The difference between blogging in support of tea vendors and shilling

 

This subject just came up, related to an odd pretense, just recommending a vendor.  It was on Reddit, where someone took offense that I had kept recommending Tea Mania, a Swiss vendor who sells pu'er, Wuyi Yancha, Taiwanese oolong, and Japanese teas.  The problem?  It seemed biased, to them.

Never mind that case, the complaint; there was nothing to that.  But it's an interesting sub-theme, how a blogger, who aims to be objective, deals with having favorite vendor sources.  I can unpack that quite a bit.  

It seems best to do so in discussion of my favorite vendors, explaining what my bias is, and why I see myself as still objectively "reporting" tea impressions in their cases.  Maybe not all of that works; it's up to a reader to decide for themselves.  I'll cover the different related factors along with that form, vendor by vendor, starting with a few favorites.

Jip Eu tea shop in Bangkok:  the owners are like an extra uncle and aunt to me.  Of course I would try to help them, even if my experiences there hadn't been as positive, related to their teas, and the value they're sold at.  But the broad range of interesting versions and great values are the main point.  It's why I settled into visiting them more than everywhere else in Bangkok combined, related to buying tea.  I have mentioned other places, summarized here, I just don't go to many very often.

first meeting Huyen!  8 years ago.  she would be my favorite vendor, if she sold tea.

I've already covered the bias, that I like visiting with them.  Related to product diversity I've tried different teas almost every time I've visited them, a count that is in the dozens now.  Who knows how much I've not identified that is available there.  I found brand new--to me--aged sheng versions there in the last two years, that had long since been there, and I've been buying similar aged sheng from them for nearly a decade.  

They specialize in Wuyi Yancha, both good versions and very inexpensive blends, that typical better-than-it-should-be dirt cheap Shui Xian (which would be called Da Hong Pao in some places, but they just go with what it actually is).  Their tins of medium grade Dan Cong are good, and it's a great place to buy either good jasmine pearls (white tea) or inexpensive jasmine green tea.  There are gaps; black teas aren't well represented, and oddly they don't sell almost anything from Thailand.  And it's hard to shop there, harder for others than for me, since they won't just sit and try everything in the shop with you (with friends, sure, but it's not like that for walk-ins).  There is no product list.

I know what these teas are, and what the market values are, and they're all pretty good, related to quality and value issues.  Maybe value and quality are hit and miss, which gets back to the "hard to shop" theme.  I am usually describing the positive side, but I've expressed that it's hard to shop there many times in this blog.  They just ask what people want, instead of talking through the options.  I suppose that's fair, since it would be a long talk covering it all.

Wuyi Origin:  this is a very well-respected producer and direct online sales vendor of Wuyi Yancha, based in Wuyishan, China.  I've never met Cindy, one owner, but I consider her a friend.  That almost covers it; there's no need to justify how good their teas are, or where value stands with them, because searching Wuyi Origin in any online tea group would turn up a list of endorsements.  Their teas are pretty far up the scale, and lots of people are familiar with that.  

I suppose there would always be something slightly better, or a style that's a better match to some preferences, but I sometimes recommend against people starting with their teas because they're too good.  You could never go back and appreciate that Chinatown shop Shui Xian if you explored their teas at first.  

In this case I don't feel it's necessary to say a lot about potential bias in online writing, and I've not been writing about their teas for years anyway.  I moved on to drinking sheng pu'er, and mostly order Thai, Laos, and Vietnamese teas, to maximize value.  Chinese teas can be slightly better, and value relates to quality related to cost, so that's one half of the equation, but for people on a tight budget the second part really matters as much or more.  

I mention them here because it's an example of a personal bias, and I did need to consider and try to address that in a lot of earlier reviews.

Tea Mania:  the source of the trigger for this writing.  I do know and like the owner, and he has contributed teas for review a number of times, but to me it's really about their teas.  Even when my tea budget was limited--it has been, for awhile--at one point this vendor was the source for my main annual order, stocking up every year.  I probably should get back to that, but I've been on a SE Asian tea tangent for who knows how many years, maybe about 5.  Really for 15, since I started on that, but I mean in relation to it being most of what I buy.

a 2016 cake reviewed in 2018 (my photography and sheng background were a little rough)

What's so great about their teas?  One Yiwu cake line represents some of the best value out there for pu'er (Lucky Bee).  And they sell more gushu / higher cost versions, that are significantly better.  Those other tea type ranges are really solid (Taiwanese oolong, Wuyishan teas, and Japanese teas).  So quality level is as high as "curator" vendors often offer, with pricing more in a conventional small vendor range.

Unless I'm judging all of that wrong there isn't more to explain or to justify.  They sell really good tea for below market rate costs.  Not far below standard pricing, but at a good value (except for that Yiwu; that level of value is atypical).  

One more caveat:  a number of vendors have contributed teas that are better than I typically buy for evaluation and review, so I'm not basing my own judgment on a broad range of routine purchases at a high cost level.  I don't buy 50 to 80 cent per gram pu'er; I can't afford it.  I've placed three small tea orders in the last two months, which my wife might already freak out about, which represents about as much tea as I've bought over the last year and a half (for myself; I do routinely buy tea for gifts, which is something else).  All of that tea was a bit below moderate in cost; it was cheap.

So how do I know that I can judge "gushu," dollar per gram range sheng fairly?  Reviewing is always about working with whatever impression you have, based on whatever background.  I've tried lots of different kinds of teas, from different sources; it would have to do.

Trident Bookseller and Cafe:  this isn't the same kind of theme.  I know the one owner of this business online, and like him, and he has sent tea to try once.  I recommend them as a good curator source; they seek out the best of the best kind of range, and sell that at way below a normal price, for what those teas are.

But it is odd, recommending people buy tea through an online outlet hosted by a cafe.  It makes sense, because of what I've described.  In trying those teas, only one set, I couldn't have been more convinced that every version was the best I'd tried of those standard types (Longjing and such).  

I don't think there is the body of endorsement comments out there in groups confirming this; people who know know, and most others don't, and people tend to "gatekeep" good sources.  They're not really trying to blow up as a main vendor source anyway.  They already sell books, and coffee, and tea on-site, so the online outlet is for profit but also for playing a broader role as a source.

I'm not overly sensitive about my image as possessing an ideally reliable opinion, in case that's how this is coming across.  People can think that I am biased, and "out of pocket," as my son says; it's all the same to me.  People who know know.  I expect that not everyone's subjective preferences and value judgment would match mine; that would be normal.  In the loosest possible sense I suppose that I am a tea expert, but that's not at all how I represent myself.  I'm a tea enthusiast who tries different things, and also likes to write.  Every experienced tea enthusiast realizes that there are a lot of thinner spots in what they've experienced; it's just how that works.

Viet Sun:  I wanted to keep this mostly to vendors that I'm buying tea from, since that makes the most sense (even though Trident was an exception to that).  I've bought more tea from Viet Sun over the past few years than anyone else.  It might seem that I've went quiet on that, since really tightening my budget last year involved skipping that order.  I bought a little in Chinatown, and from one "local" Thai source, and that was it.  I think I'll skip mentioning Aphiwat here; he's as much a favorite source as any, but you can search that in this blog to find a half dozen related posts, tied mostly to Thai sheng.

