I am a coffee snob, have been for about a decade. I love good coffee. Of course in a pinch I’ll drink anything to get my caffeine fix, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. But I digress. A few months ago while on vacation I walked into Teavana. A short time later and a hundred dollars less in my pocket I left.

This was strange for me to do on multiple levels. First, I’ve never really enjoyed hot tea (insert never). And two, I was in a town where I’d lived for a decade and it would have only been a short cab ride to a few independent coffee roasters where my money would have gone a lot further.

I had serious buyers remorse for the next several days. When I got home, as I read through my emails I though to myself, "hey a cup of tea would be nice." As the water boiled I looked through drawer after drawer for an infuser (we’ll come back to this). Once the process was completed and I sampled my first cup, a mix of Rooibos Chai and Mate Vana, my buyers remorse faded away quickly.

Coffee is still my mainstay mind you. But when I have time, when I am not rushed to be here or do that, I find the whole process of making a cup (or pot) of tea to be relaxing. I would go as far to say therapeutic. As I have tried to get my tea knowledge in-line with my coffee knowledge, I have found there are more then a few tools out there to make good tea even better.

Enter the Teastick from Gamila. Not sure where I saw the link or how I found them, but when I saw the picture I knew I had to have one. It looked like something that was designed with a lot of love and care. Heck, maybe by someone that actually loves tea (ponder that concept for a few).

I placed an order in a matter of seconds. Then I forgot about it.

About a month later as I reviewing by bank statement I said to myself, "wait a minute, you never got your teastick." I send an email with my confirmation number. Within minutes I got a reply. They had made a mistake, they would overnight my order and throw in another for free. Let me say that again, they responded quickly, overnighted my order, and threw in another $20 product because they made a mistake.

If they would have just overnighted it to me I would have been happy. But to throw in another, I can give as a gift with some nice tea to a friend made me a Raving Fan. Oh, and it works as advertised.