Lessons learned from tea business successes and failures

 

I'm not the most natural person to be writing on this topic, since I don't sell tea, or earn any income from writing about it, but as usual this topic came up in online conversation.  A few tea sales ventures that looked like they were definitely going to succeed ended up not working out, in spite of taking novel steps that poised their businesses to do so, and there are lessons to be learned from this. 

The main lesson, as I take it, which I communicated to an online friend developing a tea business, is to stick with it, to give the venture time to build up, and accept not making profits early on.  I think all of these examples of "failures" described here would have eventually been success stories if they had stuck with it.  Let's see though, by examining those cases, with the obvious limitation that I'm guessing about why these businesses didn't succeed in time to continue.  The vendors didn't tell me the reasons, even though I did talk to two of them a little about that subject.

A few opposite examples of success stories are included at the end, not so much to contrast approach, but really just to show how similar approaches can work with either a bit more background work foundation or more time allowance to build up a business.

Temple Mountain Tea:  

This vendor made a great tea reference, a tea flavor wheel, so many years before the Australian Tea Master's group made their own quite good version.  It's this one:

Their last Facebook page post was in 2014, so they were there pretty early for this latest round of ramping up of specialty tea interest (much as that goes by distinct cycles).  Just for timeframe reference Phyll Sheng's blog (not his real name?) was active from 2006 to 2007, back when Marshal N was getting started in blogging, which I take to be one of the earliest online documented specialty tea interest "waves."  He posted some again in 2016 and 17.

We might speculate that they were starting early enough that uptake was limited.  I don't know though; maybe as awareness and demand ramps up vendor market entry does too, and maybe that was as good a time as any to get into vending.  The unique point here is that this vendor at least took time to make a great practical tea reference, and then later didn't keep on with tea vending.  They were probably busy doing something else; tea businesses are often set up as a side interest.

Tea Setter:

Again the theme here is that a vendor took a very promising and successful novel approach, only to see that not work out in terms of business longevity.  This vendor, a business owned by Matt Kitchen, reached out to the blogging community and was very well promoted by a lot of online posts back when they were active.  Here is an example, a Tea For Me Please post, or this one tops a Google search for the vendor name.  As the vendor name indicates they were promoting sales of teaware and also loose tea, with a shu pu'er being reviewed in that post (oddly not referenced as sheng or shu, but that can happen, especially back in 2013, before a standard list of details about versions became more customary).

So what went right, and wrong?  Tea theme issues or vendor mentions have always came and went in tea blog and tea group discussion circles, and this vendor was the talk of those right around then.  It seemed a great way to gain promotion.  Most of that talk was positive, with some reviews less positive about a shu version tasting a bit fishy, if I remember right.  I doubt that was any singular reason for this vendor dropping the theme (assuming they have, but the vendor name being Google-proof definitely implies that, beyond those reviews).  

I would guess that patience for the business to become profitable to a certain level was more of a concern, since tea demand would've been limited, as is still true today.

Lots of vendors across a broad time period have made good use of social media forms to promote awareness of their brand, I just don't remember any one of them generating this much positive buzz at one given time.  Tea related social media was more limited and consolidated back in 2013, so it would be hard to get the same proportion of online tea community attention today, for the forms and channels being a lot more diverse.  Bloggers seem to not have the influence that they once had, and my own blog gains far less readership than it did two or three years ago.

Tea Journeyman:

This example would be familiar to anyone active in online tea discussion at that time period (Kevin's review posts ran from 2013 to 2018, with the business active in a narrower window between those times).  It was a competent and well-developed blog, and a mature and well-formatted tea business attempt.  Kevin took training courses to support background knowledge, so he could've made some sort of sommelier / expert / master claim, but given how those tend to be received in the tea industry he mentioned that without overextending a related status claim.

My review of a Satemwa Malawai white tea version sold by the Tea Journeyman indicated that business had closed by 2015.  I had bought a Harendong Indonesian tea from him then too, which should indicate how trendy the vendor sources he was carrying was, since both were very well regarded.  Harendong must still make great tea, but again the buzz about new and interesting types, origins, and producer sources keeps changing over time, and those were "hot" back then.

Given how much I respected Kevin's blog content and his business approach I don't want to add too much speculation here about what parts worked and what didn't.  I'll cite his own 2018 explanation a little related to putting time into a tea interest and move on:

Yes, the tea reviews have been few and far between lately here. Life gets busy sometimes, and unfortunately taking time to prepare reviews is not always a priority.

I remembered there being more to that; maybe I was remembering a reference from his "about me" section as combined:

Other personal notes: I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Accounting from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. I am a licensed agent/broker of property, casualty, life, accident, and health insurance in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey. I also hold the Certified Insurance Service Representative designation through the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research, and earned the Certified Insurance Counselor designation in 2018 through the same organization. 

So he had career objectives to focus on around the time he stopped blogging, and maybe family or other obligations as well.  It may have been great for him if a tea business could've "blown up" in short order, but a recurring theme here is that it takes dedication, time, and a long view to make a tea business work.  He was really active from 2013 into early 2015 but it's still not long, probably less than two years of business attempt.

And that's already most of the story, about tea vendors who experienced interesting and positive successes, but not eventual business success.  I wanted to contrast those with three other vendors who have lasted through the long haul, very successful businesses, in order to guess at what differentiated them.

Yunnan Sourcing:

It's not really a fair comparison, referencing one of the most successful Western vendors there is. I think there is good insight into business perspective and developing a tea business background step by step in his Scott Wilson's example though.  This Tea Epicure post (surely formerly World of Tea) blog post by Tony Gebely tells part of that story:

...I came to Yunnan in 1998 and just fell in love with the place, especially the tea and the food. In 2004, I got fed up with being in the states and decided to pursue my dream of living in China and doing something with tea... 

We have a tea room in the Kunming Wholesale tea market. It is a place solely to drink tea. We have a library of more than 600 pu-erhs that are available to try! Our eBay store is our only online presence at the moment. Most business is conducted outside of eBay. In fact, individual customers with small orders can contact me directly and get at least 10% (or more) off the retail price. We will open yunnansourcing.com and yunnansourcing.us before the end of 2009. The latter site will feature products that will ship from the USA instead of China...

So Scott took five years to build a business from an onsite presence in a main Chinese tea market, up to an Ebay store, and then finally onto China and US based sales sites and businesses, only after that.  In writing about talking with an even earlier pioneer of tea sales, David Lee Hoffman, I cited a tea blog post that looks to include an image of Scott in that market in 2008, but it's not labeled as such.

Of course it's not really fair to go back and select one of the most successful tea vendors and then say a narrow set of inputs led to that success, when luck, or good timing, or any number of other factors could've came into play.  To me the success seemed to relate to putting the right work in, over time, but that's just a personal read on it.  In retrospect there was a gap in China based sales options that didn't extend to "the West." Moving to China is a bit extreme; of course I'm not implying that's the appropriate or essential level of commitment and input.

What Cha:

To me this is a positive success story, about a vendor starting out at almost exactly the same time as the Tea Setter and Tea Journeyman business, drawing on almost exactly the same business theme as the Tea Journeyman, probably matching products back then in many cases.  I'm pretty sure this vendor followed a pattern of carrying teas I reviewed not so long after I posted about them some years back, but really why not use blogger references as sourcing leads?

Their "about us" page adds detail about their theme:

I started What-Cha in 2014 with the goal of sharing my love of tea and it's incredible diversity and unique taste with others.  I wanted What-Cha to be different and unique from other tea stores and to serve both the tea producers and consumers.  To that end, I have tried to abide by the following principles:

Unique Sourcing:  It is my belief that too many companies rely on a small pool of wholesalers from whom to source their teas from. This is negative for consumers who find a lot of the tea stores selling identical teas to each other and a huge problem for tea producers who are forced to give large discounts to wholesalers due to their negotiating power derived from how much of the tea market they control.

This is why I have chosen to source all my teas direct from the producer where possible... 