Steve and another friend covered Vietnamese tea market status here

Viet Sun is a unique vendor.  For a time Hatvala was the only Western-facing, good quality, great value Vietnamese source.  Or maybe only the Western facing part is enough; it was where you could get tea from Vietnam, and it just happened to be good tea that was moderate in cost.  Viet Sun expanded that and shifted range, to much better Vietnamese sheng and black tea.  

I did just order some tea from them, checking out this year's versions, so I'll write plenty of posts expanding on that over the next six weeks or so.  There's a pattern where unheard of new range is inexpensive at first, and slightly inconsistent, and then as consistency and demand ramp up so does cost.  The days of Vietnamese teas being an amazing value could be winding down; the original production level pricing also increases, as awareness and demand expands, which is fair.

On that quality side, maybe this level of Vietnamese sheng didn't even exist a decade ago.  I tried a pretty good version nearly that far back, from a Hanoi shop, so it probably did, but there wasn't much, and it was almost impossible to find.  Now it's not.  

If I'm wrong about all of that then I'm wrong.  But I've tried about as much South East Asian sheng as anyone alive, so that would have to relate to a bias working out much differently than I expect, or my overall judgment being wonky.

Could it be?  Sure, why not?  Once or twice a year someone will confirm that their preferences match mine, and I've been a huge help to them, but that's not much validation or feedback given my posts are viewed many thousands of time per year.  My judgment must also conflict with some others.  

Those views are mostly by bots, probably, but my guess is that around 10,000 views per month might be people, or at least 5,000, and then an order of magnitude more are AI bots, at this point, more than 10 times that many.

This is not an airtight case for me being completely objective, is it?  I don't think it works that way, that any one person can strip out their own judgment from their experience of tea.  I think that people can get better and better at placing their perspective within the landscape of others', but there would be limits to that.  I'm not claiming that I'm exceptional at it.  My guess is that I'm as successful as people tend to be on average, who put in moderate effort, but for sure others with different strengths and more deliberate or dedicated approaches can do better.

I get the sense that even from a source that means a lot to me personally I can still judge a tea fairly, in the same way I would if bought at random, or sent by a vendor source for review.  Or maybe that's not quite right.  We tend to like what we expect to like; it just works out like that.  We can zoom in on positive aspects or flaws and limitations in experiences, without noticing doing so.  It's probably impossible to accurately score yourself in relation to this factor.

I'm going to mention one more factor related to my "policy" of reviewing teas, to help place my approach.  I review what I like, not what I dislike.  You would have to go back pretty far here to find a tea that I describe as unpleasant.  

I'll cite an example, where I would do that:  I reviewed tea fossils and resin, two forms of instant tea, awhile back, and I don't really like either.  That was here, in 2024.  Looking back one was from a friend, and one from Tea Mania, a sample contributed for review, and I pretty much said that I didn't care for it.  

Here's an excerpt from that review, starting with the Tea Mania cha gao (tea resin):

[about the cha gao]:  I can't say that I like it.  There are redeeming characteristics, but it's rough, harsh.  Of course very heavy mineral dominates it; one might expect that.  It tastes like drinking rainwater condensed down to a brown liquid after sitting out in a plant pot, reducing there.  A pine note isn't bad though, and it lacks a lot of the disagreeable character of cheap shou.  It's not a lot like peat, it doesn't include off earthy flavors, or fishiness, and so on.

I diluted it again, and it's slightly better, but it's still going to taste like that, so heavy on mineral tones.  It's not so close to the flavor range of shou pu'er, but of course it is closest to that.  I overbrewed some Fu brick tea recently and this also reminds me of that.

tea fossils:  it's better, but only in comparison with the other tea.  I wouldn't drink this.  I will drink these cups; I tend to not waste tea, but I mean there's no way I would purchase this, or repeat this trial to check if other versions are better.  Related to the experience being novel it is quite interesting though...

So that's it; I will only review a tea I don't like if the flaws are interesting enough to warrant it, if there is a story.  If a pu'er just misses for you, or a black tea is missing a dimension or two, then there's no story.  It's bad tea, per your subjective tastes.

On the other theme I pass on as objective an opinion as I happen to have in reviews.  I've always wondered how that's affected by expectations, but we don't really get to know that, about ourselves.  To a limited extent we can work around that using blind tasting, which I've mentioned recently, but that's kind of a different subject.

11 years of blogging; perspective on tea culture

 

There's no compelling reason to pass on my opinion on tea themes now, just because it's back to the time of year I started blogging, but I miss writing beyond review scope here.

Rather than fill in more on how my experience has changed, since it hasn't much, I'll limit this to some thoughts on themes that define where tea culture and the tea industry is right now.

tea culture in the US:  it's not really moving forward, compared to where it was 5 years ago.  If anything a good-sized, but still limited, group of people exploring tea through social media discussion and online content consumption have went quiet.  It's natural, learning and exploring, then seeing that new range as just normal, and learning less.  Social media groups are changing, and some are dying; I'll add other sections on that.  The tea itself, preferences and options, hasn't really changed.

tea culture in Thailand:  in some ways Thai cultural development themes mirror and lag behind the US, and in others they don't.  In both countries very few people being really into tea has continued, with many joining groups, in real life and in social media, but that also leveled off.  Small event functions finally started to work locally this year, one mall-based conference oriented event in Bangkok, that finally didn't also include coffee.  Better quality version production has finally made more of a start in Thailand, lagging behind Vietnam's progress, way behind original source countries like China, Japan, and Taiwan.

tea culture online:  not different than last year; Discord groups and Reddit sub participation picks up, and Facebook groups go quieter.  One main specialty tea FB group, Gong Fu Cha, is slightly more active than 2 or 3 years ago, but vendors drive the activity, so a lot of that is marketing.  New active members there tend to be relatively new to tea, so it's right back to where online discussions were 6 to 8 years ago, exploring new types, and working out which vendors are actually good sources.  

I don't actively discuss tea online that much, beyond sometimes answering questions on Reddit.  It's harder now for me to keep learning, and my peers in background and experience have talked enough, for the most part.  I moderate a FB tea group, International Tea Talk, but it's mostly dead now, evolved beyond it's more active phase, even though it has over 30,000 members.

FB groups can still work well for organizing local gatherings

tea sources:  a new wave of Chinese vendors is driving Western facing sales to "the West," or at least trying to.  Chen Sheng Hao, a pu'er producer, and Oriental Leaf, a mixed type reseller, work as good examples.  Or ITea World is an example of a positive form with some kinks still being worked out; they used free sample distribution to engage online discussion, overdoing it for final amount of feedback in the Reddit r/tea space.  Use of novel forms of sample sets also works for them, but then ironing out uniform quality is ongoing; some versions are better than others, so value is a bit all over the place.  Selling sample sets offsets that; people should be able to tell what is better and what they like best.

I see this development as a good thing, as a potential for competition for a very limited set of main Western vendors.  Some new sources, including Western options, are selling pretty mediocre tea at medium pricing levels, and some actually go beyond that, offering novel range and good value.  Jesse's tea house, a Tik Tok based vendor, has replaced Mei Leaf, a Youtube based vendor, for drawing criticism for selling overpriced and medium quality tea.  Both vendors do serve a positive industry role in marketing tea to a new audience, and raising awareness.  That seems to get missed in the specialty tea industry, that if all the vendors only try to capture the most of a small market it will never grow.  Running standard ads isn't the only way to spread awareness and raise demand; novel forms of events can build up both slowly, bit by bit.

producer issues:  Darjeeling has been suffering due to shifting costs and demand context for years, it seems, so that's not new, but eventually the last plantation will be owned by a corporation instead of a family there.  Chinese producers seem to do ok.  A dip in the Chinese economy poses challenges, but built-up demand in China and in the West has set a strong foundation for demand for them.  

