… tea is all you need.

Ah, it has been a while since I wrote about a teashirt. I called this blog ‘teashirts’ because I thought it’d be a great place to write fun posts about the outrageous number of tea-themed tshirts I own but instead it has become a review site for tea books. Too serious, let’s talk about teashirts for a few posts.

Stop! Tea time! was my very first teashirt but it was not long before the wonders of the internet led me to seek out teashirts whenever I happened upon a tshirt website, which is more often than I care to admit.

Tea-minded tshirt browsing is how I came by Sebastien Le Boeuf‘s cute-as-a-button tea sommelier, an artwork he named ‘All you need is tea!’ on society6.  I bought Sebastien Sommelier with a couple of other teashirts and also some writing themed apparel (another weakness) but I almost didn’t. I thought he might be too cute for a tshirt, too cute for me to wear. But then I noticed that he’s left-handed (lefties often notice handedness) and as a fellow lefty in a right-handed tea-pouring world, I felt I had to include him in the buying round.

Society6 lets you choose the colour of the garment from a set palette of American Apparel tshirts and Sebastien Sommelier ended up on a light blue number, which has been well worn since. Unfortunately Le Boeuf has removed ‘All you need is tea!’ as a design you can buy from the site (he has other work for sale, though) so my teashirt happens to be quite rare.

Funnily enough for a garment that I had second thoughts about purchasing, this is the teashirt for which I field the most compliments. The tea swirls make the image look dynamic although Sebastien Sommelier is gazing evenly at the viewer, and the way the triangles stack up in the background highlight the foreground.

I know Le Boeuf is Belgian but I can’t shake the feeling there’s something a little Japanese about his style and it’s this distinctly European design with a whiff of Asia that seems to appeal.

I now tend to wear this teashirt to tea events (such as the Sydney Tea Festival last year), especially when I want a subtle teashirt that nevertheless represents my love of tea. I’m thinking of having Sebastien Sommelier as a character in my tea novel, whaddya think?