This is exactly what Kevin Craig of the Tea Journeyman business was doing, and a founding principle for Tealet, and so on, a very common theme.  This makes perfect sense, only one step extended beyond producers venturing into selling tea directly.  Execution is everything; they made it work, which probably took a lot of doing.  For being based in Britain Brexit must have been something of a business nightmare for them, but they're still around, surely making adjustments as necessary.

Alistair, the owner, mentions a commitment to keeping pricing low in that vision summary; let's check that with a benchmark version, Jun Chiyabari teas from Nepal.

This What-Cha NEPAL JUN CHIYABARI 'HAND-ROLLED TIPPY' OOLONG TEA lists for 12 British pounds per 50 grams, now on sale for 10.80, which converts to $14.28 USD.  That is pretty good for that tea, or even the $15.86 cost prior to sale seems pretty fair.  

How can I really support that, that the value sounds good to me?  Another US vendor outlet (and favorite online contact / friend, their manager Peter) Trident Bookseller and Cafe lists what I would bet is a really exceptional Nepal black tea selling at a great value, so we can use that as a baseline:

Nepal Needles, Kanchenjungha tea estate in Eastern Nepal, $7.50 per ounce.

That works out to be just under $15 per 50 grams, since two ounces equates to 56.7 grams; roughly the same.  That Trident version:

I'm not sure that value necessarily means more in relation to business success than the many other factors that come into play:  branding, marketing, product range and quality, unique offerings versus standard product listings, active social media exposure versus just running ads, and so on.  Quality and value are relevant considerations for customers though.

Tea Mania:

This is a really interesting business example, and a vendor I've ordered tea from a few times, with an owner I've actually met (only once, if it matters).  Their sheng pu'er selection seems about as good a quality and value as anything in that range selling online.  Let's unpack their approach, background, and business theme a bit.

This is a Switzerland based online-only vendor, which started out as a Thai tea outlet.  That subject is pretty familiar; lots of people visit producers here and notice that pricing is quite low for wholesale level volumes.  His website shop looks pretty good; that part can't hurt.  Early on he was developing a Teapedia site, which still exists, and interesting endeavor that was really more about expressing his own interest and developing broad awareness than serving as a promotion tool.  

And this is where the standard business development story varies:  Peter Pocajt (the owner) went on sourcing trips in China and Japan to learn more about types and to expand his product range.  That's taking a long view, putting that kind of effort and expense in, but per my understanding his personal interest in tea allowed it to double as a vacation experience.  In discussing this business theme with him just a little he said the initial ramp-up was really slow, so patience also played a big part.  The business isn't a main revenue source, which led other business owners to let it drop once the return didn't come early, but Peter took that the other way, as a good reason to keep making changes and try harder.

A bit of an aside, some of the key red flags related to describing teas and marketing context are glaring in his product descriptions.  I'll focus on two:  almost all of his sheng are described as gushu material, and said to be produced by a local "tea master," Master Panda.  Ordinarily that's reason enough to not even try the products, since at least 9 out of 10 outlets exhibiting those warning signs are selling pretty random versions of teas, probably not really realizing which parts or those stories are true and which are made up.  Here's the thing though, if we set aside that problematic "master" designation if you go to Yunnan, as Peter did, you could meet people who are part of old tea traditions, who are very adept at making tea versions.  It's better to never include that one concept in claims, but it could translate over from something less loaded and unlikely to be nonsense from a Chinese language.

There is an interview post about Panda's background on Peter's site; he moved from another region in China to start making tea in 2004, and learned under the kind of teacher that might more naturally wear that kind of label, if it ever makes any sense.

Panda is on the right; I think I can guess that nickname origin

As an example about that "master" designation, a tangent within a tangent, my "family monk," who I lived with for over two months while ordained as a Thai monk, I have no real role definition for.  The concept "master" is probably the one that applies most, I just don't use it.  From there "teacher" is second best, but he never taught me all that much, because even though I lived with him and spent all my time with him back then, and try to visit often now, he never taught me that much, because of the language divide.  Someone else might just take the leap and say that's their Buddhist master, but I really think of him as extended family, as a beloved but slightly formal uncle.

a pandemic era temple visit; must've been a dip in exposure for an event to be held

10 years ago; he can't touch Kalani, for being female, but he always liked visiting with both

getting accustomed to Thai traditions while young

Back to Tea Mania, I don't know how the gushu / plant age / natural growth origin claims work out in relation to any of their teas (which they discuss a little in that interview; many aren't presented as that, instead as shengtai or arbor origin teas).  Maybe the origin type descriptions are just nonsense, almost entirely wrong, or maybe it's entirely accurate, and good local contacts are enabling buying pretty good, high demand tea material from modest demand local areas, without pushing on to the typical $1/gram final cost range.  Maybe the material is quite mixed; that's possible.  To me the teas are good, distinctive and clearly high in quality, which is the main thing. 

I can't distill their case to a "lessons learned" summary; I'm just describing parts of it.  It seems to me like sticking with it and escalating business effort and input instead of dropping it all in relation to early limited demand and profit return was the main key, but maybe that's not exactly right.

Related to one subject that keeps repeating here, to me an example of a current trial in progress for online exposure is represented by the vendor-specific Discord groups.  I'm registered to participate in two, hosted by Farmerleaf and Liquid Proust.  It's a little less straightforward than actively discussing tea in Tea Chat and Steepster, and sending bloggers some samples, but it might be a current effective approach, even though activity level at both of those seems moderate.  The running theme in this post was that there is no magic bullet though, that any one highly effective outreach tool can be very helpful, but all the conditions really need to come together, typically requiring support of extended time for positive business influences and consumer awareness to build up.

Video interview with the Russian Tea Lovers founder

I just did a video interview with Alexander Vorontsov, the founder of the Russian Tea Lovers group (one founder, at least), with that video here.   I just realized that I'm sideways in that, checking it out to post about it.  It's always the little details.

I've met him before, and discussed Russian tea culture, most of which is summarized in this post.  It's a bit redundant to say a lot about the video since that content stands alone, but I'll introduce who that group is and what we talked about in order to help people determine if watching it would be of interest.

meeting Alexander at the one local shop I always go to, Jip Eu

That group holds local tea tastings, with members sharing both tea and information about exploring tea elsewhere.  Chinese teas have the most influence in Russia, I think, but there is local Sochi area production, and a deeper history of tea production in Georgia (with more on that history here). 

On my end we visited Russia a couple of years ago, with a travel oriented post about that here.  Russia is amazing, and the local tea culture runs deeper there than here in Bangkok, even though Chinese culture is the main influence on Thai culture, with Thais mostly descended from multiple waves of Chinese immigrants.  I've reviewed a lot of tea from Moychay, one of their main suppliers, who also runs tea clubs there (something different).  Their one Nannuo sheng pu'er I bought on that first trip was one of my overall favorite tea versions.

tea tasting in Moscow with Dasha and Alexander, the Laos Tea founder

In that video we talked about international tea culture themes, and how local perspectives go back in the US.  I mentioned what I'm up to related to tea, and my own favorite other tea blogs (Steep Stories, Tea DB, Tea Addict's Journal), and we discussed why Tea for Me Please is probably the most influential US blog, and how that subculture works out.  Then onto organic themes related to tea, online group culture, sourcing, and so on, pretty much all what one would expect.

so many cool places to visit there

Five years of blogging about tea

Originally published on the TChing site here.

It's been five years that I've been writing a blog about tea--the time flies.  I wrote about how tea culture seems to be changing last year so I'll go into how my own perspective and experience of tea has changed instead.

I got started just before my daughter was born; a lot has changed beyond tea.

meeting her family, in that first hour

Starting a blog and the rest was as much about exploring social media through a subject interest.  It does carry over into tea group discussions, which ties to co-founding a Facebook tea group.

a Laos tea garden (credit Kinnari Tea)

Of course the interest in tea did precede writing about it.  We traveled to Laos when my son was quite young, maybe 8 years ago, and I saw tea plants growing in a small farm there.  I was more interested in the coffee they produced but bought both.  That tea being a bit mediocre, probably related to processing limitations, to the farmers probably just letting it dry, probably slowed up what could've been a faster start for subject interest.


