Series 1 teas in Nepalese, Ceylon & Chinese green styles. (click for more info)

It’s hard to tickle my design and happy feathers more than something like this does. Yummy, carefully crafted teas and super dupes design all smooshed up into one awesome product. Our  design-y peers (nay, HEROES) at Aesthetic Apparatus have teamed up with the folks at Damn Fine Tea to produce a series of limited edition teas, all with an eye as careful on the design as the teas themselves. If you are a design nerd or a tea devotee, or gasp! BOTH well dang, here’s our Nirvana. This is a design dream job.

Series 2 teas in traditional English tea styles. (click for more info or to purchase)

Tea-obsessed Damn Fine Tea offer exceptional teas, sold loose and processed traditionally, rather than industrially with custom blends and styles. All with a keen eye on the quality not only of each tinning, cup and brew, but in the design factor as well. Potentially an endangered cultural species these days. Plus, each style has specific brewing tips tailored for that particular tea for the perfect cup.

We love these tins’ killer flair and style, and of course we do. They are all designed by the powerhouse of fun, rad, and on-point Aesthetic Apparatus out of Minneapolis, MN.

With each series Damn Fine Tea & AA take a fresh approach to the tea’s style and name. This is so apparent with teas such Series 1 and Series 2 pictured above (inspired by British Victorian boxers & the wonders of the Far East) and the below Series 3 & Series 4, respectively inspired by Rock’n’Roll (YES! See? It’s a triple match made in heaven!) and 2010 The Year Of The Tiger.

Series 3 teas in Rock inspired styles. (click for more info or to purchase)

Sometimes tongue-in-cheek comes off poorly, more like tongue-in-cheekiness or it just falls flat. Not so at all with these designs paired so well with these teas. For instance, the Series 2 teas come with limited edition mini-posters, replicating the awesome old boxing posters of yore. A fact that’s coolness is only amplified by the fact that Aesthetic Apparatus are rooted firmly in the rock & gig poster scene as well as the Series 2 mini-poster designs evoke the phenomenal test print style that so many know and love AA for in the first place. It’s like a hall of damn designers, errr, I mean mirrors. With designers in them. Maybe.

Moving on, just peep the below Carävan tea with it’s adorable little blood dripping pentagram, surrounded by a ring of tea like a Dark Wizard waiting for his Master. Hehe.

Series 3 teas come with a freakin’ Tour Patch too. Seriously, if the AA guys weren’t so nice and cool, you want to hate them for being so damn fun.

Hellfire!!!! (click for more info or to purchase)

And finally, the newest addition to the Damn Fine Tea line is the ultra-limited edition tea for Series 4, Yunnan tea, inspired by 2010, the Chinese Year Of The Tiger. Raaarrrrrrrrgh! Amazingly, this tea is limited to just 50 (FIFTY! Come on, that’s crazy!) tins, with designed & hand screenprinted labels by Aesthetic Apparatus. At the time of writing this blog post, only 6 tins remained…duh DUH.

So, these Damn Fine Teas are my current obsessive design and tasty treat geek out. Pass it on if you’re down.

We can’t wait to see what comes next.

Series 4 tea is Yunnan & limited to just 50 tins. (click for more info or to purchase)