Tea seems like an innocuous drink, something you might relax with at the end of a trying day, but not something to get too worked up over. But folks do get passionate about a good cup of tea. It is the world’s most popular beverage, after all, and wars have been fought over tea.
Still, even the most dedicated tea drinker probably hasn’t seen a cup like this before.
It’s hard to ask for a fancier tea than what’s on offer from Japan’s Ocean-Teabag — at least as far as the bag is concerned.
The delicate papercraft teabags are as much Instagram-worthy works of art as they are soul-warming treats.
Modeled on a variety of sea creatures, the teabags unfurl when they hit the hot water in your cup, seeming to come to life.
You almost don’t want to drink the tea for fear of spoiling the scene.
Ocean-Teabag was founded by Takahashi Shota, and its first ever creation was a dolphin teabag which was launched with a crowdfunding campaign in 2015.
Following the success of the company’s first teabag, they quickly released even more water-dwelling creatures.
These include all your favorites, like jellyfish, octopus, squid, and isopod creations.
There are also a few land animals in the collection now.
Rabbits, pandas, cats, puppies, and even dinosaurs have all received the teabag treatment.
If you prefer your teabag creations to be of the flying variety, Ocean-Teabag has got you covered there, too.
Bird aficionados can also enjoy this unique tea-drinking experience with their own bags modeled after our winged friends. This particular birdie comes in the tea flavor Yerba mate.
There are even Christmas-themed teabags, because sometimes you want your tea to be as festive as you are.
Just check out this adorable holiday collection. You can get a little Santa Claus complete with his own sleigh, a reindeer, a snowman, or go classic with a simple Christmas tree! Prepare to deck the halls and dunk those bags, people!
Needless to say, Ocean-Teabag has also paid plenty of attention to the tea inside the bag.
It’s all themed and done with clear intention. For example, the squid teabag contains black Pu’er tea that has a sweet persimmon flavor, and was inspired by squid ink.
According to the company, they don’t plan on stopping with the unique tea bag creations yet.
In fact, they told Bored Panda that they plan on expanding on this idea by creating tea bags that will actually move inside your cup. Imagine that: a
It’s worth taking a few minutes to browse the company’s website and see if any of their other teabags catch your eye.
However, just a fair warning that the Ocean-Teabag site is entirely in Japanese, so unless you’re particularly fluent in the language, you’ll just have to resort to admiring all the gorgeous, well-designed tea bags they have listed for sale.
Perhaps most adorable about these teabags is that each character comes with their own item attached to their string.
For instance, this handsome little panda’s string has a sweet, simple stalk of bamboo on the end. Hey, you never know, maybe after he’s been dunked in hot water this cutie starts hankering for a snack.
The unfortunate part is that these intricately made teabags are not easy to come by.
And, understandably, they’re not cheap, either, running at 1,820 yen or about $16 per bag.
Also, it’s unclear if Ocean-Teabag will ship internationally, so you might have to wait until you’re actually in Japan to try one of their amazing creations.
Check out more on their website .