Discussing tea in groups keeps renewing my consideration of a "path to tea," of a typical experience curve.  I guess there wouldn't be any typical version; the starting point, steps, and how far it all goes would vary.  It is just a drink; I love it but can relate to people not really becoming obsessed.  I don't tend to pass on guidance for what to experience, or approach, although I did lay out some basic factors in an introductory guide once.


I seem to have come full-circle for preferences, in a sense.  I've just spent a year delving into sheng pu'er, a type and subject that takes more exploration to piece together, so that kind of review keeps going.  New types, like a Japanese black tea I just reviewed (only the second I've tried), keep coming up, but less of them.  What I really meant was that I can appreciate a broader range of types and quality levels than ever before now.  For a long time teas being new to me or as good as better versions I've tried, or even better, made them seem all the more appealing, but now the main appeal is whatever the immediate experience offers, which varies.

it doesn't get much more Thai than this

I'll give an example:  I've purchased that orange colored flavored version of loose Thai tea for the first time this year.  Even more unconventional, for a tea enthusiast, only this year I went back to drinking tea from tea bags.  Sometimes people who know I like tea but don't know which types pass those on.  In the past I'd give them away again.  Trying a version of Lipton early this year seemed to reinforce that those just wouldn't work for me.  But I tried again, mixed with sweetened condensed milk at work, and kept on with it.  One was a tea version from Kenya, mentioned in this post reviewing Cold War Berlin tea history, covered there related to mixing it with willow herb, Ivan chay.  I like willow herb now too (even though it's odd), and I've been dabbling in tisanes more.

Of course I can still relate positively with better tea, very exceptional Chinese oolongs (like my overall favorite tea, Wuyi Origin's Rou Gui).

Wuyi Origin Rou Gui; some versions do stand out

Lately I've been wondering where to go from here, related to blogging.  A classic blogger that I've learned a lot from has been saying that he's worked through a lot of what he has to say.  There seems to be an experience curve related to talking about tea that ends in just experiencing it, and not talking about it.  Another older local friend seems to have even cut back drinking it.  I doubt I'll do many more 100+ post years, or keep up the reviewing pace, but for now interesting subjects and new tea experiences keep coming up.  I'll stick with it.

Post-script:  about traffic, and some favorite posts

I keep the TChing content limited in word-count because even 700-800 word post versions seem to run long related to what else appears there.  I wanted to mention two more things here though, about readership volume, and mention some favorite past posts.

In a sense it doesn't matter how many or few people read this blog since it's not about validation through traffic as a way of keeping score, and there's no commercial angle that volume relates to.  All the same I'll mention readership, since it is one dimension, best shown by a stat graphic:

As of about a month ago individual page views dropped considerably, seemingly mostly because Facebook changed their feed-display algorithm in a way that decreased it, since most viewer traffic had been routed by Facebook link notices.  Popular posts had been viewed 300 or so times in the first few days, or over 500 for some non-review themes, and that's way down now.  

No matter.  It's hard to be sure how many of those 300k views were even people anyway, versus bots.  I'm not sure what the point is, really just sharing that, since that dimension never comes up.

I wanted to mention some all-time favorite posts too; somehow that seems appropriate to the retrospective theme.  Picking favorites among review posts just didn't work.  I liked lots of different teas for different reasons, and most of the write-ups seemed a bit wordy. 

Most of these were written in the last two years, when I've branched into topic research and tangents a bit more than I had before then.  Only two don't mention tea at all, about my son becoming a novice monk.

Tea Related Research

Pu'er Storage and Fermentation

Pu'er storage optimums, and relative versus absolute humidity

Fluoride in Tea; Summary Version

Caffeine in Tea Revisited

Tea taste profiling and machine testing "tasting"

Making rock oolong (Wuyi Yancha): an interview with Cindy Chen

Other

My Son Becomes a Novice Monk in Bangkok, and Keoni's Take on Being a Thai Novice Monk

Travel to Russia, to Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Murmansk

Advice to Beginners About Tea

Mission Impossible; Reviewing Teas from North Korea

Tea Shopping in New York City

not so into it yet but these two will be my favorite tea drinkers later

Oolong pu'er, about sheng aging potential

Related to reviewing different sheng versions lately considering which sheng pu'er will age well and which won't keeps coming up.

A comment about a Moychay Nan Nuo sheng relates directly to that (here on Reddit, by Jay, if he's familiar, who sells tea here):

It'll be interesting to watch it age over several years but my gut instinct is that it will fade rather quickly in BKK. The fruity flavors often indicate oolong style pu that will fade out with age.


I had framed a similar idea in that original review more as a question.


I love the fruit in it, and that overall "bright" effect.  Often when I'm drinking sheng made within the past year I'm saying this might be better in a year or two, a little less edgy, but in this case I'm not so sure.  If that brightness were to decline, as it would to some extent, the balance might be just as positive, or more so, or the tea could've been best drank when very young like this.


Of course the deeper issue is what aspect range indicates a tea will age well, and to what extent that varies by preference, or is it not possible to tell by trying a tea.  All of that is essentially what this post is about.  I frame that as a question in the response to that comment by Jay about "oolong pu'er":


I've ran across this description, and take it to mean sheng pu'er that resembles oolong in aspect character, smooth, not astringent or bitter, sweet, sometimes with fruit aspects.

The odd twist is that often mentions of that term pair it with descriptions of processing variation (or error, depending on interpretation) with the tea heated more in the kill-green (shaqing) step causing conversion of compounds essential to sheng pu'er fermentation (or whatever someone wants to call that, since there's more back-story about that term too). But only at that simple one-step variation description it should become more like a green tea, shouldn't it? 

Some other descriptions, which usually don't mention "oolong-style" as a comment, say sheng that's heated too much more or less is green tea. But green tea usually tastes nothing at all like oolong, with more initial oxidation being a main difference in the two, beyond difference in resulting aspects. That additional oxidation wouldn't be present in sheng that got a bit hot during processing. 


Jay mentioned that Tea Chat discussion link for further reference, along with a concise overview "some of the stuff that is aromatic and flavorful and easy to drink today can die in a matter of three years."


I'll look into that Tea Chat discussion here, citing parts of it.  It never really resolves, but it's interesting to consider individual points made.  I want to touch on another tangent first, about people using the terms fragrant and aromatic in different ways.  I'm sure it means something very clear and consistent to the people using it, probably even well agreed upon in limited groups or circles, but I wouldn't be surprised to find that the meaning varies among people.

exploring sheng aging by trying six years of consecutive samples (here and here)

more to follow about turning another page in trying interesting versions

More on aroma, fragrance, and other aspect descriptions

It's common enough knowledge that basic taste / flavor is really divided into two parts, what our tongues pick up (salty, sweet, umami, etc.) and aromatic compounds, identified in sensors in the lower rear of the nasal passages instead, related to our sense of smell.  I've mentioned this "basics" video summary by Barb Stuckey before, author of "Taste What You're Missing."

It would be simple if aroma is intended as only the information carried by aromatic compounds that are identified by sensation related to smell.  In this tea vendor blog post that's essentially how it's being used.

The problem is that I've ran across other range of uses before, and it doesn't seem to be quite that simple in these citations.  Jay mentioned in that comment "some of the stuff that is aromatic and flavorful," apparently contrasting the two (which I had just cited).  It doesn't work well for flavor to mean what's tasted by the tongue in that, although it could still work.  Typical language use of the concept of flavor includes both types of sensory input, but then the concepts of taste and flavor tend to blur together in common use.  In lots of citations related to tea use of all of the terms seems to vary, but to generally incline towards one specific concept range, assumed as shared and understood.

A research article (Tea Aroma Formation) summarizes aromatic compounds present in tea, reflecting that simple version:

The current review summarizes tea aroma compounds and their formation in green, black, and oolong tea. The flavor of tea can be divided into two categories: taste (non-volatile compounds) and aroma (volatile compounds). All of these aroma molecules are generated from carotenoids, lipids, glycosides, etc. precursors, and also from Maillard reaction. In the current review, we focus on the formation mechanism of main aromas during the tea manufacturing process.