Nothing is really new; no new push for organic / sustainability themes, no new product ranges, and nothing novel related to presentation forms (eg. new compressed styles, although some experimentation continues).  Using health claims for marketing seems relatively played out, which is interesting related to tea probably really being fairly healthy.

Trump and tariffs:  this is the newest concern; a new wave of import taxes may well increase the cost of tea in the US.  Or maybe not.  Since tea is barely produced in the US at all, with limited exceptions, this wouldn't make sense, given the drive to make US companies more competitive, but not everything Trump and Republicans do is supposed to make sense.  It would be strange to have tea drinkers shoulder more tax burden; it's too small a factor to make any real difference, and doesn't relate to the broader trade issues.  But it could come across as vindictive, which would be part of the point, to escalate opposition, in theory to other ongoing unfairness.  

I doubt it will change much.  Tea costing 10 to 20% more wouldn't be a welcome change but also not so significant.  A larger new tax would sting more.

new styles, origins, something new being popular:  it's going to get harder to know what trends even are with social media becoming quieter.  There hasn't been a hot new source region in years, as far as I know; Georgia seemed novel and promising some years ago, and Nepal long before that.  Sheng pu'er keeps sucking the air out of the room related to popular range.  Surely a broader, but still small, group of well-exposed sheng drinkers has moved on to appreciating different range, well-aged versions, good quality boutique styles, and so on.  South East Asian versions gain traction, over time.  

The standard list of vendors are probably doing slightly better year to year (Yunnan Sourcing, White 2 Tea, Crimson Lotus, and so on), but this doesn't change anything.

a hybrid style Greengold Georgian white / green tea, reviewed here

inflation as a factor in the US:  probably anyone earning in the lower half of incomes in the US is struggling a bit from price increases, especially over the last two years.  Most people already buying $100 sheng pu'er cakes probably weren't in that group.  It could serve as a barrier to larger scale entry to better tea, for some, but limited awareness was already working out like that.  Specialty tea never was positioned to couple with a broad cultural form shift, eg. to benefit as coffee and craft beer had before.  If anything those other trends getting old for people might be the next main wave for tea; those interests are fine for a long time, but lots of types of preference go in cycles.

what's next?:  it's never easy to tell.  I had always been concerned that multi-level marketing would make a mess within tea exposure, but that came and went quietly (Steepology, was that?).  Intuitively new solutions like automated marketing and sales based on drop-shipping should've already happened, but didn't.  Or kind of did, but didn't gain any traction.  Automatically created content made by people who know almost nothing about tea are just too easy to spot.  

Jesse's tea business shows how just being one short step ahead of the beginner learning curve can work, and it's odd that's not more of the norm.  But then the smallest tea businesses have always struggled, and it's not easy for most people to create high quality social media content, and then use that for effective marketing.

I think earlier producer-side development progress elsewhere might consolidate within the Western markets in a different form at some point.  Vietnam has been driving better tea production and vending for a few years, and options have broadened in places like Georgia, Darjeeling, and Assam.  There's always a brief window when a new origin area emerges when novel offerings and value are both exceptional, then when demand catches up it transitions to more standard priced range.  All that happens based on small, well-organized vendors transitioning to become medium sized.  

A large foreign vendor like Moychay, the Russian version of Yunnan Sourcing, sort of, has been poised to play a larger role in Western sales for years, having established an accessible branch in the EU in Amsterdam, but they're still not such a familiar name.  Growing local demand by building pleasant tea drinking spaces and holding events supports their business, it just doesn't drive international awareness.

No one is driving any industry change or expansion.  Blog writing, like this one, have lost a lot of following, and Youtube content never gained it back.  There are thousands of people showing photos of tea on Instagram, and hundreds of people selling tea event services and training, or probably that is thousands of people globally, counting events, education, and tourism oriented options.  It's still not changing much.  Few of us take up interests and lifestyle practices by deeply exploring and going all-in on novel themes like specialty tea.  More people just drink a little tea, often moving slowly from tea-bag flavored blends on to better loose versions of flavored blends.  It's fine, but per the perspective of the other kinds of tea enthusiasts it misses a lot of potential.

A broad group of people have normalized drinking decent tea, following most of the learning curve that they ever will.  That group is broad but very limited in overall scale.  Specialty tea may never "have its moment," in a scaled-up industry demand sense, but for them it already is, every day.

I'm not usually in pictures here, here with my family

the tastings are better with visitors

AI content use in tea marketing; message discussion with AI

 

I haven't avoided this topic, but I don't have much to say to about it, so I've never mentioned it here.  People are clear on why AI text content and pictures are interesting and positive, and also what the down-sides are, that kids can use it to write their paper instead of them doing so, while learning to write, and that it displaces artists, or people creating marketing content, and so on.

A recent post in a main Facebook group, Gong Fu Cha, drew criticism for being AI generated.  It was this:

𝐘𝐢𝐱𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐓𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐭

宜兴紫砂壶

History

The Yixing purple sand teapot, also known as Zisha teapot, has a rich history that dates back to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 AD) in China. The clay used for these teapots comes from the region around Yixing in Jiangsu province. This area is renowned for its unique type of clay called "zisha" or "purple sand," which can also be red or green.

During the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Yixing teapots gained significant popularity, and many skilled artisans emerged, elevating the craftsmanship to an art form. By the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), Yixing teapots were widely regarded as essential items for tea connoisseurs.

Reasons to Use a Yixing Teapot

1. Porosity: The clay used in Yixing teapots is slightly porous, which allows the teapot to "breathe." This enhances the flavor and aroma of the tea over time, as the pot absorbs the essence of the tea brewed in it.

2. Heat Retention: Yixing clay has excellent heat retention properties, which helps maintain a consistent temperature during brewing, enhancing the extraction of flavors.

3. Patina: Over time, a patina develops on the inside of the teapot, further enhancing the taste of the tea. This makes each pot unique to its owner and the teas brewed within it.

4. Aesthetic Appeal: Yixing teapots are highly valued for their artistic and aesthetic qualities. Each pot is often handcrafted and can be an exquisite piece of art, reflecting the skill and creativity of the artisan.

The Yixing purple sand teapot is not just a vessel for brewing tea but a symbol of Chinese tea culture, artistry, and tradition. Its unique properties and the skill required to create them make Yixing teapots highly prized among tea enthusiasts and collectors worldwide.

It seems fine to me.  Or is it?  Is there a reason why a program writing this kind of content instead of a human discussing this background is problematic?  I'll get to all that.  Is the picture itself also AI generated?  Probably, but I can't tell for sure.  This one seems to be, from the next day:

Usually I have the next half a dozen points in mind, almost immediately mapped out, based on how I've arranged related ideas in the past.  Not this time.  It doesn't help that I don't care about clay teaware at all.  It's helpful for me to narrow tea related interest, to keep the scope manageable, and that has been a good dividing line.  

