Fascinating post. Why did the author steep the tea at home?
"It was at this point I realized I needed a sterile-ish way to transport the steeped tea and tea bags from my house to the lab."
Was steeping the tea at home somehow relevant to the experiment?
Probably frowned on to bring in food stuff and make it in a bio lab.
If I had to guess, it would be because that's exactly the environment and process that consumers will use, so it would capture variables such as "what if the probiotic was out-competed by a bacteria living on your mug?"
And then I would assume the sterile transfer was to preserve this state of the tea as-made without changing it on the way to the lab.