Cups of tea with Jackie

I hope you’ve all read @thedevotea’s tale ”Burning down the Tea House.”  It talks of scantily clad lasses, bulges in pants, a cafe that served him tea bags, and his desire to burn it down. I hope you were not taken in. It was of course, quite untrue.
To understand what really happened you must read his post first, and then my reply. Only then will you understand this story:

“Burning down the Tea House” – What really happened on that fateful day:

No, he cannot be extinguished, our Tea Bag Petrol Boy, not once he’s raging, and on fire.

Every day I spend a considerable amount of time hunting and gathering tea posts. That is; after I’ve read every new blog update on our site, I venture beyond the gates of Tea Trade to see what else I can find. It’s a rather fun aspect of my job. I read so many tea articles, that I’m actually surprised when I came across an English language blog I don’t know. I shouldn’t really be, because of course there are so many. However, I reckon I know most bloggers who are also active on twitter and G+, and many of those on Blogger. Sometimes I wonder if those writers have any idea that I know about their posts. Or that I read them. I do comment, quite frequently, although mostly on articles that aren’t tea reviews. It’s not that I don’t like reviews, it’s just that beyond adding that I might like to try a particular tea, I don’t really have much to say. I love a good discussion, quirky posts, travel writing, tea business buzz, stories, and updates from people I know. I really enjoy learning and discovering something new from articles, and usually want to pass these on. My search for the best tea posts, aren’t limited to blogs of course. There are many incredible tea videos, and pics out there, and I get pretty excited when I find them. Is that nerdy? I don’t know, each to their own, and all for tea.

Anyway, a couple of days ago I found this really fascinating documentary on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway; “Reviving a Himalayan Wonder.”It’s by Bharat Vohra and was first posted a couple of years ago on Vimeo. It’s a real little gem of a short, and I don’t know why I haven’t seen it before. “Darjeeling” is a frequent search term I use, since I’m mildly obsessed with these teas, and the landscape of the region is stunning.

Anyway, watch it! All three parts of it. You might also want to read an article the film maker wrote about this railway, it makes for a nice accompanying read.

From the description on Vimeo:

“Built in 1881, the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway is a unique narrow gauge mountain railway situated in the state of West Bengal in Eastern India, connecting the plains at Siliguri with the mountain resort of Darjeeling.

Despite being declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1999 (only the second railway in the world to get that honour), it is badly neglected and in an abysmal condition today.

The documentary hopes to raise awareness about the railway and highlight some of the issues plaguing its operation today.”

Sounds promising? I hope so. I’m posting it for your pure pleasure,

Well, Pete and I are both busy in our office, he’s playing music and I can hear him tapping away energetically at the keyboard. All I know is he’s “working on a blog post.” Interesting, wonder what he’ll come up with. Anyway, I’ve just completed my usual social rounds, first here, then twitter, then G+ and am done with updates. There’s only so much one can say when the tea cup’s empty. And mine is. It’s pretty terrible, not a situation I’d wish on anyone. Why on earth I’d try and write a blog post in such a fragile state of mind I don’t know. But here it is, I’m typing away.

A couple of days ago, I chatted with someone I really enjoy interacting with on twitter. It’s a she. I won’t mention her by name, but some of you will realize who I’m talking about. I was trying to get her to come over to Tea Trade to blog here, in part because she’s so wonderfully outspoken. She doesn’t mince words. I love it. She throws around all sorts of rants and complaints, but is also very funny as she snarks. Plus she’s got a sweet side too. Shhh…we’ll keep that just between you and me. Anyway, I’ve asked her to come over and write about tea. I would love her to write it, as she sees it. Or as my post title says; say it as she sips it. Now I know we have a male raver on here already, a force to be reckoned with, but what about a female too?

The thing is, when I read tea reviews, while they have much value in their descriptive details, there comes a point where a conflict of interest might arise. Nobody writes: “I drank Company X’s tea, and let me tell you, it tasted like watered down mud. With hints of stale, moldy grass.”

Nobody does. No review I’ve seen. Now some may argue that if the tea tastes like mud, they simply won’t review it. Fair enough. But now I’ll never know that X’s tea tastes like dirt, because nobody’s putting that in their post. They’re simply not talking.

Sometimes that leaves me craving for the dirty truth. Not the beautiful tea reviews, not the artful detections of hints of fruit. There’s a place for them, and we need those, but I also look for tea talk straight up.