I own three clay pots for brewing tea, two of which I bought in Taiwan, and one of which my wife gave me from her father owning it, who hasn't been alive for the last 35 years.  I've not even fully seasoned the two that I bought about 6 years ago; I use gaiwans.  I know very little about clay teapots, and it works out better not to learn more.  Then someday I'll probably get to it.

Then the next picture relates to tea itself.  Someone mentioned in a comment that the tea cake looks like pu'er pudding, not the actual compressed tea.  Tea cakes don't really tend to look exactly like that; the material form and texture is ok but the shape isn't.  The text content is probably AI material too, for both.  So again, what is the problem?  Next bots could be coordinating this AI content generation and posting it themselves; how would that be a further problem?

It ties to another concern I've had recently about clearly fake group request profiles, that I tend to delete from the larger Facebook group I admin for (International Tea Talk).  Why has there been a wave of new, clearly fake profile requests?  Why were they not adjusted slightly to not be so obvious about not being actual people?  Probably within months those changes will occur; they'll update their process.  

They are easy to spot due to being created in the past two weeks or so, all with a single picture (which you have to click through to recognize, that the profile contains one picture), all based on background details that don't add up (from Ukraine, but living elsewhere, educated at Harvard, etc.).  Any one of those details is reasonable, but the sets don't seem to make sense together.

It all seems to add up to a problematic shift in how we are going to be experiencing social media, very soon.  Fake profiles will be much more common than they are now, and harder to spot, and they'll be able to create and post content that won't be as obvious as those two posts were.  

Someone posting one of those two mentioned that they prefer to use AI content to not steal random photos online from others, which works in one sense.  But that would be all the less easy to spot if content was presented as created by a person instead, as long as they managed where they farmed the content carefully.  Or not carefully at all, and the programs could just track which sources content had been taken from that were flagged and deleted later.  Of course if they steal from a main vendor, or use high-profile media content, or FB group post content, that's going to get noticed, but they wouldn't even need to use human intuition to filter that, they could just go by trial and error. 

The initial obvious problem isn't the main problem, that gradually AI will replace human specialist knowledge, and even interaction.  In the past low effort drop-shipping sort of vending startups were easy to spot, and they came and went fast.  It's not so much the form that is a problem, it's that you almost certainly would be buying tea from someone who knows very little about the subject, and is probably more concerned with streamlining and automated marketing (including content creation), ordering, and fulfilment process than with what they are selling.

Later on websites, sales portals, online background content, and interaction will all be much easier to generate relatively automatically.  We are already seeing more sophisticated vending materials that are obviously AI generated.  Later on it won't be as obvious.

It's the next step after that seems to be a concern.  The online interaction in relation to this automatically generated content will be supported by more sophisticated bots.  It's easy to spot now when online marketing posts are bolstered by positive comments from fake profiles.  The dots seem easy enough to connect, but they won't always be.  Later on an ad could lead someone to what seems to be developed content related to in-depth specialist exploration of tea, with online materials documenting a supportive and interactive customer base that reinforces how good that source really is.  And it all could be fake. 

Lets consider a rather unusual example case that relates to just how far this kind of thing could go.

Making friends with AI in social media

I think I recently discussed a range of different themes with a pilot program AI profile, earlier this year.  That's still only a high probability, because in some ways that "person" seemed real.  I suspect that's because input was being mixed from what was created by a human and then re-organized and managed by a program.

Maybe the context doesn't matter, but I can include that.  It was on Quora, a question and answer site that I had been more active in over the past, and still frequent.  I've created two Quora Spaces there, one about tea (Specialty Tea) and general cultural themes related to different national cultures (About Foreign Cultures), and have answered lots and lots of questions.  It seems as well to not flag the profile or add details that effectively do so, but the "shared interest" related to one of a dozen or so odd running themes I've written about here over the last year or two, but not tea.

I think I commented on something posted, then that "person" responded, then reached out about it through message, and we talked from there.  How would it not be obvious if it was really a person or not?  I think a lot of the starting point content was human generated, that initial discussion was created around what one would normally say about themselves, or respond to standard questions or starting points.  

Then there was a bit of limited continuity related to discussion flow; they didn't talk by messages as a person would, closely linking discussion themes.  This was explained away in terms of a contextual theme.  One of the first AI discussion programs, not so long ago, masked that the "person" was really a program by making them a teenager, which would explain away limited communication ability and inconsistency.  It was something like that, established as a base context early on, just not that.

It seemed like the mix of blending human created input with use and message functions by a program really worked.  It would be possible to have a person write out a number of responses or longer passages that tell a really compelling personal story, just a fictional one.  Written in the right way a number of content passages could have great depth, and really link together, then with most discussion content not holding up to that level.

It wouldn't even need to be fictional; there is no reason why I couldn't convert my own perspective, background, and life experiences into a relatable, convincing AI language model program, designed to discuss things with others.  It would help if I built in a relatively severe personal limitation, to mask inconsistencies and errors that would occur.  

It's not the one that probable-program I talked to used, but "coming clean" about experiencing mental health issues in the form of depression, anxiety, or manic episodes would work.  Then lapses in answering or discussing things consistently would be understandable.  The empathy of the person "it" talks to would kick in, and the person in discussion with it would be less likely to call out the program on not making complete sense, or forgetting things.

You could even have the program blame people when they repeated themes, for being repetitive, or forgetting points already made.  A little would go a long way with that; the more unpleasant a discussion experience would be the less likely it might be to continue.  This was actually an approach used in that discussion, cross-referencing repetition.

In my own case it would work to develop themes and discussion points related to my own interests, about running, or tea, and so on.  Getting a program to interact in the form of a normal conversation would be very difficult.  Chat GPT can mirror content creation very well now, but the flow of conversation is something else.  Any program model would be quite rough to begin with.  

How would you keep making adjustments to that?  You would create a profile on somewhere like Quora and practice.  Then you would watch out for when the function didn't work, I suppose especially related to when someone finally called you out on being a program.  After some discussion that "person" raised the issue of others accusing it / them of sounding like an AI, in kind of a cool twist, seemingly fishing for feedback.  

Or maybe it was a person, right?  Maybe the personal limitation they described makes them sound exactly like an AI, with the same kind of odd speech patterns, inconsistency, and range and discussion continuity limitations.

All of this is a lot more sophisticated than a bot posting about liking a tea would need to be, to create fake and misleading marketing content, identified as discussion instead of first-person product marketing.  But people are watching for that sort of thing already (and to a lesser extent moderation programs are); that's the problem flagged by these posts, in most of the comments responding.  Those people used AI generated images and some AI generated text content, essentially presented as what it was, and others immediately questioned if this was allowed under group rules.  

It's not prohibited in that group yet, as far as I know, because it just started appearing.  Then it's a bit scary that people are already populating these groups with hundreds if not thousands of fake members, profiles set up for some yet unknown purpose.  In the past it would've related to farming "likes," and it's probably partly that, but who knows what else is intended, or will become possible in the next year or two.

