I'll preface this by attempting to convey just how extensive a collection of teas I possess.

I despise monotony. I love to have a wide variety of teas at my disposal so I can select from an array of different options, depending on my mood.

Thus, I have boxes and boxes of cheap tea bags. There are black teas and green teas and herbal teas. Whimsical chais and strong Earl Greys for socializing or watching movies. Lemon-gingers and spicy echinacea blends for when I'm feeling sick or soothing a sore throat. Fruity strong teas with raspberry or lemon for focus while reading or writing. Light, refreshing jasmines and greens with peach or mango or apricot for when I need to calm down and relax.

A few nice loose leaf blends have also made their way into my collection. One is a souvenir from a historic house, another is an experiment I purchased at the grocery store to practice brewing with a diffuser. But several were given to me by friends, or more-than-friends, and these are the teas that have the most interesting stories behind them.

The first is a chai green which was given to me by a dear friend last summer. We met through our summer job and ended up spending a lot of time together and becoming close friends. Early in our friendship, he picked up on the fact that I am a passionate tea lover. So before we went our separate ways, he gave me a lovely little sample of some delicious chai green that he'd bought especially for me at a tea shop when he'd gone home one weekend.

Even though we were never more than friends, I still have the rest of the chai he gave me, and it still reminds me of the happy times we spent together that summer.

Next to his chai, I have another little bag of loose leaf that I picked up the same summer, from a different connection with a different guy. This fruity white tea came from a tea shop in the little town where I lived for my summer job, and it turned out that the lady who owned the shop was the mother of a boy that took me on a few dates that August. Even though this brief relationship ended within a month, that bag of tea I bought from his mother is still in my collection.

To solidify this trend of teas connected to boys, my most recent love interest and I bonded over our mutual love for tea. He bought me a few different boxes of tea bags—a caramel chai black tea for one night when I was feeling down, an herbal echinacea tea for the week I got sick with a bad cold. But then, he gave me a very nice loose leaf tea sampler for Christmas—far nice than I knew what to do with.

We shared many a cup of this high-end tea over the span of our time together, and now I have three tea tins' worth of memories from this boyfriend to add to my collection of relationship-teas.

Evidently, the way to my heart is through tea. Potential friends and suitors, take note.