Some time ago, one review came close. Real close! I found it on the net as I was browsing tea blogs, my daily task. There it was; a review where I was certain, the reviewer didn’t like the tea. I knew what he was tasting, I knew the tea was poor. “Come on,” I felt myself whispering – “say it. Just say it. Tell ‘em it tastes like crap.” But he didn’t. He came close just because it was too hard to say anything good. But no, there was beauty to be found, a positive aspect that I had overlooked. I forget what it was, but it was probably something like; the containers are wonderfully functional, the delivery service timely, the prices good. Something like that. I don’t remember. I let out a heavy sigh.  When I read “Despite what we all think the tea had nuances of freshness that made for a surprisingly tasty cup,“- I know what it really means. I’m not fooled. It means: the best thing one can say about those leaves is that they didn’t taste stale. Amazing it tasted of anything at all. There, that’s the truth.

So, I’m wondering..do you read between the tea lines? What if you know a tea is really not very good? Do you understand tea review code? Do you use it yourself?

Like I said; we need traditional tea reviews. Quite often they make me want to order the tea. I am happy they are out there. But that doesn’t mean I’ll give up looking for a no tea leaves barred, naked post.

Yours,

J.

Dear Tea Traders et al…

As you may know if you read our forum, I first started putting together a list over there. However, when more links started rolling in, I realized the forum is not the best place to post a list for all posterity. There are several reasons, a couple of them are technical so I won’t bore you with those. Also, frankly I don’t quite understand them, so I couldn’t bore you, even if I wanted to.

Either way, here’s the list which I will continue to update as new links are discovered. Once again, thank you to those of you who pointed me in the right direction. As before, feel free to post your own links, although by links I do mean to a blog related to World Tea East. There seems to have been a smidgen of confusion. Also, thank you @jopj and @littlemewbrew for your kind comments. Sadly, I couldn’t transfer them over.

Hopefully you’ll all enjoy the links as much as I did, it was particularly exciting to see so many photos, including pics of many people I immediately recognized. I may only have seen you on here, or on twitter, but it feels like we’re all getting to know each other post by post.

You’re a pretty cool bunch of hot tea drinkers,

J.

Little Mew Brew: The blog that is about World Tea East: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

jopj: World Tea East, My Adventure | Continued – The Tea | Finale | Addendum

Tea Pages: The Tea Eagle has Landed | World Tea East – The workshops | Facebook pics | The people

Chanteas: Good Friends and Great Tea

Tea for me please: World Tea East

Ratetea: Meeting People at World Tea East

Lisa Knows Tea: World Tea East – Summary, Part 1  World Tea East Summary Part 2

Teas Etc. Newman: A photo set

Tiesta Tea video interview: Charles Cain, VP of Business Development, Adagio Teas

Charles Cain of Adagio Teas: Musings from World Tea East

Glamorosi: World Tea East makes its debut in Philadelphia 

AmazonV: World Tea East – Summary

Verna Hamilton: What a City! Philadelphia and World Tea East

Gail Gastelu – The Tea House Times: World Tea East – Post Show Report

I think it’s best to pretend that the huge gap between my last post and this one, is simply due to “missing data.” Best not to mention a word about the time elapsed, and readers will simply assume, a chunk is missing.

No time to waste now. Things have been formidably busy here at Tea Trade, and as always we’re moving forward. No, strike that. Sometimes we think we’re moving forward, and then we find something isn’t working right, and we have to take a few steps back. I don’t like “back”, that direction seems so passé.

Last night we both stayed up late, working away. Pete does all the technical stuff and I was trying to look at things from an “outsider” perspective. That’s pretty hard to do because frankly, when you know your own site really well, there are things you don’t question any more. It’s like when you’re in your own house and you don’t notice that a table is a bit manky, because you see that table every day. Well, anyway – I was looking at the marketplace and comparing the look to other websites, and trying to work out what could work best for us. It’s definitely an ongoing project but that’s fine. I think we improved some things, but I know there is no such thing as an achieved “status quo” here.

Anyway, not enough sleep last night because we were both up early to take care of other daily activities. Now we’re both back to working on here. We just recently converted one of our rooms into a little office space, which is dedicated to all things Tea Trade, and the business degree Pete is working on. I’m trying to work out where I’m going to put all the stuff that was in that room before we made the changes, but so far haven’t come up with a master plan. In fact I might sneak some of the things that were packed up back in again. We’ll see. Either way, it’s nice to have a place for us to withdraw from some of the hustle and bustle and get things done.

In other thoughts, I am very keen on getting some pics from our Europe trip uploaded here. I have some very nice photos that I took especially for you all and I want to post them. Unfortunately there are a few mildly technical issues with that, which Pete will take care of. When he’s taken care of about 300 other things that need looking at. The man works extremely hard I tell you.

So, for now imagine some beautiful pics of a German castle, or some tea we sipped in Europe, and enjoy!

Yours, J

Recently as I was looking at Chanteas website, I noticed something in their description of the Tie Guan Yin they are selling:

“In doing our tea ceremonies, we’ve found that women are especially drawn to Tie guan yin. This could be because of the floral notes and the tea’s delicate nature.”

