Steep Stories

Author: lazyliteratus

  • A Sidrapong Heritage Story

    The Arya tea estate has a fascinating history, even among the many that dot the Darjeeling region, especially because of its original name – Sidrapong. According to legend, the original site was home to Buddhist monks on an unknown pilgrimage in the mid-to-late 1700s. They were looking for a place to build a new monastery…

  • Tea Time at the Rhondarosa

    Back in May, before attending World Tea Expo in Long Beach, I did a brief stint with family in San Diego. I set aside three days during that trip for no agenda whatsoever. My only plan was to stay with my dad and stepmother. Everything else was up in the air. During dinner, though, my…

  • Wuyi Oolong on New Year’s Eve

    2015 was a year of ups and downs, like a lot of years. But there was one particular occurrence – while in hindsight it was rather small – sort of summed up this mixed bag of a year. And that small occurrence started with this bag.

  • A Crappy Christmas Cat Poem with a Cuppa Tea

    T’was the day before Christmas Eve, And all was quite spiffy. I stayed in my PJs all day – In neither a hurry nor jiffy.   I babysat two cats, Made sure they were fed. Never overstayed my welcome, For they both wished me dead.  

  • Scottish Tea to Silence my Snark

    I’ll confess that sometimes I can be a snarky bastard. Many of those times, some of that snark bleeds through onto this blog, or into other parts of my life where it’s not entirely welcome. Case in point: Social media. If ever there was a platform where my snarky nature can’t help but thrive, it’s…

  • Slaying a Grey Dragon Tea

    I think I may be the Leeroy Jenkins of my tandem tea tasting group. Don’t get the reference? I’ll explain . . .

  • An Original Da Hong Pao Oolong Awakening

    Da Hong Pao literally means “Big Red Robe” in Chinese, and it has a very big history. There are no less than five origin stories for this particular kind of tea. The most famous, exported legend deals with an emperor (or imperial official) whose mother was ill, and teas produced from Da Hong Pao trees…

  • Orchids in My Oolong

    I’m used to running into an oolong I’ve never heard of. It’s kind of my thing. But finding next-to-no information on a particular style of oolong is my greatest joy . . . and biggest pet peeve. It all started when I was put into contact with this guy. This is Jeff Kovac of Four…

  • The Shiny ‘n New Smith Tea HQ

    At the beginning of November, I received a curious invite. Well, that was new. I don’t get press releases very often, and I certainly wasn’t expecting one from Smith Teamaker. I knew they were opening up their new location, soon. But I had no idea that I was on the short list of press folks…

  • The White Forest Oolong Finish Line

    NaNoTeaMo, Day 30: “The White Forest Oolong Finish Line” Holy heck . . . I made it. This is it, Day 30. The final post in my self-inflicted NaNoTeaMo challenge. No one put me up to it; I wasn’t trying to prove anything. The only reason I did it was to see if I had…