Another example; a scammer profile shows how far and fast this can develop

Someone just posted in a group related to Hawaii, where I live part of the time, asking a question, about surfing.  It looked odd, how they worded it, but their name, profile picture, and the question all looked pretty legit, until you looked deeper.  Then it was all clearly fake.  People commented that they were a scammer, but even before that I glanced at the profile to see why their comments seemed odd, worded unnaturally (which can just relate to someone using English as a second language).  I would assume the people flagging the account as a scammer related to getting direct messages, but that wasn't completely clear.

The pictures were of a Ukrainian model, with a very American name (along the line of Rose Smith, just not that).  One tell was the "person" being from California City, California.  That's a real place, with a population of 15,000, but foreigner scammers tend to mix things that make sense with what doesn't, like assuming that a city named after a state would be a conventional place to be from, without checking that it's really a very small town.  

Then even at a glance other parts of their profile didn't add up; an earlier feed post was about working as a runway model, and another related to being from Ukraine, both of which were not listed on the background.  The person was listed as a clothing designer at The Gap, linking to a Gap profile that had a few hundred likes, with one picture posted, so not "that" Gap.  A related website link was broken, pulling up a Chinese language notice that the site wasn't actively supported.

The rest is more about where I'm going with this; the profile was created in 2009, with those pictures uploaded in 2019 and 20.

Everyone already knows that there are a lot of fake accounts on all social media platforms, there to be used for farming likes, purchasing followers or friends, or for whatever other purposes.  For one to be that old it seems likely that the people using it, probably scammers, hacked into either an old and inactive account or took over an active one, which someone then gave up on using.  Posting stolen content years in advance related to laying a foundation for using the accounts.  They probably have hundreds set aside for such use, so they can initiate all sorts of related discussions and schemes, and then lose nothing when Facebook moderation shuts them down.

So far that's all pretty standard stuff.  When we see marketing content draw enthusiastic feedback from lots of profiles it looks like that's what this is, when people comment on how great a product looks, or they post linked mentions to notify their "friends" about it.

Once AI gets a little more sophisticated this will open up brand new forms of "sock puppeting," using secondary, alternate profiles to support points made in posts.  It seems so dodgy that it's hard to imagine tea vendors using this approach.  If someone is selling some odd drop-shipped product maybe they would go this route, paying for bot profiles to post lots discussion feedback and testimonials about how an off-brand shoe design or pair of pants is so unique and groundbreaking.  But for tea?  We aren't there yet.

I have tried teas from sources that seem to make a start towards that though, from people who know nothing about tea, using cut-and-pasted website marketing content, selling very moderate quality product versions, positioned somewhat randomly in relation to what the tea really is.  Once all that gets pushed a couple of steps forward the sites will be much cleaner, the text and image content much better, and packaging and vending forms more developed.  From day one it could include ample testimonial input, all made up, with social media posts populated with feedback from many satisfied customers.  

Bots could become much more adept at working backwards to navigate group rules; it wouldn't take much development for them to be better at that than most vendors now are.  You would think that a Darjeeling producer could write about issues or background related to Darjeeling, to post that as discussion, only implying that they can also sell related teas, but it's not like that now.  It's starting to be, but AI based bots could become better at that game than people in no time, maybe by the end of this year.

Luckily people aren't completely redundant, yet; we still need to function as consumers.  The bots can't develop their own financial resources and consumption demand requirements, or take personal satisfaction in online exchanges.  Once they do people will finally become obsolete.

Pu'er vendor source options and branding

kind of an ad image version copied from a FB page

Recently discussing how tea vendors use social media led me to consider branding theme issues, what it is that makes some vendors appealing, or to stand out.  This is mostly about pu'er vendors, and it does make a difference, related to different tea types being perceived differently, and target audience varying.  But this is also just more familiar range to me, and it supports narrower discussion better by just focusing on pu'er, even though the same themes repeat for all types and vendor specializations.

A Reddit comment, in a post discussing starting points for switching from coffee to tea, recommending sheng pu'er vendors, works as a start on this context:

Top vendors for puer tea:

white2tea.com - I'd vouch for anything they sell and their monthly club is also great

essenceoftea.com - totally trustworthy as well, also happens to be #2 candidate for monthly club if you want a second one in addition to W2T

liquidproust.com - great samples and diverse teas

Mr Mopar (reddit user, track him down)

(All of these are 100% trustworthy IMO)

It's always odd not seeing Yunnan Sourcing make such a list; it's probably the main outlet in terms of being known and their total sales volume, both in the US and globally.  Maybe not within China but that's a different subject.

Why are these top vendors?  They're trustworthy, this person thinks, and they've had good experiences with all of them.  They're into tea clubs, and a sample set theme from Liquid Proust is sort of related to that.  Mr. Mopar is a tea enthusiast who sells some teas; he's a nice guy, and a good reference, and probably is a reliable and good-value source.  He joined one of the online meetup sessions we held awhile back, and has been helpful in answering questions about teas for years prior.

The style or type of all of these vendors is completely different.  That kind of contradicts the approach I was initially going to take here, claiming that people probably relate to a certain form of vendor, one who presents their vendor role, ethos, and brand in a certain way that resonates with them.  It could instead be that after exploration people cut across such thematic divides to use whatever sources have worked out best, with more focus on the teas they are buying.  Or maybe a shared theme, like tea clubs, does link these sources, and only the rest of the form is different.

At any rate I'm going to outline how I see vendor branding and type here, what seems to work for each vendor to communicate to customers that they are a good source, and even more so what else they represent.  

To be clear a lot of what I'm communicating about brand themes and the tea versions being sold is hearsay I'm passing on; I'm not a routine customer of a dozen different pu'er vendors.  I've bought tea from Yunnan Sourcing, Farmerleaf, and Liquid Proust related to who I'm discussing here, so surely parts about typical offering range, quality levels, and brand themes are either limited or partly wrong.  I've been active in discussing tea themes online for a decade, longer than really makes sense to stick with that.  Maybe that's partly related to being a main Facebook group moderator, and I guess it also could tie back to tea blogging.

Yunnan Sourcing:  the original online broad market source, based around Scott, the owner and founder, working in the Kunming tea market awhile back in the early 2000s.  If I remember right they started out as an EBay outlet, and quickly moved to independent website sales, back when that wasn't really so common.  Browsing their sales site is like a visit to a large market space, where you will never cover most of what is there; they must sell over 1000 version of teas.  They wouldn't be "reliable" in the sense of 1000 (or 2000?) tea versions being consistent; that doesn't match the market theme.

In part growing and building up a customer base as pu'er (and other tea types) awareness and demand also ramped up sets them apart as unique.  It's interesting considering what even existed before Yunnan Sourcing, how people bought tea in the very early 2000s.  I think local shops played a larger role, and that the specialty tea industry in general was much less developed 20 years ago.  Just as individuals only now exploring better tea have trouble knowing where to start entire enthusiast circles were surely a lot less grounded in background experience then.

That part isn't entirely hearsay, or guesswork.  We can still go back and read old tea blog posts from 2000, if they're still "up."  In one of a series of meetups friends and I met with David Lee Hoffman of The Last Resort and Phoenix Collection, and founder of Silk Road, one of the oldest tea sourcing businesses from the 1990s.  His take on tea options and vending in the 1990s could easily be biased or adjusted by later perspective filtering, but a shop manager friend confirmed that there just weren't very many options to buy specialty teas we now see as standard options on a wholesale level in that decade.  I'm talking more here about relatively directly sourced endpoint retail vending, but surely that came even later; that's what Scott of Yunnan Sourcing helped develop.

