Tea scents & memories

I briefly stopped into Walmart today and saw this warmer scent I had never seen before:

 

I had to buy it because I love the scent of chai (and it only cost $2).  It reminds me of stopping at the coffee (and tea!) shop on my college campus called the Daily Grind.  Sometimes in the fall and winter I would stop before going back to my dorm room and get a tall vanilla chai latte.  It was the best chai I have ever had, and now when I think of chai I always imagine a walk through campus at night with a warm cup of wonderfully smelling tea in my hand.

 

As soon as I got home I broke off a block and put it in my plug-in warmer, which is really a nightlight with a little bowl in the top to hold the melted wax.

Unfortunately, the scent isn't as strong as these blocks usually are when you first put them in.  It smells really nice up close, but you can't even smell it in the rest of the kitchen.  I'm hoping that my new warmer just takes longer to melt the block, but its been a couple of hours and the scent still hasn't spread, so at this point I think it is just not a very strong scent.

I love these warmers, I now have one for each season (plus one for Christmas).   I have never seen a teapot warmer--I think it would be adorable though!  There is always hope :).  I used to burn candles, but having the open flame makes me nervous and these are a much safer option.

By the way, this also takes me back to my Russian entry from Sunday.  Chai is what the Russians call tea (tea in India is also called chai).  So when something is called chai tea, it is like you are saying tea tea!