Andrew Richardson of Liquid Proust on tea culture

 

random captures never have everyone looking at the screen

That circle of friends and I met with Andrew Richardson, of Liquid Proust, not so much about any one theme, but this summary will narrow it down.  Huyen didn't join, busy related to observing Easter, and Suzana, Ralph, and Mr. Mopar (John) did, who I wrote about meeting with recently.  I was joining from a car and while out visiting local cousins, not really ideal, but beyond being a bit distracting it works.  We talked about lots of themes; the idea here is to pass on a bit of the perspective, not to summarize it, or even touch on most topics.

Discussion of how tea works out to connect people socially was interesting, about how individuals generally relate to the experience, and how that builds up and is supported by online social networking forms.  To be clear this is my own interpretation of a shared group discussion, not all what Andrew was saying.  I'll attribute a few statements to him but that's not meant to imply that the rest is also what he said.  The last part is all my commentary on some of the rest, not about the discussion.

Andrew mentioned how early on he connected with people through Steepster.  I was "around" for that, a bit active on Tea Chat and Steepster back then, on the order of 8 years or so ago, when this blog started.  Steepster came and went pretty fast; it has been a shell of its former self for a long time, and was new back then.  It was an interesting and promising format, combining the conventional discussion topic theme with a participant tea review database, so that people could share input and connect in those two different ways.  It made for a decent reference.  Coincidentally I cited Steepster reviews in my last post, checking on how a Tulin / Nan Jian 2010 Wuliangshan sheng pu'er might have changed over time, by checking on reviews there that were half a year, 4 years, and 7 years old there.

that Steepster format and content were both nice (this Nan Jian / Tulin Wuliangshan page here)

One problem with using the reviews as a reference is that you can't easily determine how much exposure any one person has to a range of a type, or how bias or personal preference factors in.  That's overcome by what Andrew was talking about, a group of people who talk regularly sharing input about a lot of teas, so that they could learn how each other describe versions they are also familiar with.  That could work, and I suppose that it did.  There's at least one tea app that tries to replicate and update this form now (I was thinking of My Tea Pal, described here).

Moving ahead to now Andrew has set up his own Discord server (group), around his Liquid Proust tea business, but also just for social connection and discussion.  His business page is here, and Etsy outlet here, both interesting for including unusual product range.  He mentioned how in-person social connection is a local theme he values, how others who are very active where he lives, in Ohio, take up and sustain that, and use his home and sourcing as a central base.  Cool!  I'm originally from not far from where he lives, in North-Western PA, a bit below Erie, and I get it how tea is not a popular local theme back there, how it would help to build that up.  Pittsburgh seems to have been developing that, but there the gains in local awareness and popularity still seem limited (a tangent I won't start on here).

Andrew and John (Mr. Mopar) discussed lots of individual teas and themes both have been experiencing over the years.  Some examples:  general storage and aging concerns, sourcing issues, how main "factory" teas are changing (especially Xiaguan), and how distribution of those teas changes.  One interesting theme was how mixed age material cakes seem to have worked out in the past (not well when new, but interesting later on), or shu and sheng blends, and the potential for that to be expanded upon.  I won't add too much about other vendors and sourcing here, which we discussed quite a bit, since all that gets a bit complicated, and a lot of it related to speculation about where things are headed.  Interesting stuff, especially tied to two perspectives informed by more sourcing exposure than typical tea drinkers ever experience, but most of that was scattered in range, and not suitable for broad summary.

Speculation about where tea industry sales forms are headed was an especially interesting subject.  An example:  it's a given that more and more small vendor exposure ramps up from producers or smaller sellers in China.  And there's no reason why new larger vendor forms couldn't change, eg. Dayi / Taetea couldn't change their approach, as they already did by blocking a lot of Taobao outlet resale, presumably to limit sales of counterfeit versions.  

Andrew covered in a bit more detail how overhead costs add difficulty even for a relatively small vendor, how just adding health insurance as an employee benefit for very few staff escalates overhead cost and required sales volume.  It's easy to overlook how all that would play out, since a lot of US based small vendors sell tea more or less as a sideline.  Factors like that account for why there seems to be a gap between very small sideline businesses and those that are more established, based on higher volume themes, without much in the middle.

Andrew mentioned that Steepster supported a lot of tea swaps, trades, and sample sharing, a practice which of course didn't end with the popularity of that platform dropping off.  He described that as an ethics common in tea sub-culture, and it does come up a good bit.  It's also routinely expressed how tea works well as a social drink that connects people, in some ways better than alcohol.  It doesn't drop social inhibitions in the same way but it sets up a more focused and energetic context.  An interview post here with Andrew covered his business direction of providing sheng samples to people, not really as a for-profit initiative, but instead as a way of giving back, or pursuing a direction that's not a direct financial input.  Keeping that up for over 5 years, when that was posted, is a significant accomplishment.

It is curious how so little of that general range of practices and perspective carries over to mainstream tea sales.  Vendors sell samples, of course, and monthly subscription services overlap a little in intended form (and I think Andrew offers something like that), but these develop community and awareness as clearly defined business functions.  Sergey of Moychay has shared how this is an important part of his business theme, that shop events, tastings, and presentations have to help develop these things, to drive tea interest and culture, and to connect people.  A few individual shops serve as bastions of local tea culture in the US but those are the exception.  Local Facebook groups do more, with Discord servers a newer similar input.  I experience a little of all that here in Bangkok, just not much.

Really discussion of specific teas, aging concerns, and vendors accounted for more of the discussion than these culture related issues, but again there were lots of points covered that didn't connect as themes.  It was discussed how storing cakes in leaf wrappers in tongs might change outcome, and how extra air contact could age the outer top and bottom cakes differently.  Andrew and Mr. Mopar have both experimented with different forms of storage related to how much teas contact other types, or are stored together, with interesting input on transfer of characteristics.  None of these issues are completely unfamiliar, if someone has been following tea group discussions for a long time, but it is interesting catching specific input based on informed perspectives.

