4 Extra-Cozy Teatime Tricks

Ever have that dilemma when you want to add honey and cinnamon to a cup of tea at the same time but want to optimize the experience as much as possible? Yeah, we feel you. In the name of efficient scrumptiousness, take a cinnamon stick and swizzle it in a jar of honey to pick up the desired amount, and then transfer the whole shebang to a cup of tea. Use the stick to stir and dissolve the honey. To get more than one use out of each cinnamon stick, rinse, dry well, and store in an airtight container.

Tea for one? Don’t mind if we do. To make an easy single serving of loose tea, line a mug with a cone-shaped coffee filter large enough to extend over the rim. Fold the filter over the rim to secure, then fill with loose tea and add hot water. When finished steeping, just pull out the filter and squeeze gently, as you would a regular tea bag.

While a single chopstick might seem useless in its conventional setting (aside from the maligned “dumpling-stabbing” technique), it can be useful for brewing large quantities of tea on the stovetop. Tie your tea bag strings together, then slide a single chopstick through the knot before tightening it. Position the chopstick across the top of the pan with the tea bags immersed in the water. When the tea is finished brewing, lift the chopstick up and away, and you’ll take the spent tea bags with it.

Do you own a metal teakettle? Consider this tip our cold-weather present to you. To prevent boiling water from sputtering from the spout of the kettle, run the hot metal spout under cold water just before pouring out the contents. Droplets of boiling water startlingly sprinkled everywhere? Nevermore.