the only one. The owner of the Great Tea Road Co. is also trained in the art of the Japanese tea ceremony and, prior to COVID-19, offered that service to interested groups. Ceremonies are lovely events and may interest any Japanophiles or tea aficionados, once things are safe enough to host them again.

5. Tea & Absinthe

This is another online small business, though it also makes appearances at conventions (unfortunately not any Minnesota ones, however). Tea & Absinthe offers geeky-themed teas and other geeky tchotchkes—I appreciate their enamel pin selection, especially the ones that give a portion of the sale to groups like Black Girls Code and DIY Girls. The tea blend selection is a little small but includes a nice variety of both teas and fandoms. There is a line with blends inspired by Doctor Who (Doctors 9–13), a Lilo & Stitch tea, a Princess Peach tea (which is wonderfully fragrant), and others.

Tea & Absinthe’s sample sizes are a great option for taste testing to find a new favorite.

I hope this list has you feeling a little thirsty—there’s lot of tea to be drunk out there!