You have my sympathies. That sounds dreadful.

I did not care for the tea eggs, but that is due to the insurmountable issue of them still tasting like hardboiled eggs. 8) If you like hardboiled eggs, you should totally try them - they're pretty and quite easy to make. I just used regular black tea bags. (Someone in the comments to the recipe mentions trying lapsang souchong instead, which could be really interesting, I think.)