Hey there, tea drinkers! Have you ever lost track of teas in the back of the cabinet, or forgotten about that sample pack buried beneath the pile of more recent additions to your stash? If so, then you may want to start keeping a digital catalog of the teas in your stash. Indeed, I’ve had these experiences. As I am quite obsessed with tea and with tasting different teas (different types and from different sources), and as I’m fortunate enough to be able to keep buying new teas (at least in small quantities), at any given time can end up with a fairly large collection of different teas. So, to help me better keep track I decided I should start keeping my own digital catalog of all the teas in my stash (so teas are less likely to be forgotten). And I figure the digital catalog could also serve other purposes, such as helping me more effectivey keep track of the different teas I try over time (as a supplement to my tasting journal and the blog).
I had several features in mind that I wanted my catalog platform to have, and after stewing on various possibilities (including briefly flirting with idea of developing my own Android App) I realized that I could use a Trello Board to build a catalog of my Tea Stash which would have all the main features I wanted (such as adding multiple photos per tea and being able to include detailed tasting notes). If you’re wondering, “What is Trello?”, it is a Kanban board-based listing App. Principally, Trello is geared towards “To Do” list like project management and work productivity applications, but it can also be employed for more personal uses as well. I’ve been using Trello myself on and off for the past couple of years for both work-related projects and some personal projects (including a board for this blog, which needs some updating).
So, how can you create an awesome Tea Stash catalog using a Trello board? Well, I’ve tried to make it easy by creating a template based on my on own Tea Stash board, so there are really just a couple of steps:
1. Create a Trello Account
To get started, you’ll first need to create a free Trello account. You can do it from the Web (https://trello.com) on your computer. On mobile, you can download the Trello app via your smartphone’s app store (it is available on Android and iOS) and then open the app, at which point you’ll be prompted to either sign in to existing account or create a new one. Trello makes it easy to create a new account linked to another account such as a Google account.
2. Make a new personal Tea Stash Board from the Template
Next, you can create a new board from my “Tea Stash” template: https://trello.com/b/RT4hTDpG/tea-stash-template.
That’s really all there is to it. Now it’s up to you! Edit your new Tea Stash board as you see fit: change or add new Labels and Fields, add new teas to your stash, add tasting notes, etc. If you’re new to Trello then you may want to check out the Trello 101 guide: https://trello.com/en-US/guide/trello-101
Bonus Tips:
1. Pin your Tea Stash board to home screen (smartphone only – only tried tested on Android)
I think this is a pretty cool feature available with the mobile app: if you click/touch and hold the on a board in board list you can then have the option to “Pin to home,” which will add a new Board-specific widget tile to your phone’s homescreen (see screenshots below). This allows you directly open that board, so you can in effect treat your Tea Stash like its own separate App.
2. Search for Teas or filter by type (or other Label names) using Trello’s built-in search tool
Trello has its own built in search bar that you can use to search for cards in your tea stash board: https://help.trello.com/article/787-filtering-search-cards-on-a-board. You can also use the search bar to filter the teas in your stash by type via searching for cards with a specified card Label (e.g., “Green Tea” is one included in the template). If you want more searching/filtering flexibility you can always add more Labels to your tea cards; for example, if you wanted to be able to filter by country of origin you could add new Labels with country names (e.g., “China” or “Taiwan”). However, there are a limited number of available label colors so you have to keep that in mind if want the new labels to also have color, particularly, on mobile where the Label text can’t be displayed on the front of the card (you can toggle label text on and off in the browser version by clicking on any visible Label on a card-front).
Alright, that’s pretty much it. Thanks for checking out my post! If you decide to try out this Trello-based approach to cataloging your stash feel free come back here and share any tips or suggestions in the comments below. Or maybe you already have your own way of keeping track of your tea stash? Please share in the comments below as well! I’d love hear other solutions to (digitally) cataloging a tea stash.
That’s it, tea drinkers. Until next time, keep enjoying the wondrous taste of tea! — Blake – the tea drinker behind Blake’s Tea Journal
Blake's Tea Journal 
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