So why not just leave it at that?  "Taste" can be reduced to what the tongue is picking up, "aroma" to the rest, to aromatic compound input.  Or on the looser side taste or flavor could mean both, and someone could be more specific about how they're using the terms if it's really necessary.  The reason I'm not comfortable leaving it at that (that first option) relates to running across the terms being used in different ways.  Generally loose ordinary language use of broad terms is something else, but I mean in discussions about tea.

Of course most of the flavor of all teas is carried mostly by aromatic compounds.  Sweetness is picked up through sensation by the tongue (mostly, as far as I know and can determine), even though it's not typically sugars causing that in tea, but also other compounds that come across similarly.  The same is true for the feel of teas, astringency, and bitterness and sourness, obviously, but beyond that most is "aromatic," or from the contribution of volatile compounds.

Onto the complication:  often the pronounced floral or fruit range in a tea like a Mi Lan Xiang Dan Cong is referred to as flavorful, while the more subtle, different range in a Ya Shi (duck shit) Dan Cong is referred to as aromatic instead.  Of course some people will disagree completely with that; my central point is that people are using the terms in different ways.  Is that convention--if correctly identified--only because someone is using the terms in the wrong way, or that they aren't clear on how limited tongue-based taste perception is?  Maybe.  But it seems to represent a different convention that breaks "flavor" apart differently than just between tongue and nasal passages instead.

I've been through some degree of training in wine tasting but referring back to that doesn't help (which could instead relate to limitations in my own training and memory).  And even if there had been a clear convention and terms break-down there it still might not carry over.

Ordinarily I'd speculate, and say that a certain range seems to have represented what people are meaning by "aroma" in some cases, with the rest pushed off to "flavor" or whatever else.  I have expressed thoughts on this before but I can't really get much clearer to pinning this down.  I tend to use "aromatic" myself in a specific and limited sense that's probably not universal, or who knows, maybe almost entirely incorrectly.

Just because someone is from within the Chinese tea tradition (like my online friend Cindy, who even makes tea) they're not necessarily a great reference for a universal use of terms.  Even if someone could site a tea-master or ancient tradition school lineage that wouldn't necessarily support their use of any description terms as universal.

All of this isn't really central to this discussion, the part about oolong pu'er, but it sort of does keep coming up in the parts of it.

Kalani checking out a dragon.  Happy New Year!

About types of sheng, and "oolong pu'er"

Part of the broader idea of exploring sheng lately has been to start to sort out how different types of age differently.  Of course aging input is just one issue related to judging or enjoying a sheng pu'er.  Related to exploring that, most recently I tried a series of Yiwu sheng samples designed to show aging effect (here and here), and before that  attended a vertical tasting of those (narrowed to teas from Ding Jia Zhai, a village in that larger Yiwu area).

It's a review that I understand is going to be a process, nothing I'm going to get far with in any limited amount of time.  It goes without saying that I'm barely getting started, but I do keep saying that anyway.  "Just getting started" means different things to different people, and what I mean is that I've tried and reviewed some related teas over the last four years, but not that many of them, something like a few dozen.  There are probably less than 20 related reviews here, of versions of sheng. 

Tea quality is another issue, beyond any sort of count related to what someone has tried.  It would be possible to keep trying low to medium quality versions of sheng pu'er and not really see that half of the picture, or to many, to get much relevant exposure about what the tea type is really supposed to be about.


The discussion in that Tea Chat thread about "oolong pu'er" goes a lot further with isolating aging concerns, with the main two references here:

Tea Chat forum "Oolong Pu'er Processing" thread

Related, The Mandarin's Tea "Oolong Pu" post

A citation from the author of the second personal blog post (by Tim) within that original thread outline the central theme and concept definition of "oolong pu'er:"


Those high aromatic new style Puerh which goes stale in 8 plus years. They can't age and a total waste of time and money...  

...flat in the body, don't last many brews in a balanced way (aroma and body) but high aroma from the production of 2006 to current?  [2013, at that time of writing]


From there discussion varied related to root causes or descriptions of effect.  One vendor offered an summary of some issues and conditions, but it's not intended as a consensus take here, or even representative, just a good place to start (cited from "Bannacha's" post):


If you're refering to tea that got too much Sha Qing, they are quite easy to identify: the leaves are very green, they are astringent and they get bland very quickly, just like green tea.

By controlling the Sha Qing time and the wok temperature, you can make redder or greener tea, and, as long as it's not extreme, I think there's a large span of well processed tea. Then, it depends on your personal taste, what kind of aroma you prefer, and which mountain you're dealing with. I like a greener processing on Mengku tea, because it brings out the high pitched fragrance of this area. Redder tea might be good to emphasize on the body, the mouth feeling.



Later discussion identified a potential difference in the drying step as a potential main issue, that replacing sun-drying with an alternative process (citing "Nada" on page 2)


...He's been experimenting with how cakes have been ageing that have had different processing techniques & noticed a big difference between those that had been dried in a heated room after pressing vs those that had been dried in the open air. 

...We tasted some of his past pressings and there did seem to be a strong correlation. The naturally dried cakes did seem to be ageing better. 

In freshly pressed teas, the difference seems to be huge - the cakes dried in a heated room had strong aroma and tasted fresh soon after pressing, while naturally dried cakes seem to take months after pressing to recover from the process and have a much more subdued aroma.

Really all of these citations are just samples, and the whole thread is well worth a read. Of course people are going to be using some terms in slightly different ways (me even more so than them), and preferences would vary, but it seems possible to read past those issues and extract some clear insights.  It would be interesting if I could even tentatively link any of what I've experienced back to these patterns, but passing on guesses at this point would seem less than helpful. 

the "Oolong Puerh" FB business page.  that might've not worked out.

The various points raised don't really fall together as a clearly connected, narrow-range set of ideas, as this summary hasn't (so far, but it does keep meandering).  If you read through even the first four or five pages of that Tea Chat discussion it's narrower than this review of it makes out, but still hard to summarize.  

I'll cite a part that was particularly interesting, some comments on positive attributes of sheng by Shah82 (a name reference that might ring a bell; I've mentioned other input from him in this blog before), from page 4 of that discussion (edited down only a little for length):

Nobody is an expert. Not really, because this hobby is far too young as a broad phenomenon. Virtually everyone's experience in the West consists of furtive samplings of tiny quantities of the well stored aged tea, usually of well known tea like 7542 or 8582. So everyone is making best guesses, especially given how processing methods and blends have changed since the 80s and 90s. So you have to come up with a system that estimates how you should think of a tea. 

So for me, I go with: 

1) Does the aroma endure? You can't fake or process a quality aroma with depth/complexity/fullness, rise off the cup, and lasting more than a minute or so. 

2) How comfortable is it to drink? Is there astringency or bitterness? Is that astringency/bitterness productive in generating lingering aftertaste and huigans? Silky, gloopy, whatever texture? 

3) Is it like drinking water or some kind of soup? Body is a bit different than texture--you can have a thinner body, with a silk texture and that'd be pretty cool. Or a thick one that isn't right in some way. 

4) How much power, activity, and presence does the soup have on top of, and inside the throat? Too many people think mere cooling is a sign of quality. It is, sorta, but what sets off the really good from the mundane is the nature of the cool. Good tea has a different kind of cooling that's more ben-gay than mint. The effect tends to go down the throat and up the nose. It can also travel around the mouth, as in "wind rain effect" as the Chinese call it. 

5) How much qi does it have? Does said qi move along the meridians, so to speak, or does it just sit there? Is it comfortable or harsh? 

6) Does the tea have several stages in flavor as you go through a pot of water? Are the finishing brews pleasantly sweet and comfy? 

... You have to make choices about what you want. You'd read me or any of the bloggers strictly in the context of where your preferences and priorities tend to overlap with mine or anyone else... 