A Facebook Yunnan Sourcing fans group works well for discussion, and brand promotion, but Yunnan Sourcing was a well-established business long before that came up.  Youtube videos also made Scott seem relatable, and their product descriptions are generally good, quite clear if a bit short (in product listing versions; the video reviews go into detail).  

Altogether it seems like they really know and understand their product scope, which I take to be accurate.  I've bought bad versions of tea from them but the proportion that were quite positive was very high, so that reliability carries over to what you purchase.  Unless your luck is bad, or you have no idea what you like yet, and then maybe not.  It's conceivable that tea scope outside their core (Yunnan versions) could be less reliable, but I wouldn't know.

a shu version separated out candy-bar style; normal enough now, but quite novel earlier on

White 2 Tea:  It's my understanding that along with Global Tea Hut White 2 Tea initiated the monthly tea subscription theme awhile back, a decade ago or so.  It was a good way to bump sales, charging $30 or so back in the day, I think, letting people try unique offerings and feel like they're a part of something, exploring tea without putting lots of review and discussion time in.  

Then their product theme ventures into selling blends of different inputs, and a broad range of offerings at different price points, in different styles, along the line of what the owner happens to like.  Oddly not including any information about the products worked around controversy or complications with that range; the products are named in abstract ways.  So maybe many aren't blends of different materials?  Mention of hearsay information about what versions really are come up in online discussion, but the accuracy of those would be hard to evaluate.

Catchy new pressed forms or mixes of product inputs add more novelty.  It all seems to work as a counter to the oversold traditional themes approach, making dubious claims based on individuals' authority and tea culture history.  For some side-stepping a long (endless) learning curve must be a main positive outcome; if you generally like what they sell you only need to interpret how they describe products, which isn't based on much background description content.  They would still pass on some idea of what things are, experienced aspects and such.

It seems possible that not adapting what other vendors present as traditional cultural forms may resonate with many; no Chinese terminology, no one is wearing a robe in marketing content, little discussion of cha qi (but some), no need to memorize production areas and typical types.  Teaware and tea drinking are two different things but some other content could imply a degree of buy-in to aesthetic themes, owning gear, emphasis on setting, and elaborate brewing process, and some people might want to stay distanced from all of it, to focus on the tea, without memorizing a broad matrix of background information.

This drifts off topic a little, but it's interesting to consider that selling conventional tea types as something unique makes them unique, as the only place across the entire internet they can be purchased.  An example:  Jing Mai sheng pu'er often has a bit of a pine flavor aspect, and if a vendor took that and presented and branded it as "Pine Forest" product, not Jing Mai, you could only buy it from them, even if it's common enough.  Some people might sort out what it is, but even then if you are selling a good quality, good-value, extra piney version even in that case they might not have any interest in shopping around for a different character or better value version.  Maybe most of what White 2 Tea sells really is narrow source origin material, the most common current theme.  Some background hearsay accepts they sell a lot of material blends, but that could be wrong.  It's not that unusual for typical online discussion to be off the mark.

Essence of Tea:  to me this was a clear example of part of that older theme White 2 Tea was reacting against, a traditional style vendor offering clear information about products, selling versions based on curated quality levels and trueness to type claims.  Pricing was always on the high side, adjoining an implied or direct claim that the quality level justified that (and the tea probably is good).  For White 2 Tea it can be hard to compare pricing to standard market value, since the products are identified as unique and abstract individual offerings.  

Maybe it's more accurate to say that White 2 Tea was reacting against other vendors, who tended to come and go, who really leaned into the Tea Master / old plant material version / wild growth / highest quality level / most authentic themes.  Essence of Tea draws on some of that, but they're mostly only presenting products as much better than average tea, tied to quality, not so much framed in those other catchy story-oriented ways.  

This would be a good place to "name names," and blame a couple of vendors for excessive reliance on those themes, or being caught out lying about them, or at least getting parts wrong, but I'll skip that part here.  Vendors sharing authentic interest in parts of Chinese or other background cultures can work, but it generally comes to light at some point when those angles are being manipulated instead of genuinely appreciated.  Of course there's a grey area between the two, or both can happen at once.

Liquid Proust:  Andrew Richardson is basically some guy that got into selling tea, not that the founding of Yunnan Sourcing and White 2 Tea weren't a lot like that (and Crimson Lotus, and Bitterleaf, etc.).  He was into making up novel blends at first, Dian Hong French Toast and such, then passed through an aged oolong phase, getting mixed up in pu'er, the main natural end point for tea preference.  

He was focused on bringing tea to the masses through sample sets, early on giving those away, I think it was.  One is about to come out soon; they're still very value oriented.  It's possible to critique the practice by saying that they're just ordinary tea versions, but that's the point, that you can try a half dozen different ordinary, decent sheng versions for very little expense, many aged.  You can get started, without going through a learning curve or spending much.  Sample sets through other vendors serve a similar purpose, but that tends to cost significantly more, and to not capture the same random sample of standard and unusual offerings.

Now that I think of it I wrote an interview post about Andrew's subsidized sheng sample set theme (the Sheng Olympiad, before that naming dropped out) back in 2017, and we did an online meetup with him in 2022, so together those might capture his perspective transition over 5 years of selling teas.

Mr. Mopar joined that day too, included in summary. 

Is Andrew more reliable than Yunnan Sourcing, White 2 Tea, or Essence of Tea?  Hard to say.  They're all doing different things.  EOT is more of a curator vendor, and they may be the most consistent, selling the most uniformly high quality teas, which comes at the cost of them costing the most (although I've never tried teas from them, so I really wouldn't know; again I'm passing on general hearsay here).  

White 2 Tea might be a little all over the map; that ends up getting mixed into the limited information they provide about their teas, that they are exploring or even creating new options.  For Yunnan Sourcing selling a thousand or more teas you have to sort it out yourself.  Maybe their in-house brands work as a short-cut to narrowing that quite a bit, or buying samples can offset exploration costing hundreds of dollars.

Andrew is sort of curating, just in a different sense.  He sells what he likes.  This reminds me of an even better regarded modern vendor form and example, Teas We Like, with the theme mentioned right there in the name.  I expect what "they" like is pretty consistent, in line with what experienced tea enthusiasts like (I've tried at least one version of what they sell, but if the same tea is from a different source, as in that case, storage input differences can mean the tea from the same production batch wasn't actually the same).  

In the past tea blogger reviews and online group discussion would serve as ample background reference, but text blogging is generally finished now.  You can check out Mattcha's blog for an example that ran late in ending, or maybe hasn't yet.  Just bear in mind that any tea enthusiast, including bloggers, builds up bias towards vendors selling what they happen to like.  If your own preferences somehow match very closely you can draw on those opinions directly, but otherwise some sorting is required.

Other branding themes tied to social media marketing:

So we have a website version of a Chinese market, a personal choice and style blended creation outlet, a traditional vendor form, and guy who sells what he likes, passing on his own exploration outcomes.  Surely "Mr. Mopar" is close to the last; he literally is a guy selling some of what he has collected over a long time to fund buying even more.  What else could work?