I read it once and then again. It’s not often I come across tea descriptions suggesting one type appeals more to one gender than another. I’m not disputing that more women than men liked their tea, I’m just fascinated by this being mentioned in the sales blurb. More precisely; in the “aroma” section. I guess it’s meant to gently guide my wavering mind.  This tea has earned a seal of female approval; they are women, I’m a woman so chances are I’ll like this too? Righty ho. That’s easy then. Well, assuming there is such a thing as a tea inherently attractive to women.

For clarification Chanteas offers that it’s those “floral” notes and the “delicate” nature that predisposes us girls to liking this tea. Oh, it could be boys, it could be. That makes perfect sense – in a  convoluted sort of way.  If you think all women favor things that smell of bouquets like; bars of soap. Well, I do like flowers, so maybe there’s more to this theory than I care to admit. Trouble is, I also like things that don’t smell of roses at all, let’s say the smell of the wet earth in the woods after rain.

As to the “delicate” issue, why would women like a tea more because it’s rather fragile? Is this because we too are dainty little damsels? Or because we like to nurture those fine little leaves?

I am left to ponder, am I more attracted to a tea with a delightful bloomy fragrance, or one with a heavy, earthy sort of smell? What gives when it comes to tea? Do we genderize our tea leaves? As a woman, do you prefer your leaves light and delicate, or heavy and strong? And what about you men? Smokey Lapsang over this “girly” Tie Guan Yin? Does your sexuality matter when it comes to tea?

For the record, I don’t think of Tie Guan Yin as a “girly” tea. The Iron Goddess of Maiden would cry out loud.  I’ve never thought it mightn’t appeal to men as much as women. I’m not surprised more women liked this tea but only because I didn’t have any expectations to begin with. I don’t have a hypothesis that women favor certain teas, let alone those that are delicate. I’m not sure I even understand why women would relate to dainty teas more. If anything, wouldn’t I want a strong cup of tea to keep me warm?

It’s  been a little while since I posted. Many of you know what I’ve been up to since I last blogged because we talk on Teatra.de, Leafbox Tea, or on twitter. Perhaps even on all three. I don’t “steepster” so there’s no point looking for me on there..

Anyway,  – Japan! Need I say more? We’ve all read the terrible news, and seen the haunting photos & vids. The magnitude of what has happened is almost incomprehensible to me. It’s on a scale that surpasses any Richter.  Natural disasters like this one remind us – that no matter how technologically advanced we are – nature still has the upper hand. It is humbling.

Thankfully these last few days have seen an outpouring of people trying to help, both in practical terms by supplying manpower and supplies, or in financial terms by donations. Several tea companies have jumped on the “tea”wagon and are offering monetary aid too. That is great. What’s not so great, is that many of these pledges are tied to their sales.  “Nothing wrong with that,” you say? I would say at the very least it’s controversial.

As I wrote on @keenteathyme’s blog:

I’m not impressed by these kinds of “charitable efforts” … When donations are tied to driving up sales, that makes me cringe. It makes me think that companies are actually trying to make money off tragedies, and disasters like the one in Japan. Basically the message is: spend more money on my tea, then I’ll be willing to part with some of it. Everyone wants their sales to increase, but making money off something like this, is unethical. Don’t make me feel I “should” be buying your tea, if I want to do good in the world. Because who is going to end up receiving more money out of these “aid” sales? The disaster relief fund, or the tea company? You bet, it’s the company. If someone is serious about their intentions, they should donate all their profits to a relief effort. I don’t care if it’s only the profits they make for a day. Because then, their “charitable” drive to increase sales is truly motivated by a sense of giving.

Sounds harsh? Think about this one. One tea company is offering to donate 10% of their profits. 10%! That’s nothing. As Pete said in his comment to @keenteathyme:

“For the company, it is the same thing as giving a 10% discount which they can do anytime because their prices are set for the kind of flexibility.”

Yes, that sounds just like an average sales promotion. Heck, it’s lower than that. Many promotions offer 15% or 20% specials.

Pete goes on to argue my point:

“I’m sorry if I sound cynical about this, but I would be more impressed if they said “all profits for the next three days will go to…”

There he said it, and I’ve said it.  All profits for a set amount of time should be pledged to help Japan. That is commendable. Alternatively tea companies should follow obubutea’s example and organize a drive for donations. Not tied to their own sales. It’s wonderful tea businesses want to help.  And sure, every little bit helps. Just don’t give me any charity hogwash about percentage based deals.

Finally – we have a new host and everything is up and running. I’m not going to bore you with the finer details of our adventure/ordeal, suffice to say that after a lot of restructuring we are happily settled. There enough said. We shall now swiftly move on to tea.

Our dear pal Lahikmajoe recently posted Over to the leafside on his blog, which was interesting as usual. If you don’t know him already you’re missing out. Either way, one of the points he raised was that there seem to be fewer blogs about black tea than green.