I will say that taste itself is highly deceptive. It depends on your water, whether you let the dry leave sit in the bowl a week or two, or any number of things. It can change with the years. The classic way people buy bad tea is by preferentially buying "approachable" flavor or aroma puerh. Which is why you see so much problematically tinkered puerh that gives a oolongly fruity or floral taste (or more red and mellow malt). 

For me, the easy way to tell, again, is to see whether that aroma *endures*. Many of these teas also will betray badness by becoming hard to drink or pointless to drink by about brew 6-8. *Few* puerh, however, are done straight processing green. A little butteriness is sought after. Or a little hongcha, or some nice smokiness. That's alright, so long as most of the underlying qualities are still there to age.

Ok, not edited down much.  There's lots interesting there, which I won't really comment further on.  I will mention that the one sentence about communication and shared perspective does deserve some extra thinking through.  It's insightful and clear enough, but perhaps easy to miss what is really being said.  As I take it he acknowledges that preference is a real issue, a context framework that the rest of the experience rests on, and that input from him or from tea bloggers is only valid to the degree that a general approach is shared.

Put another way, reading others' ideas about how they approach tea, and what they prefer, only goes so far.  There would seem to be better and worse references beyond that issue of generally matching preference scale.  As an example, a tea blogger could be on exactly the same page as a reader relating to general preference (for types, relating to subject concerns, and brewing approach, etc.), and still pass on a lot of wrong information, or could describe teas very badly.  And I suppose the opposite could be true; an online reference or discussion point could relate to a completely different scope than a reader is typically interested in or exposed to (eg. be written about a tea type that isn't of interest, or be based on very different personal preference scope) and it could still be interesting.

Typical mapping related to that, identifying who is speaking from a similar perspective framework, is simple enough; you just find an example of discussion of a favorite tea type, and see if the observations match (likes, as part of that, but also the details of the take, like aspect descriptions).

That last citation is a good example of how such ideas can be interesting, or even potentially helpful, probably not just related to people who are clear on what he's talking about.  At times others' perspectives are paired with attitudes and personality aspect inputs that can be a bit off-putting, and I suppose it all has to balance.

that one blog mascot again

Oolong pu'er as a positive description

Oddly this doesn't come up.  If there really are differences in processing approaches, and differences in aspect range of young teas, and in personal preferences, it would stand to reason that there couldn't be a completely clear division between what is good and bad.  But that's essentially how the term "oolong pu'er" tends to be used, only as a criticism of a specific version of a young sheng. 

The implication is that teas should be able to improve with age, or that people should prefer some other aspect range than is found in such a tea.  But that's usually not explicitly stated.  More often one or two aspects are criticized, and the person commenting just moves on.  I suppose the way this review of the discussion plays out accounts for one reason why that might occur:  it's not simple outlining what one might desire in a sheng, even when someone has the experience and communication tools at their disposal to do so.

All of this is only food for thought, to be compared to actual personal tea drinking experience. 

One interesting complication is that tea related preferences change over time, and that preference related to specific types of aspects changes.  It would seem problematic to try and like what you think you're supposed to like, to steer personal preference along the path of some consensus-defined natural learning curve.  Or maybe that could work.  Even for taking external input seriously, in a case when a tea drinker tries to branch out and add depth to the range of what they can appreciate, someone would still need to experience tea enjoyment tea by tea, and sip by sip, to work with where they are to some degree.

And so I come back to where this started:  will that Moychay Nan Nuo sheng age well, will it continue to improve?  I'm not sure.  I did just try it again with breakfast, to keep tabs on if my impression changes, and to compare it to the other related tea versions I've been trying this year.  I just checked; four of eleven posts this year were about sheng, with six versions reviewed, and two more in draft form now.  It's not a bad pace but a slow start to the blogging year, versus last year.  I still really like the tea.

I plan to keep drinking some, to enjoy it as it is now, and leave enough to try some later too.  Of course there's a bit of a gap in that approach:  if it does seem to improve over several years, or go through an "awkward phase" between years 8 and 13 (or whenever), it will essentially be gone by the time it has improved, already drank.  It would seem best if I could set aside a good bit of varied tea now to hedge my bets related to versions changing in different ways.  As far as making better guesses about likely changes I'm not getting far, yet.

The end of a tea blog

No, not this blog.  Let me explain.

I love old tea blogs, looking back on perspectives on tea from way back when, maybe even ten years ago.  What Western tea culture must have been like!  The pu'er bubble burst around then, and people kept discovering new and unique versions of teas, like aged oolongs, or obscure forms of hei cha, and new producer countries kept turning up.  They still do; as far as I know I've "broke" the news of two new tea origins, of production in Spain and North Korea (teas I actually did try, in the second case).

A different type of transition relates to a changing of the guard in tea blogging; old blogs go inactive, new ones start up.  This at least partly relates to a natural process of changing personal interests.  I think back to how I loved wine at one point, then tisanes, and craft beer, after English and German beer before that.  I once owned a small espresso machine, and later went back to plain drip brewed coffee, and then switched to tea.  I was into liquors once too, but that related more to getting drunk, kind of a different thing.


This tea blogger's closing remarks in Another Tea Blog sums up all that related to their own transition:


Ok, I fought it and fought it, but the blog is officially dead. It saddens me, as tea has given me much pleasure, as has this blog. Unfortunately for now my interests and hobbies have moved on to other things.

Even without updates, many people still find their way to this blog. It is my hope that it will still be a source of information to some. I have disabled the comment moderation. If you wish to leave a comment, feel free, but I will most likely not respond.

Hopefully this is temporary. Hopefully tea will once again be the source of pleasure that it was to me. And in the mean time, hopefully it will continue to be a source of pleasure for you.



And that is the theme of this post, examining the life cycle of tea blogging, largely through the perspective and words of people that had written a blog but stopped.  With a bit of my rambling added it runs a little long but I found their input fascinating, well worth the read.

If you read through that blog, or any other, the posts tell the same type of story about initial enthusiasm, ramping up knowledge and experience, and writing and tasting skills, about building connections with others who share the interest, then eventually interest tapering off, at least in writing.  That's more or less the type of cycle I summarized in a comment on a seven year old resurrected thread on Steepster about starting a tea lounge.  Based on a little looking around none of those people commenting there probably actually started a tea lounge, and none seemed to maintain an active online interest in tea, or at least the trail goes cold there.


It's similar to this article on the 12 phases of every coffee snob's life; it ends with going quiet:


Phase 12: You develop an ability to keep your opinions to yourself

The clouds part. It becomes clear that not every coffee needs three adjectives attached to it. Mr. Coffee doesn't seem like such a bad dude anymore, he's just trying to feed his kids. There's actually a strange pleasure in drinking plain diner coffee, although you'll still draw the line at coffees from bank lobbies and hotel continental breakfasts. 


I could swear that there was a similar commentary in A Tea Addict's Journal, authored by "Marshal N," about stages of tea experience, more related to a form change than an eventual end.  A 2012 post there on tea blogging in general, about what is out there and changes, will suffice as a background reference.  There isn't much there that sums up general patterns but it is interesting comparing that post to his perspective on blogging from 2007 in the Cha Dao blog.  An observation on one reason why people write a tea blog from that:


But in much of the English-speaking community, from which most tea bloggers are drawn, oftentimes the only person who drinks tea seriously whom the blogger knows is the blogger him/herself. What the blogs, and the exchanges that take place both on and off sites, serve are the same needs that a tea drinker in China wants from a visit to a teahouse or teashop -- an interaction with somebody else who is passionate about tea.


That is true of my blog.  Compared to the real life group interaction mentioned in that early post even more of my own tea-related contact remains online.  I talk about tea in different places, all online, like in this FB group I helped found and moderate.

Old blogs coming back to life

There are few cases of old blogs continuing for a long time, on the order of a decade.  Besides the Tea Addict's Journal the Half Dipper comes to mind.  Both are perhaps quieter than before but both are well worth checking out, with both authors now drawing on a wealth of experience.  There are a few recent examples of classic blogs going dormant for years and then returning to some degree of activity:  Matt Cha's blog, Bear's blog, and Tea Obsession.

