Steep Stories

Author: lazyliteratus

  • “I Don’t Want the Game to End.”

    Like many with nerdlinger tendencies, I was camped in front of my computer to catch this: The first episode of Star Trek: Picard. It was roughly 10PM on a Thursday, and I resisted for all of ten seconds before purchasing a subscription to CBS All Access. All for the sake of nostalgia. I even brewed…

  • Virginia’s First Tea Farm

    When you’re a tea nerd like me, sometimes the best way to find new discoveries is just to camp out on social media and . . . lurk. Facebook is the perfect place for this totally-not-creepy behavior because of the myriad of tea groups out there. Even some specifically geared toward the practice of tea…

  • Steeped in Selah

    2019 was a very weird year for tea. Or rather, a very weird year for how tea was covered in the press. And by “press”, I mean, mainstream media, not the usual tea or beverage-centric haunts that won’t hire me that cover tea. I’m talking about The New York Times and Thrillist, just to name…

  • Sipping Mississippi

    I waited way too long to tell this story. So long, in fact, others have already told it. Because of that, I have to approach this from another angle—a sipping angle. The Great Mississippi Tea Company first popped up on my radar in the spring (or was it summer?) of 2012. Where? On this here…

  • Autumnal Assam Experiments

    In January of 2019, I wrote about this garden. Latumoni. It was a 7-acre garden that bore the name of the small Assamese village it hugged against. Throughout 2018, their name was everywhere. Mainly because of their partner—and research station founder—Tea Leaf Theory. Through this operation’s efforts, and Latumoni’s care and hard work, the garden…

  • Vietnamese Oolongs Made from Wild Assamica

    Vietnam has an unfortunate reputation in tea circles. Not entirely undeserved. Like countries such as Thailand, one of the ways they’ve tried to establish a tea growing/producing identity is by emulating the practices of others. Their greatest influences—naturally—are their neighbors. In this case, China and Taiwan. From China, they aped the style of Yunnan shou…

  • The Two Faces of Issaku

    At the Portland Tea Festival in July (of this year, the time of this writing), Oolong Owl dragged me to a Japanese tea vendor booth. This was markedly weird for two reasons: one, the Owl rarely dragged—more like, prodded. Two: it was a Japanese tea vendor. I always assumed she was just a puerh stan.…

  • Entheogenesis in Chicago

    At the end of October, I did something completely out of character. I traveled to a city I’d never visited . . . for a tea festival. Stranger still? I flew out for said unknown (to me) city on Halloween. Nothing about this—my motivation, my ambition, what-have-you—added up. The city? Chicago. The event? The Chicago…

  • Revisiting Castleton Moonlight

    I think it’s high time I talk about the Castleton estate. Again.

  • A Focus on Fellowship

    A week ago, an article made the rounds in the greater tea community sphere. At the time it came out, it rubbed me the wrong way. So much so, I originally meant to pen a rant pointing out where it went wrong, and how the thesis was misguided. After thought and prayer (yes, both are…