The way he described it was:

“Not that no-one writes about black tea, but to me it seems that in our world of the tea obsessed, darker tea sometimes gets short-changed.”

Well, I think he might have a point there, and that’s what I want to explore.

The key word here is “obsessed.” When Lahikmajoe suspects that green tea’s hogging the blogger’s limelight,  he’s not talking about  casual sippers who blog chat about their Earl Grey and Breakfast blends. No, the murky world of the leaf obsessed includes those hard core lovers who trek barefoot through China and Japan.  Dare devils of tea if you like,  fluent in halting Mandarin,  friends with a tea master or two.  Yes, they do seem to favor green over black, or “brick” over “red.”

Even bloggers of note, who’ve not traveled east, display a flourishing interest in all leaves left green. “Kukicha, Sencha, Bancha, Hojicha, Matcha,” flows off their lips as easily as the teas they pour. The sharper their blog pics, the more detailed the descriptions, the more likely the tea isn’t black. But why?

There’s a cultural halo over Chinese and Japanese teas, that leaves from India and Ceylon do not have. Tea ceremonies thousands of years old, versus the English ritual of 5 o’clock tea. For many leafgeeks it compares to reading Confucius, or a copy of “Good Housekeeping” – an intellectual versus a populist choice.

In addition to green tea’s cultural attraction there remains the allure of the less common, for the West drinks more black than green. “Blogging about the ordinary where is the challenge in that? ‘

Well, challenge or not – I still prefer black tea over green. If that makes me a measly commoner so be it.

I’m off to read Confucius - Sweetly yours, J.

Yesterday was a bit of a crazy day. While world politics played out live on the big screen, our website went down. Pete joked about announcing that we’d closed for the day to commemorate events. Ha! What a pain in the whatsit. Anyway, to cut a long story pleasantly short; we’ve decided to change hosts. He’s working on that now, and I’ve retreated to my blog.

2 mugs of Vanilla tea down, I’m ready to chat. I’ve done the rounds on twitter, email, and Leafbox Tea, so have caught up a little with all the goings on. Twitter is such a great place to meet other tea lovers. We’ve got to know some awesome people.  You might very well be one of them. It’s nice we can carry on chatting on Leafbox when we’ve had enough of  140 characters. If I’m signed in and “active” feel free to say hello!

Anyway, back to tea. I’m known for my love of the Vanilla brew. There are many, many teas I like – if you don’t already know what they are, you’ll read about them on here in time. But if I had to choose one single tea to drink every day, I’d take Vanilla. Even as I type in the capital “V” I feel uneasy. I know many will think it’s just not a classy tea. Not good enough. Not one of the finer ones. I know. I still like it. Sometimes you’ll see me mention “Xiāngcǎo” tea on twitter. Sipping a cup of that, or drinking this one: 香草 tea. Looks interesting doesn’t it? Far more respectable than talking about Vanilla tea. Yes, that’s what it is. Instantly elevates me to “intellectual tea sipper .” Ha.  Anyway, I’m just being playful. No one’s asked me yet what it means.

Joking aside. is it true that one tea is more acceptable than another? And; how much “added value” do teas get from being sold with Chinese names? Or Do you ever check what the words really mean?

I”m thinking about that right now, as I read about another tea I can’t pronounce on twitter. I’m sure that tea is better than mine. Or is it?

Yours,

J.

These last days have been pretty hectic. We’re working on Tea Trade, and like a newborn it demands a huge amount of attention. In the meantime its older “sibling” Leafbox Tea also desires continued nurturing.  I am hopping back and forth between here, LBT, and twitter. If you’re looking for me, there’s a good chance you’ll catch me in one of those places.

Either way, I’m enjoying all this, it’s incredibly exciting. With Tea Trade I feel we’re at the brink of something very big – as @SirWilliam put it, this could be the Facebook of tea. I think of it a little  as an Etsy of Tea. The best way to view Tea Trade really though is on its own terms. Then one day somebody might come along and point out that a new site is a fair bit like Tea Trade – and everyone will know what that means. Only, Tea Trade will always be better.

Well, so much about what’s been going on with us. I just wanted to let you know that life is good! And I’m happy we have all of you. We’ve made some great friends on Leafbox Tea, on Twitter, and new ones will be discovered on here too.

For those of you who know me; I”m grateful for all the support you’ve given us. What would we do without you? You’re what makes it truly worth it. You’re a new breed of tea drinkers and together we’re creating a nice “new tea world”. We’re brewing up a cuppa in the times of the Net. We’re sharing our “cha” online. We’re no longer sipping our leaves all alone. It’s 2011 and we tea drinkers are putting ourselves “out there” for all, and everyone else to see!

Hail the Internet and what it can do for tea!

Yours,

J.