They don't tend to become too philosophical about re-starting, to examine their motivations for not blogging, or blogging again, or delve into cultural shift examination.  They just go back to talking about tea, probably from a slightly different perspective.  There might be more insight to draw on related to those cases but I didn't turn up any, so I'll move on to a few descriptions of why people stop blogging, input about personal experiences.  This short tangent can stop at mentioning those special cases.

The end of two of my favorite tea blogs, and one from before my time

I asked one of my favorite former tea bloggers about her experiences, and why she thought people let the writing interest go, the author of the Snooty Tea Blog.  The video form of that blog is under Natasha Nesic; following the trend of most early bloggers her real name wasn't connected to her work at first, but later on it was.  I'd like to include what I liked about her blog but it's hard to pin down; watch a video if you're curious about that.  Her input:

I believe that recreational blogging takes a certain dedication and outside support to maintain motivation. The ones who can do it sustainably are in fields with a much larger audience--therefore greater support network, greater opportunity to make cash. Income speaks, at the end of the day. We want to be paid for doing what we love.

These days it's more of a thing that personal training clients find fascinating--"You're a tea sommelier? And you had a blog?" but then we go back to squats. Fitness is where my real passion is, though I still enjoy a good cup of Pu-Erh. 

her iconic blog profile photo (and of course she's actually in the videos)

So a few different points there; overall support network issues and balancing different demands comes into play, and interests can change over time.  It does seem like tea blogs tied to a tea business tend to last longer, and that in cases when a tea blogger not working in the industry moves into that it helps solidify the connection.

I looked around through old tea blogs to find other examples, really as much out of personal interest as research for this post.  Based on asking around the author of one very well developed and now inactive tea blog, Palatabilitea, passed on her own insights to her own experiences, edited down just a little:


As a teacher, I know that human brains are wired to enjoy novelty, and that I have to develop multiple strategies and approaches to keep my students' interest. But we also end up returning to a few favorites.  I am still very interested in tea and continue to drink it daily. I just no longer have the need to constantly explore it and find new teas and new ways of brewing. I've had hundreds of different teas, each brewed in many ways, and I've gotten to the point where I'd rather just keep a few of my favorites on hand and brew them in my favorite ways.

Why my particular blog dried up was not a reflection of me losing interest in tea or the online tea culture, but more of a reflection of a huge change in my life. The couple of years I wrote my blog was a unique period of time between graduating from my undergrad and moving on to my first graduate program. When I started the blog, the Great Recession was in full swing and the only job I could manage to get was a part time receptionist position.  I started writing the tea blog as a way to keep my writing chops sharp, while at the same time studying to pass the GRE.  I'd fallen into a core group of live chatters on Adagio's TeaChat, and a few of them had started blogs to archive our tasting notes. We realized that a lot of other people were reading our blogs, too, which really bothered some of the guys (I was the only girl), and they stopped writing for that reason. More of us stopped for the same reason I did: our lives changed.

In my case, I got into a demanding graduate program. I went from having tons of 'free time' to none at all, and blogging was actually fairly labor intensive. Between tasting multiple rounds, taking notes, photography and photo editing, and then finally composing and editing, I think I was putting 5 hours of work into each post, and I just did not have that time. 

...And when I did get a bit of free time and funds back, I found I preferred not constantly writing about and talking about tea. The constant discussion had begun to feel performative, and I had developed a critic's lens when it came to tea...and that was keeping me from enjoying the moment and the tea in my cup. Drinking tea was far more pleasurable and meditative when I wasn't evaluating it. And it was a major relief from my "day job" of literary criticism. So I stopped paying attention to the tea chatter that was going on online, and I've been quite happy with my decision. 

I can relate to all of that.  Tea blogging does take time, and to some extent the activity takes away from simply enjoying the experience, even if it does push you to explore some aspects more deeply.  There seems to be a divide between people that enjoy trying to define tea tasting through description, who experience the analysis and communication as enriching it, and for others who find it gets in the way.  That gets compared to photography, how for some that puts distance between them and what they see, and for others it somehow adds a meaningful extra dimension.

While I was writing this post one of my own favorite current tea bloggers posted her sign-off from tea blogging, Amanda from My Thoughts Are Like Butterflies.  That blog won't be updated with reviews from here on out but I highly recommend reading through the existing posts.  She influenced my own experience of writing about tea, I suppose to some extent related to reviewing style, but really more about adding a bit more of myself to my blog posts.  Her closing post tells the story:


Well, all, the time has come to hang up my blogger hat, this is the last update this blog will have. I have given this a lot of thought and realized it was time to move on to other things! Before I get into the meat of the blog, thank you...all of you...all the readers, fellow bloggers, tea companies, tea growers, all the ones that found my words useful and relevant, you guys are the reason I continued with this blog for as long as I did, the reason I went from posting quick tasting notes on Facebook to long-winded rambles. I will never have the right words to accurately express my appreciation and the glowing warm fuzzies I get in my heart.


There are myriad reasons why, so I will give a quick rundown. 

1. I have burned out and no longer feel I have anything worth saying about these teas, which doesn't do anyone justice, and I really do not want my burn out of writing to leach into the tea itself, I adore tea and will do anything to avoid jeopardizing my love of it!

2. It is a job that doesn't pay anything, and I no longer find this job fun, it went from being a hobby and passion to a job. I know from experience this is toxic as hell one's hobbies should never only be a job. 

a pure soul

3. Yes, my health is part of it, I am tired of beating myself up for missing blog days due to being too unwell. I started this blog in part to make myself feel constructive while also being disabled, and that really helped at first, now I no longer need it for the confidence boost and the stress of missing posts got old. 


4. I just want to drink tea, I am tired of having to stop my sessions to take notes and mess with taking pictures, it is so easy with Instagram to take (mediocre) photos and throw them on there while waiting for the cup to cool, the process of taking notes mid tasting and photos were just getting in the way of my enjoyment,I am tired of having to think about it, I just want to get lost in tea.Those are the main reasons I am ending the blog, I feel as though a weight has been lifted from me!




She goes on to sign off a bit more, and explain that disappointed readers can still catch more limited updates on Instagram.

Those last two citations overlap a bit, and pretty much sum it up:  it can shift from being a labor of love to just being work, and for most it's work that doesn't actually pay.  Except maybe in tea samples, or for some limited advertising revenue, but a lot of tea bloggers are doing it almost entirely just to share experiences.

I'm not thinking of throwing in the towel just yet but it wouldn't take much in the way of life circumstances changes for me to scale back the effort I put in.  I've used tea exploration, research and writing to support different ends, to explore a subject I love and also social networking avenues.  Blogging always was about two separate interests, for me, one related to experiencing tea and the other to all the rest, and I could imagine the latter dropping out.  For now it's still a labor of love, and along with the mundane reviews I have a few other interesting things in mind to tell you about.

Online group psychology; why review tea, part two

Some of this could be my imagination leading in odd directions, but I think a deeper level answer to "why review tea," related to tea bloggers, as considered in this post, has to do with an online version of group-related psychology.  I'm speculating that self-identifying is one purpose, defining oneself as a member of one or more sets of tea enthusiasts, perhaps even more than having any other final goal in mind.  Of course I also write for different reasons, to keep track of review notes and links, to practice writing, and so on.  But here I'll consider the answer that tea blogging and review could relate to an unusual form of group involvement, relating to sharing an interest, potentially played out as much online as in real life, or perhaps both.

Obvious enough, but with that said, what would the rest of this post be about?  It's not as if I could distill that down to some clear and simple principles that no one is aware of; people talk about things online, in blogs, in groups, and otherwise.  So I'll just ramble on and cite some things, the usual approach.


This online reference on the psychology of groups can serve as a starting point:

Groups are not only founts of information during times of ambiguity, they also help us answer the existentially significant question, “Who am I?” Common sense tells us that our sense of self is our private definition of who we are, a kind of archival record of our experiences, qualities, and capabilities. Yet, the self also includes all those qualities that spring from memberships in groups. People are defined not only by their traits, preferences, interests, likes, and dislikes, but also by their friendships, social roles, family connections, and group memberships. The self is not just a “me,” but also a “we.”