A tangent and concern about tea culture transitions

One concern that I didn't raise, not really offering a lot of input about most of what we covered, is how tea culture is a positive factor in tea experience, in learning and adding depth, but how there are potential downsides to forms it takes on.  Sub-groups define shared experience and group inclusion very informally, but that tends to extend and become more exclusive over time, as an organic process.  Steepster moderation didn't naturally result in much of a member pruning process, as comes up elsewhere, but groups evolve to narrow scope, or in Steepster's case to just become inactive.  Andrew mentioned how interest changes are probably a main factor, but it seems to me the awareness and exposure curve / process itself could be another main part, a mechanism that drives people away.

It's hard to find an example that clearly defines this as a concern, beyond transitions in online channel membership and activity coming up often.  To clarify context further, in a recent video interview I said that the bottomless nature of tea exploration has been a main part of the appeal for me, along with sheng pu'er adding depth to that for adding storage and aging concerns as factors.  So far that's only positive, right?  But I suspect that an implicit average level of exposure in groups, not really formally required, but informally expected, "raises the bar" so that active social group involvement seems to become more and more demanding.

On to that example, there has been a lot of talk lately about Teas We Like opening a somewhat novel range of aged, Taiwanese stored sheng availability, with other small vendors copying this theme.  In some ways that can be regarded as positive competition (in some cases), or as negative, as less transparent and less functional derivative business models are developed.  Judgement errors in product evaluation can be a factor, with storage inputs an important consideration, even beyond the range of potential "fake tea" sales.  Other somewhat related format vendors like Liquid Proust (Andrew's business) and King Tea Mall fill in other range, and offer alternatives, beyond a large outlet like Yunnan Sourcing being a more primary source. It's still not clear how this is necessarily negative, right?  More options and more online discussion about those are both positive.  Combined with the subscription options I had mentioned, and vendor specific discussion channels, it all could add up to an unsustainable pressure to "keep up."

just a harmless joke here, but it is also a real part of the marketing

Of course anyone can limit exposure, to any extent and in any way they like.  Fewer people read text blogs now; that kind of change helps, to limit tea enthusiasts feeling put off by hearing about too much range, but Instagram exposure has replaced that.  My concern is that there is a natural slide to learn more and more, and to experience more, and the end result could come across as unsustainable.  Tea groups end up being themed around a "new to tea" context, or else one pushed pretty far to a high level of exposure, one that few participants could keep up with.  It builds in one more potential feedback loop to kill off the viability of any online group, as the most senior members go quiet due to dropping the channel or discussion form, with natural turn-over and new alternative channel forms already causing that life cycle effect.

It might seem odd that I'm raising this as a concern.  Surely I buy into pushing exposure further and further, right, for writing a blog about tea, and reviewing however many tea versions it comes out to per year?  In a sense, but at the same time my budget for tea exploration puts tight limits on that.  One recent controversial theme described one vendor selling a tea cake for $600, while another sold the same version--perhaps described as with better storage input, although that part was never clear--for $460, if I remember right.  I wouldn't even buy samples of teas selling at those kinds of rates, so I couldn't be part of that discussion, in relation to first-hand exposure. Taken alone that's not a problem, but it's easy for me to imagine others getting turned off by missing out on a lot of any one entire sub-theme range, or a lot of the whole.  People end up narrowing range by grouping by vendor following, which seems fine in general, a positive response.

I'm mostly addressing sheng pu'er concerns, right?  Higher quality oolong versions can still sell for $1 a gram or well over, or previously a race to brag about trying a broad range of fresh spring teas fastest was more fashionable.  Collecting teaware also never really drops out as a theme.  

Or maybe many subject interests work out like that?  That it's easy to start, with lots of subjects seeming inviting, approachable, and wide open, and then as you keep going it's harder and harder to match what others with a lot of exposure are doing.  For cos-play teens at the local university, where my kids take swim classes, would pin on some ears, a tail, and make-up, or carry a plastic sword, but at the "higher levels" those costumes involve a lot of creative input and expense.  

In a more closely related example I worked through a cycle of a few years of wine interest, pursuing different types range as my preference shifted, then eventually just dropped it.  There was no one reason why, I just tended to transition interests back then, before social media group reinforcement became what it can be now.

Maybe social group life-cycles decline relates to other factors more instead, for example in relation to a core group of participants just getting burned out on repeating similar discussions.  Maybe this exposure creep issue is a real thing, but not so negative.  Something new always comes along that restarts interest cycles, which is what Andrew, Mr. Mopar / John, and Ralph were also talking about, in relation to new forms of Xiaguan products coming up, or aged and new mixed input cake blends, or teas originating from "new" areas, SE Asian versions.  

A broad shift in tea demand could change everything, but we've not really seen that happen yet, just gradual expansion.  Maybe those new tea offerings and new vendor paradigms, those direct sales outlets, can keep renewing and expanding tea awareness and uptake, and moderating pricing, as fast as the natural evolution of preferences steers existing circles towards being defined by a spending divide.

It goes without saying that I've already mentioned routes to circumvent that buy-in divide, instead of just obtaining an IT job that pays $150k per year.  Tea bloggers are given teas for review, just not like in the past, and people acting as small vendors can offset their personal spending.  Group buys always factored in, along with trades and sponsored sample sets.  Personal perspective about one's own tea preferences also plays a lot of role in all this, emphasizing "horizontal" exploration of more range over just valuing higher quality.  Or becoming comfortable with exploring whatever range you get to, without seeing exposure to so much other scope in social media as a defined lack of many potential experiences.