Steep Stories

Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • “All Good Things…”

    Almost two months have passed since my last article. In Internet years, that is almost a decade. It wasn’t like I had nothing to write about. In fact, I had several things. For example . . . Over the course of the summer, I internally outlined an article on GABA tea. Since that was turning…

  • Vietnamese Green Teas from Ha Giang

    A few years ago, I tried “Snow Shan” green tea from Vietnam . . . And I hated it. Okay, maybe “hate” is too strong of a word; “touchy” would be better. It was really difficult to brew. If I went out-of-bounds on the steeping parameters, the leaves imparted a bitter and astringent brew, not…

  • Beengs and Purge

    As some of you might remember, a couple of years ago, I co-hosted of a tea-themed podcast. On the above episode, we had a guest—James of TeaDB—to discuss puerh storage. I contributed nothing to the episode, save for a couple of queries and quips here and there. James was star informant on the subject of…

  • Tea from Jersey. (Not THAT Jersey.)

    Let’s talk about Jersey. No, not that Jersey. This Jersey. The island of Jersey—better known locally and colloquially—as the Bailiwick of Jersey is one of the larger islands located in the English Channel. In fact, all such islands are considered “Channel Islands”, collectively. And, like the Bailiwick of Guersney, Jersey is considered a dependency of…

  • The Nilgiris in Winter

    I’ve written about the Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu a couple of times, now. But there’s one period of time I haven’t yet quite covered. Mainly because . . . it’s not really a growing season, in the traditional sense. In fact, the issue of seasonal “flushes” in the Nigiris gets a little confusing, especially come…

  • Chai, Chai Again

    Allow me to be the first to admit that I know very little about Masala Chai. My expertise extents only as far as the etymological; as in, I know it’s a redundancy to call it “Chai Tea”. “Chai” literally translates to “Tea” from Hindi/Urdu—itself an iteration of the original Chinese word, Cha. “Masala” literally translates…

  • Memories of Mandal Gaon

    Mandal Gaon is a village in the state of West Bengal, India—in the Darjeeling region. Like many villages in the area, the inhabitants are mostly of Gurkha descent; a Nepalese ethnic group brought over to India by the British to work the newly planted tea gardens. Since then, over the course of time, the towns…

  • My Ass-Backwards Journey with An Ji Bai Cha

    Over the course of years, I’ve had strange relationships with many teas. I’m kind of a steep-slut that way. But none have been as ass-backwards as my journey with An Ji Bai Cha.

  • A Year of Weird and Wonderful White Teas

    Toward the end of any year, content creators, influencers, media pundits (social or otherwise) are encouraged to create look-backs or listicles of the year-that-was. Throughout my long and industrious “career” as a tea blogger, I’ve made such reflections in the past. Usually commenting on how weird the year was, or how wonderful some aspect of…

  • Gifts of the Doke River

    In July, a very 2020 thing happened. I shattered a gaiwan lid. Even “funnier”? This was the second such gaiwan lid I’d shattered this year. My luck with even the most basic teaware was middling at best. Like any “softboi”, I posted this guy-winey gaiwan lament online. First person to comment on this tragedy was…

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