Even demographic qualities such as sex or age can influence us if we categorize ourselves based on these qualities. Social identity theory, for example, assumes that we don’t just classify other people into such social categories as man, woman, Anglo, elderly, or college student, but we also categorize ourselves. Moreover, if we strongly identify with these categories, then we will ascribe the characteristics of the typical member of these groups to ourselves, and so stereotype ourselves. If, for example, we believe that college students are intellectual, then we will assume we, too, are intellectual if we identify with that group (Hogg, 2001).

groups graphic (credit)

Beyond starting a blog and writing reviews, or discussion in groups, there's always real life as a fall-back.  Someone could meet others in person and drink tea with them, with some clear advantages to that approach, but a limited form group association no longer absolutely requires that.  At some point limiting contact to online format only might seem a bit thin, less likely to extend to "real" friendships, but the basic dynamics might be similar.

Throughout the rest of this mixing ideas about group psychology with implied claims that online social patterns occur in comparable forms might be seen as problematic.  There are real groups, and also online social contact, and they seem related but different.  One often encounters the idea that online associations only become valid as an extension of real-life connections, or as a means to initiate those.  Make of all that what you will.  Feel free to reject the association, or think it through and form your own conclusions.  I don't think that the role online interactions play in relation to real-life forms is as clear as that might be, even though many of us have plenty of online experience to base an impression of that on.


A few more ideas from that initial source work to outline purpose, why group inclusion is desirable, and also relate to keeping score within a group, to ways to judge how well participation is going:


Groups also provide a variety of means for maintaining and enhancing a sense of self-worth, as our assessment of the quality of groups we belong to influences our collective self-esteem (Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990). If our self-esteem is shaken by a personal setback, we can focus on our group’s success and prestige. In addition, by comparing our group to other groups, we frequently discover that we are members of the better group, and so can take pride in our superiority. By denigrating other groups, we elevate both our personal and our collective self-esteem (Crocker & Major, 1989).

Mark Leary’s sociometer model goes so far as to suggest that “self-esteem is part of a sociometer that monitors peoples’ relational value in other people’s eyes” (2007, p. 328). He maintains self-esteem is not just an index of one’s sense of personal value, but also an indicator of acceptance into groups. Like a gauge that indicates how much fuel is left in the tank, a dip in self-esteem indicates exclusion from our group is likely...


Interesting!  Definitely drifting off the central topic a bit, but there are some related points to make.

Related to the first points, not only does being a tea enthusiast in a group add more value to the association, beyond that being the right kind of tea drinker, having the right preferences or experience or interacting with the right people, also works out better.  One could choose to take their rightful place in the smart and knowledgeable tea enthusiasts' group, a sure sign they are the same way.

Related to the second set of ideas, about self esteem and personal value, how could someone be excluded from an online group for being an inferior tea enthusiast?  Just mentioning making tea from tea bags in some groups might be a good example, or discussing adding sugar to tea.  Finer distinctions enter in related to teaware choices, or tea types preferences, or general knowledge.  It also seems like more interesting grouping patterns don't even relate to those things, but perhaps instead to personality types (with more to follow on that).

Facebook tea group I helped found and admin  (link)

Of course I'm not prone to feeling superior to others based on a beverage choice, related to the darker turns all those ideas could take.  I don't tend to drink tea from tea bags, or blends, but I'm not offended by that kind of thing.  Then again, if someone asks for suggestions about either in a group I wouldn't have much to add.  Any comment that includes the content "I don't normally drink that," combined with some other ideas to justify saying anything, could be a form of that self-differentiation.  One could become active in a group related to Gongfu Cha, a "higher" form of tea practice, related to those earlier alignment ideas, and that range of subjects would never even come up.

These lines of thinking, about group inclusiveness and acceptance, could also drift off the topic of group dynamics into personal psychological traits, since characteristics like openness and agreeableness relate to this.  Check out this reference citation that subject:


Agreeableness:  this personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection and other prosocial behaviors.  People who are high in agreeableness tend to be more cooperative while those low in this trait tend to be more competitive and even manipulative.


Sounds like that "disagreeable" person wouldn't be much fun to be around, doesn't it?  Or maybe even to hear from in discussion comments.  I've read elsewhere that less agreeable people make better managers because they're not so worried about making everyone happy, and just get on with making decisions completely separate from that concern.  That sort of rings a bell, culturally speaking.

There are online discussion "areas" out there where you wonder why anyone would continue to participate in being so negative, in the form of being judgmental, or insulting, or somewhere in between, and it could relate to sharing attributes like that one.  There is a Thai expat group in which most posts are quickly met with responses along the line of "you should just kill yourself," offered as humor.  It's not a happy place to exchange ideas, unless that fits with someone's sense of humor, and then maybe it is.


It's interesting to consider to what degree people could feel higher or lower self-esteem based on acceptance in a purely online context.  Entry and exit is easy in online groups.  How would that work, for bloggers in particular though?  Starting a blog is easy, but how to gauge social acceptance?

I guess that could be charted by viewer numbers, at least in part.  Or by other types of social contact aspects, related to being included in a summary of best posts, being cited, added to a blog role, linked to within other blogs (although that seems less commonly practiced now); any number of things.  Or real-life recognition could take different forms, like some sort of award.

group functional stages (credit this reference)

Interesting set of group stages and activities in the graphic, isn't it?  I'm going to have to leave most of that unexamined, but I will get back to a couple of points.  Obviously enough we can see a difference in more typical real-life social groups (clubs, etc.) and online associations in the norming and performing stages.  Online associations are marked by a lack of cohesiveness; anyone can show up, culling members out of the group isn't always so simple (although depending on the group interactions maybe it would be, "banning").  Achieving any combined goals in an online group is problematic, especially a loosely defined one.  Just keeping discussion active exhausts most of the potential.

There are ways around that, potential for tightening membership up and aligning interests.  Related to writing blogs about tea, something like the Tea Blogger's Association makes it clear who is in and who's out, related to defining a set, and setting some guidelines.  It seems like that group might have been more active in the past but that general point remains the same; people seek out ways to solidify relations, if they are so inclined.  Training and certifications could also relate, or any number of other ways to obtain labels or in-group status, but I won't go into those here.

Let's leave aside the issues of how good a fit this really is, comparing what a blogger does with a real-life group, and shift even further into group psychology.  None of this really will settle how much sense it's making, applying ideas from real-life group dynamics to much looser associations online, but there are some interesting next ideas to consider after leaving that aside.

tea review site and discussion forum (link)

Different relations between in-group and out-group members

This is where the subject gets interesting; related to what people do in groups they may not even notice being in, about how perspective differences play out.  Check this out (from a Scientific American blog post):


A large literature in social psychology shows that we process information about our in-group more deeply, we remember more positive details, make greater personal evaluations, and allocate resources more generally to those in the in-group. What's more, negative actions of those in the in-group are thought to arise from situational factors, whereas positive ones are thought to be inherent qualities of the individual, whereas the reverse is believed about members of the out-group.


Indeed, there is an emerging literature on "pathological altruism", suggesting that extreme compassion can have downsides such as difficulty passing judgment of right vs. wrong, and forgiving all transgression and failures of those in the in-group while acting highly protective and aggressive toward those in the out-group, even sometimes in the absence of actual provocation and injustice.

two evils

It makes me think of politics straight away, although it may be as well to not drift too far into that topic.  The "left and right, liberal versus conservative" sides tend to lump together the opposing side, and quickly distill it all into wrong versus right.  Whatever comes up related to their side is just fine, just a minor glitch at worst, easy to accept regardless of how awkwardly things play out.  Members of the other side are just idiots, with every negative turn indicating a deeply flawed worldview.


