Tea in the ancient world: Switching to online contact during the pandemic

First posted to the TChing site, here and here.

It's not that novel an idea to ramp up online contact over this pandemic period; I'm mostly just passing on my own experiences with it. This post was originally going to be about the potential to move expo / conference events online, since that came up in Facebook group discussion two weeks ago. I've since seen just a little of an example of that, covered by Elyse Peterson in a post here (called a Virtual Tea Festival). I didn't see much of that event, only parts of two sessions, because it was held from 2 to 6 AM here in Bangkok, but the videos are now posted online.

Soo Chung, who was a presenter in the Tealet version, and who initiated that Facebook discussion, is also planning an online Nomad Tea Festival in July. It would be nice if this pandemic was over by then, wouldn't it?

Beyond not attending online tea conferences in the past, I have very little prior exposure with online meetings or tastings related to tea. It's a theme that has been coming up ever since Google Hangouts made that kind of connection relatively simple, which was years after Skype made basic two way video calling easy and free. I just never got to it; I like drinking tea alone, and talking by text message is generally enough for me, maybe except for talking to my Mom. I talk in online groups about tea, and of course write a blog, and have done real-life open tastings, and online work meetings; all those themes just never linked. Until now.

I tried it, talking to online friends in India and Germany. I've met both, that friend in India just the once, but we talk online, in part related to me being an admin for Suzana's tea group on Facebook (Tea). I've met Ralph a few times here in Bangkok, maybe 4? We mostly hung out at Jip Eu, the Chinatown shop I visit most, but also visited a Thai temple at one point, and did a tasting session at my office building.

meeting Ralph and Jaba Borgohain (more on that in this post, and this one about a cool wild Thai tea)

Using Zoom worked out. I've only ever talked through video using Skype, Hangouts, Messenger, Wechat, Line, Whatsapp, and Microsoft Teams before (the last we use for work). It's odd discussing an experiential theme like tea drinking through an online medium. We actually did taste some teas, although due to the time difference I ended up drinking a few extra rounds of a Myanmar sheng I wrote review notes for earlier, versus doing the whole tasting, since I don't usually drink tea in the late afternoon.

Both of them tried samples I'd passed on, both Thai teas from the same vendor (Tea Side); cool it worked out like that. One was a small batch produced Thai shu and the other probably a wild-source Thai black tea. Of course it does work to share tea experience through discussion, it's just not as shared an experience without syncing the teas being tasted.

that first meeting with Suzana and Ralph (on IG here)

It was just as interesting hearing about how the pandemic goes where they are, and their own personal experience of it. I'd talked with three tea contacts in Italy a couple of weeks ago (by text) and it had been interesting looking ahead to roughly what a lot of other places are experiencing now. It's just what you would expect though; experiencing social isolation, anxiety, and personal loss.

In Germany they're a bit strict about monitoring the social contact restriction guidelines, and people are fined for violations. Apparently in India getting beaten by a police officer is a potential form of reprimand. Interesting! Here in Thailand anything goes (kind of like always), with lots of people walking around in my soi (side street) not wearing masks. So far that's not going badly, because voluntary isolation and company closures seem to have leveled off the spread of disease. Malls and restaurants are closed here, except for take-out; I mean police don't check who is walking around, and why.

It's a positive idea that maybe many of us might gain exposure to some unfamiliar ways of connecting through this, a potential bright side to an otherwise problematic time.