Read the small print

I think we've already covered how much I love gingerbread.  I was recently treated to amazing gingerbread at a friend's house (okay, it was my recipe, but she did all the work!) and I indulged in Lebkuchen at a Christmas market in Roppongi.  But I've had my share of misses over here as well, like the gingerbread cookie decorating kit that was actually chocolate cookies and the gingerbread house that was just not quite the same.

So, when I saw a little tea tin at the import store decorated with gingerbread spice tea, I was gung-ho to bring it home and sip some gingerbread flavors.  I could tell from the packaging there were two tea cookies inside and two bags of tea.  Perfect!

I purchased it and ran home to rip it open it.  Oh, I was probably a little too excited.  I filled the electric tea kettle and set it to boil.  While it was warming up, I grabbed a large mug from the cupboard and opened the package. 

I gobbled the cookies, not even waiting to enjoy it with the tea.  I really enjoy cookies with tea leaves in them.  These shortbread were lovely - rich and buttery with a great tea flavor. 

Then I opened the tin.  Inside, where I expected to find gingerbread spice tea bags, I found Sleepytime and cinnamon apple spice!  This is not what I wanted!  What was going on?

I then used Google Translate on my phone to really read the package.  On the back of the plastic wrap was a lot of writing, including nutrition information for the cookies.  After a paragraph of text discussing the "flavors of Christmas," but before the calories and ingredient list was a short sentence "Package does not contain gingerbread spice tea.  One bag of Sleepytime and one bag of cinnamon apple spice are included."

Argh!  If I had not eaten the cookies I would have returned the whole thing.  What an awful thing to do to a person.  My hopes were so high and dashed so deep. 

I know it isn't the end of the world, and if the package was in English I can't say I would have noticed it either.  But at any rate, that is not nice to do to people!  Alas, live and learn.