Within expat circles people tend to break along one main line of differentiation, related to fully integrating into the host society or remaining largely separate from it.  Of course it's not quite that clear, and some are in the middle, but generally people emphasize one approach over the other.  Related to these ideas about exclusiveness, in some cases people tend to become antagonistic about the other approach, to reject it as invalid.  On the one side there's a claim that people that can't immerse in a local culture and fully appreciate it should just go back home, extended to wherever that leads, for example to the idea that local language fluency is critical, or only eating local foods.  The claim on the other side is that "integration" emphasis leads to blindly apologizing for all local limitations, refusing to accept that there is good and bad in any cultural perspective, or to the position that food preferences really aren't that critical either way.  The truths and biases mixed together in both sets of claims make them difficult to sort out.


Another part of that second set of points in that citation is interesting:  if someone did or said something perceived negatively within the group--however that was defined--then that would be attributed to just a part of that circumstance, only related to the person, but if someone did the same thing from outside the group that would reflect on them as a member of some category.  And the last part is about interpretive bias tied to that, how the positive or negative spin is overly emphasized.

It's a stretch dragging all this back to tea circles, to be honest.  It just wouldn't seem to stick related to something like shared participation in a forum, and besides, the subject is tea.  Someone might see people inclined to drink tea made from tea bags as an outsider, or a lower form of tea drinker, or labeling as "snobs" in the other direction, but those types of connections related to grouping and judgments just mentioned goes a bit far.  It might work better once more cohesion is developed, in a set of people that communicate more often, or "know" each other, not just tied to whoever shows up somewhere online and prepares a drink in the same way.

That relates to the "norming and performing" aspects in that group functions table.  To some extent it may be a problem for an online group to clearly define these, to set limits, and to take those next steps.  Inclusiveness could actually become a problem, related to that, due to incomplete "forming and storming" steps (note that chart includes a typo; there is no "stroming").  I'll drop this exploration of that process modeling though, just mentioning an interesting short definition of those stages in a business management context.


Some examples of negative biases and active exclusion related to tea circles do come to mind, most of which don't seem suitable for sharing.  I can only think of two cases where people were completely and explicitly excluded from an assumed in-group, related to tea, and both did get a little ugly.  I've been kicked out of a tea group before (a long story, tied to one of those cases).  I'm not counting that as a related example, just more background about things coming up.


It might seem like within tea circles the practice of one-upping or even slighting others seems to reject the dynamics work out in this way, as a true example of grouping.  It's not all just a love-fest, and people don't really seem so cohesive, in lots of cases.  Some people are like that, positive about anything, but "my tea is better than your tea" type commentary comes up, sometimes in the form of "you're not doing it right."  That could just tie back to the "storming" phase idea, about defining roles, or a different part of that first study into group psychology has some insights that might relate:


Groups not only satisfy the need to belong, they also provide members with information, assistance, and social support. Leon Festinger’s theory of social comparison (1950, 1954) suggested that in many cases people join with others to evaluate the accuracy of their personal beliefs and attitudes... 

Although any kind of companionship is appreciated, we prefer those who provide us with reassurance and support as well as accurate information. In some cases, we also prefer to join with others who are even worse off than we are. Imagine, for example, how you would respond when the teacher hands back the test and yours is marked 85%. Do you want to affiliate with a friend who got a 95% or a friend who got a 78%? To maintain a sense of self-worth, people seek out and compare themselves to the less fortunate. 

This process is known as downward social comparison.


So we really do want that good advice about using a different water temperature for making a certain tea (or about sourcing, whatever the subject is), but at the same time to a limited extent we might also want to be the person that offers that advice more than to be the one receiving it.  Of course everyone in the group can't be above average, a great general resource for answers, but it might be possible to take turns offering that last interesting insight.  Assuming all of this really does map onto online group dynamics (which I'll stop mentioning) it would always be possible to lurk in a more informative, "higher level" of experience group, to remain quieter there, and be a more active member in a less informed group, thus satisfying both demands in different ways.

World Tea Expo bloggers panel (photo credit)

Circling back to the review / blogging case

This all drifts further to online group issues, doesn't it?  Related to actually writing blog posts, that's not really social (drifting back to the earliest starting point:  the question "why review tea?").  Some tea bloggers' posts draw some comments but that's more typically the exception.  But it does seem to work to position that relatively individual activity within a social framework, to see it as playing a social role.

Bloggers make that more or less explicit in the writing; some are about social networked themes, and others seem to imply that context is of limited importance to them.  A review-only blog is at one extreme; completely unrelated to social contact.  All the same there's no reason why a blog that absolutely never mentions that any other humans exist, beyond the existence of tea vendors, couldn't still be serving a social role.  Readers as an audience are implied, at a minimum.  Part of the point could be to participate in a general, online-format discussion, but in a very indirect form.


This reminds me of the divide between introverts and extroverts.  A friend's take on this, a self-declared introvert, is that the key difference is a tolerance for social contact.  Obvious enough, with his point being that it's not just about liking or disliking being around other people, it's about being wired for not tolerating much of it versus essentially requiring that.  Online contact can serve as a middle ground for an introvert, according to him.  It's plenty of social distance; those people aren't right next to you, actively interacting, so it's tolerable.  That earlier reference summarizes it this way:


Extraversion is characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.  People who are high in extroversion are outgoing and tend to gain energy in social situations. People who are low in extroversion (or introverted) tend to be more reserved and have to expend energy in social settings.


I guess the "Friends" sit-com characters were extroverts, spending every minute of their free time in a group of a half-dozen, while the "Seinfeld" characters may have potentially been introverts, just joining up for short chat sessions in very small groups and short outings.  I'm not sure how it interacts with these other factors but it seems possible online groups / interaction may enable more introverted people to participate in similar forms as in public contact, just outside of it.  At the far extreme reviewing teas could be like writing a journal, just online, still discussing tea socially, but just barely in terms of interaction.

Life cycle of associations; group "adjourning" played out online

Does all this work in my own case, this perspective?  I'm not so sure.  To some extent it does seem to be a real-life social activity replacement.  Viewer-numbers "scoring" does sort of work, a sign of involvement, and limited positive feedback in a sense since it keeps improving.  But then to some extent I have trouble placing why I'm still writing about tea.  It started as an experiment, to practice writing, and keep track of notes and research, and enable discussion, but I'm not as certain of which range of purposes really did work out.

All of this leads me to consider one last facet; tying these online group associations to the idea of groups "adjourning" and associations ceasing.  I'm reminded of a closing statement in a blog that went inactive:


WELCOME TO ANOTHER TEA BLOG

Ok, I fought it and fought it, but the blog is officialy dead. It saddens me, as tea has given me much pleasure, as has this blog. Unfortunately for now my interests and hobbies have moved on to other things.



Maybe there's no deeper point to cite there.  As people define themselves, so can they change those interests and definitions.  A tea drinker could take up coffee, or tisanes, or juicing, or just not get around to posting.  That blog author mentioned participating in creating a tea site with friends, wikicha (which now links to a notice the domain name is for sale), which invokes the tie-in to other social concerns, which also ceased.

I participated in an active Asian-themed expat forum that went through that whole life-cycle, ramping up to a large active membership, with thousands of members (with maybe only a few dozen actively posting at any given time).  It spanned hundreds of discussion threads, with the more active core-group members posting in the range of 5-10,000 comments.  It's here, Xpat Life, formerly Orient Expat, with some remaining static content described as such:


If you have a question, or need advice on a subject not covered here, visit our forum by clicking the links to the left, which is staffed by experienced expats and frequented by a loyal membership who'll be happy to discuss this wonderful country with you.


But that section was shut down, and those links were removed.  It sort of just ran out of steam, for different reasons.

I helped found two separate Facebook tea groups, one of which I'm still active in, and an admin for, and it's been interesting seeing that group life-cycle from that perspective.

This seems like this is a good place to either transition to a deeper level of insights about how online groups thrive and then die or close this, and I've covered too much ground already.  It's funny how online social contact goes.  I hope that reading these rambling, tiresome posts means something to someone, and that sharing a love of tea really can extend a little beyond sharing a beverage preference, even if only through online connections.