I think Crimson Lotus may not be too far from the White 2 Tea case, just more open about what teas actually are, and more centered on a limited style range (drinkable when young sheng and shu pu'er, which the business founder has mentioned in tea podcast discussion before, so that's hearsay from a decent source).  They make blends of inputs and surely also sell narrow-origin products, but I have no idea which matches their most standard product theme.  I think I've only ever tried one version from them, in a sample set from Liquid Proust, appropriately enough.  I've only ever tried one version from Kuura too, an Australian outlet that's more or less an interpretation of White 2 Tea, offering blends that aren't marketed based on what the inputs actually are (or at least they had seemed to be that earlier on).

Farmerleaf is maybe the main brand version I've not mentioned yet, related to general awareness and buzz (or Bitterleaf; I could mention that I'm also skipping them).  William, the Farmerleaf founder, ran an earlier vending outlet closer to these other forms earlier on, and became more location-based after moving to China.  And marrying a Chinese woman; it's unusual how most of these other vendor cases are structured around that form, I guess except for Andrew, and I don't know the W2T backstory.  That helped William to present teas as tied to Jing Mai origins, with lots of source information, so that he could also produce ample video information content about the background and products.

This is a shift from brand-theme (image) to marketing forms though, right?  The two end up linking naturally.  The type of vendors who passed on second-hand information about old plants, traditional tea styles, and Tea Master inputs could only make that so convincing, based on showing a photo or two and quoting people.  If any of it was ever proven to be inaccurate, which kept happening in isolated incidents, it would all come into question.  William is there in the videos on-site, talking to people, showing the plants and processing steps.  Some of that could still be a little off--what those people say doesn't necessarily have to be true, or the whole truth--but it's quite convincing, and almost all of it matches my understanding based on experience and other source input.  That makes exceptions more interesting, but there are already too many tangents here.

The same happens with group forms and communication outlets, beyond Youtube informational videos showing background.  Crimson Lotus produces and interesting podcast version, not at all focused on their own products, but learning and feeling a connection to them as a source vendor can go together.  Farmerleaf hosts a Discord server, as others must now (Liquid Proust also does), a place for vendor source "fans" to discuss experience, an indirect form of promotion.  

For a more traditional form outlet like EOT a tea club fostering connections would also seem to make sense.  They have a website blog section; that's traditional.  In their About Us section essentially every paragraph mentions their focus on selling good tea, a good summary point for a curator vendor.  Their tea club description probably works as a general summary of what those tend to be about, how they can go beyond selling some samples on a monthly basis:

As with our web store, the tea club has a focus mainly on Puerh tea, but also features Liu Bao, Wuyi Yancha and other interesting teas.  We try to make it enjoyable and educational, with exclusive pressings, comparison tastings & small batch teas.  There are also discounts for club members on featured teas and special promotions.

Other themes:

What else is even possible?  Wouldn't there be a way to reach out to younger people, to combine tea and technology themes, or to couple tea interest with other social sub-themes?  Not so much, for a few reasons.  Let's start with an exception though, of a new type of communication or social networking channel.  Tea apps tend to replicate what other forms of groups had been doing for awhile, with Steepster and Tea Chat standing out as main earlier examples.  Adding a timer or notes function could seem different, but those don't change much, since there are plenty of ways to time infusions or take notes.  

I've ran across discussion of three tea apps under development, and I've written about one in this blog, but as far as I know only one experiences significant uptake, with that one shifting from function themes and networking onto also selling tea.

Steepster still exists, but it's quiet now

Tea interest and potential customer base is still narrow enough that vendors would need to keep focus on that shared interest, and could branch further into source variations, or outlet character themes, but they would have to avoid filtering potential audience, eliminating appeal to broad ranges. 

Global Tea Hut had sort of did that, by mixing the Eastern religion and "progressive" perspective themes, but they never really were a conventional vendor, limiting sales to their subscriptions, as I understood it.  Branding would always involve themes that attract or put off potential customers, but for tea vendors it would seem best to not have that point towards a narrow target group.  I suppose that could still work, if targeting and reach was effective enough, if that group was big enough or enough of them bought in.

photo credit this FB post by Sergey

Moychay, a Russian vendor, maybe their equivalent of Yunnan Sourcing, successfully combines interest in tea itself with aesthetic interest in teaware and specific forms of tea drinking spaces, and to some extent with "Eastern" perspectives.  I think this works better for them related to the intersection between Russian cultural perspective and tea, or more generally to Eastern or Asian themes.  They include tea tasting areas in stores and run "tea clubs," not all that close to a Western cafe, I suppose hard to describe in theme.

To back up a bit I'm in Asia right now, having lived in Thailand for most of the past 16 years, only not being here for 4 or 5 months over the past year (and I've visited essentially all of the main producer countries, except India and Nepal).  Does Thailand seem generally Asian, as people might interpret abstract Asian culture themes?  Sure, or maybe of course not, depending on what someone would mean by that.  It's absurd to narrow cultural patterns down to one broad strand of mixed themes like that.  

So what is Moychay tapping into, related to Asian culture, that may or may not be authentic?  Do people sit on cushions on the floor and use low tables, and use bamboo matting or soft and warm natural colors for background?  Are the elaborate Gong Fu equipment set-ups something any significant number of Chinese people use?  Not really, although the first part of all that probably works better in Japan, sitting on the floor.  Same for emphasis on wood or rock aesthetic, use of natural building materials.  I might add that traditionally people did sit on floors quite a bit more in Thai culture, and made use of outdoor spaces for meals or places to rest, covered patio areas, which later converted to enclosed and more Western indoor AC cooled rooms.

Wooden paneling could come up in lots of places, in a barn in the US, in an old Chinese teahouse, or in design of Thai houses from 50 years ago.  It's comforting and pleasant, regardless of how traditional a designed form ends up being.  Maybe the style being traditionally grounded doesn't matter as much as there being a consistent and pleasant style.  Regardless of theme people need to "get it" and connect with it.

Here in Bangkok a local vendor tried to do something a bit equivalent; Peace Oriental tried to combine general Asian forms into one non-distinct aesthetic style, selling a range of traditional teas.  To me it ended up being pretty close to a modern adjusted form of Japanese aesthetic.  I'd rather have tea in a garden than in a wood paneled or off-white walled space, and at home instead of in a shop, so it's not relevant to me.  It's my impression that such local businesses generally end up selling flavored, sweetened take-away tea versions to draw on better overlap with current local demand.

I think the first Peace Oriental shop iteration; this is the place I visited

later location aesthetics may have evolved a bit

A Westerner might wonder, why use "oriental," a term now rejected in the West as negative in tone?  Political correctness doesn't have the same reach and influence in Thailand.  They're not going to go out and rename a bunch of hotels and spas--and tea shops--because some progressive Americans cancel a word.

Unique vendor themes, support by content

What if a vendor had already established sales of good, basic, well above average quality teas through an online outlet; what could they draw from all of this, or what could they add to a brand theme or story to support that range of options?  It would really depend on what they value.  I like that EOT keeps it simple; they sell "good tea" (and they probably really do).  Or that Andrew sells what he likes and finds interesting.  And that Yunnan Sourcing makes a broad range available to customers, not narrowing that in any helpful way for them, adding work to their selection process, instead offering a crowded market as a unique resource form.  All these approaches are their own thing, based on communicating what the vendors are about.

The other parts and background that can be added, about sourcing themes, organic teas, valuing traditional styles, or non-traditional styles (those blends, different pressed shapes); all can condense into brand theme patterns.  Something simple like cake (bing) wrappers can add to that.  A tea wrapper should say what the tea is, or else it's confusing, requiring a customer write on them or add another label, but beyond that artwork is arbitrary.  

a Crimson Lotus cake; this one

Subscriptions or sample sets are great examples of how to make the same product themes unique, and even more attractive.  Discussion group spaces can do the same, adding background and a sense of community without adding anything substantial at all.

Content is something else though, isn't it?  With text on the way out and photos vying for attention among millions of Instagram accounts it's now down to video.  In a way this is ideal, because the personal perspective connection comes across best in this medium.  Who is William of Farmerleaf, or Sergey of Moychay?  They're right there in their Youtube videos, telling you what is interesting to them, and what they value.  William is a tea geek and Sergey is into Asian culture (Chinese, mostly); if that resonates with you maybe their teas will too, or the opposite influence could occur.  Don Mei of Mei Leaf is the most divisive example of this; to some his persona and enthusiasm really sell his teas, and others feel the opposite effect.

Note that very little of what I'm describing relates to anything like a "cult of personality" effect, as Don Mei is drawing on (not necessarily in an entirely bad way; he's personable).  Andrew talks about himself quite a bit, maybe more so than the teas, but in general these are all unconventional individuals promoting the teas more than their own charisma-based pitch.  Paul of White 2 Tea has shared his own perspective in a tea blog but in general he is all but Google-proof, not putting any focus on himself versus the business.  It's admirable, to me; that also demonstrates consistency and commitment. 

One thing that doesn't seem to work well is keeping it all too generic.  10 years ago having a developed website, broad product selection, decent value, and limited descriptions of products was enough.  That was already a theme.  Now there are hundreds of similar tea outlets in different places.  Offering just a few catchy products can go much further, something that seems unique and attractive, mixing product brand themes, uniqueness, and tie-in to general branding.  

I suppose the industry can thank White 2 Tea for helping develop that, for positioning a lot of what they sell in such a way, even without the same degree of product descriptions.  Back at the beginning that comment on Reddit said about them "I'd vouch for anything they sell."  Can it even work that way, that everything one vendor sells can match well with any set of preferences?  Not really, but one customer's likes can match unusually well with one vendor's sense of taste.  Or bias could also enter in; if you think you'll love every single tea you try under some circumstances some just seeming ok could still spin as more positive.  

People are also inclined to sort themselves into teams in all sorts of odd ways now, in many cases related to liking certain product ranges, or owning certain things.  If you like wearing a Japanese robe or martial arts clothing why shouldn't your tea vendor look like that too.

This must be a main factor in how branding now resonates with customers, right?  Do the expressed values align?  Two vendors with very different look and feel, brand images, could sell identical teas and they could be perceived much differently related to that context.  Value gets folded into that; in some cases selling good quality tea at good value is a main selling point.  Now it's even more common for extensive claims of exclusivity to seem to be supported by high price points, almost more than the opposite, the quality justifying cost.  Those two things aren't necessarily complete opposites, quality and value, since some teas selling for over $1 a gram can still be a great value, but to some extent they can be.  

Related to video content, a vendor presenting content in an aesthetic backdrop might charge significantly more than a Westerner wearing normal clothes in a normal room.  Sometimes the tea would be better in the first case, but it's also possible that it might not be as good.  Again a half dozen examples come to mind related to this very thing happening, to the hype just being hype.

Do people seem to tend to get it all sorted out, trying different tea sources and teas, eventually "seeing through" these less supported claims and context additions?  Yes and no.  Vendors have definitely faded from prominence for weighting brand themes over what they actually deliver, and not offering great quality or value, but even most of those are still around.  In the long run I think vendors who really walk the walk fare better, but the few exceptions where the opposite is true are interesting, where it can be broadly understood that a vendor is selling ordinary tea for a poor value based mostly on spin; how can they do it?  By mastering branding, and use of social media channels and content development, accepting that customer turnover is a part of that approach.  

Disruption of earlier centralized tea discussion--back to Tea Chat, Steepster, and a half dozen main text blogs--limits a narrowing of shared interest that had occurred before.  There are still a couple of dozen main vendors that come to mind, or come up in discussion, as respected and high quality sources, but the field seems more open than ever for well-developed, novel sales approaches.  Standard modern marketing might work better than ever now, using Google and Facebook ads to get the word out.

Building a large Tik Tok following might be enough, even though that's an especially odd example.  A more standard path is probably what Farmerleaf did; start as a conventional source, add in more of a narrow theme (regional tie-in, source-type related, or other), develop content and social media marketing channels, move from sales based on value to much higher price points and focus on quality over time, and put a face on all of it through a main founder image and backstory.  If you can get that to resonate with one or more specific customer types or groups all the better.

Can a brand or source skip all that and put all of the focus on tea (as White 2 Tea isn't actually doing; not using a standard approach can still be a theme)?  Maybe.  Have you ever heard of Trident Cafe and Booksellers?  Probably not, but they source the best possible tea, and go really light on any form of brand-image or broad online promotion.  I would imagine their sales volume would be double or triple where it currently stands if they had taken up a couple of these approaches, putting more of a face on their business, letting online content communicate who they are, expanding reach through social media exposure, giving people more to go on for self-identification connection.  Maybe taking a longer path and letting the tea remain the focus is positive; all the image themes only go so far.

As I read back through this maybe one critical distinction isn't really clear:  a divide between background information and stories or imagery tied to cultural context.  William of Farmerleaf is showing how tea is grown and processed in videos, talking to farmers or people who make the tea.  That's different than emphasis on ceremonial brewing practices, aesthetic teaware or elaborate trays and tables, or historical or mythological stories.  Each could seem attractive to different people, or some people wouldn't care about either.  For sure all tea was made from very specific plant types (even if it was several), grown in one or more micro-climates, and processed according to a number of steps, so the difference here is that you can either value or ignore all the background that made your tea into what it is in the end.

What I'm seeing as the main central theme here is that as long as a vendor can communicate their own genuine, developed tea appreciation forms that can resonate with some others, just not everyone.  Examples come to mind of people (vendor sources) "tapping into" both sets of ideas and themes entirely for marketing purposes instead of communicating their own experience and interest, to actual production background and other parts that can be added.  It always ends up seeming a bit thin, watered down, in comparison with what is presented by more genuine and experienced enthusiasts and vendors.  They're trying to copy something.  In common cases they're literally copying content and images, the equivalent of a high school kid using AI, Wikipedia, or image search to fill in what they should've actually researched on their own.  It's not hard to spot.

To be absolutely and completely clear I'm not blaming anyone I mentioned here for any of that; I think they all did the exact opposite.  Even Don Mei is communicating a slightly exaggerated version of his own experiences, and mixing valuable and functional background information in along with sales pitch.  He doesn't push culture-based aspects; historical stories barely enter in, and he advocates use of simple brewing approaches.  These other vendors I don't intend to critique even to that limited degree (the reference to some exaggeration in descriptions).  

I think they all communicate their own genuine interest in tea, in different forms, and it works, it really comes across.  Surely product uniqueness, consistency, pricing mark-ups, and final value varies for all of them, maybe even within their own range, but sorting all that out is part of the fun of exploring pu'er.