Tea Musings – Page 3 – Steep Stories

Tea at the Temple Gates

On February 13, 2019

On the odd occasion, I leave the house to hunt for tea. It’s a rare occurrence—much like a hermitic groundhog hailing the arrival of spring—but it’s been known to happen. Sometimes that urge falls upon me at night, on a Friday. And on one such night in the spring of 2018, I found myself at The Speakteasy Underground.

Purveyor of this nighttime tea gathering in Portland, Steve Odell—whom I’ve mentioned on this blog a few times—served up something particularly interesting.

It was a Mao Feng green tea hailing from Meng Ding Mountain in Sichuan province, China. Originally, I almost refused it. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Chinese greens, but with very little coaxing, I acquiesced. And it . . . was heavenly; equal parts creamy and sweetly vegetal. I hadn’t tried a pan-fried green quite like it.

Steve regaled the crowd with how he got the tea, and waxed wizardly about sourcing it from a bonafide tea temple.

“Glass” Half Full

By lazyliteratus

On February 1, 2019

In Tea Musings

I’ve been studying the Bible a lot, lately.

Wait! Don’t turn away. I swear this isn’t proselytizing, and—yes—this still deals with tea. Plus a whole lot more. It may be a tad unwieldy to navigate this, here, narrative. But we’ll make it together. Okay? Okay. Moving on . . .

Tea Musings about 2018

By lazyliteratus

On December 31, 2018

In Tea Musings

2018 was a weird year. Yeah, I know I’ve said that about prior years, but I really mean it this time. At present, it’s midnight on New Year’s Eve, a “chill-hop” station is on repeat-play, and I’m waiting for this 2013 Myanmar shou cha to kick in.

A Spring Cleaning of Summer Stories in the Fall

By lazyliteratus

On November 22, 2018

In Tea Musings

At the time of this writing, it’s been over a month since my last article . . . missive . . . er . . . whatever. Also, at the time of this writing, it’s Thanksgiving day. Due to a bout of illness that decided to show up the day before, I’m holed up in my room. In order to avoid being Patient Zero, I’ve opted to quarantine myself from the two Turkey Day invites I received; even the one taking place in my home. This entire first paragraph serves as a microcosm of how well this autumn has gone.

But I don’t want to focus on the bad, rather, I want to finally break my unintended blogging hiatus to highlight things I’m thankful for. They, also, just so happen to be stories I never got around to telling. So, this serves as a bit of kitchen sink catch-up as well.

Without further ado, let’s get to thankin’!

The Tea Vlogger in “American Vandal”

By lazyliteratus

On October 25, 2018

In Tea Musings

On September 20th of this year, I received an intriguing text from a fellow tea-brother:

I’d never heard American Vandal, nor was I aware that it had two seasons. My Netflix-fu was neophyte status at best. If it didn’t have the word “Marvel” in front of it, or could be easily searched in the anime section, I probably didn’t know it existed. But the thought of a series even acknowledging tea vlogging? That tickled my curiosity gland.

The Real Tea

By lazyliteratus

On October 4, 2018

In Tea Musings

In the late-aughts (meaning: 2000-2009), my tea journey paralleled another hobby.

YouTube.

Since I worked the graveyard shift for most of the first decade of this century, I devoured a lot of content on that once-brand new streaming site. Even up to the present, this quiet addiction still percolates. Sometimes, it even cross-pollinates with my tea addiction, such as with my own under-used YouTube channel.

But YouTube and tea never really came in direct contact with an even older hobby of mine: etymology.

No, not entomology. Etymology; the study of words. More specifically, it’s the study of the meaning behind certain words and phrases.

Tangents at World Tea Expo 2018

By lazyliteratus

On June 27, 2018

In Tea Musings

This year, I went to World Tea Expo in Las Vegas with a mission.

To hustle.

You Say You Don’t “Do” Tea Blends, Huh?

By lazyliteratus

On May 14, 2018

In Tea Musings

“I don’t really do tea blends.”

It’s a phrase that I never thought I’d find myself uttering, but one day—a couple of years ago—I did just that. A blending outfit wondered if I would be willing to cover some of their wares, and I politely turned up my nose in e-mail form. As far as I was concerned, at the time, I had moved past blends of disparate teas mixed from different regions. Oftentimes, the fusion of palatial deliveries confused my poor tongue. Single origin teas offered uniformity, consistency, and nuance. Or so I thought . . .

Reading Tea Blogs as History

By lazyliteratus

On April 12, 2018

In Tea Musings

As of this year, I’ll have written about tea on the Internet—in some capacity or another—for eleven years.

It boggles my mind that I’ve been at it for this long. A part of me even wonders why I still do it. Honestly, not much has come of it. The blog itself really hasn’t changed much. I cover weird teas, and share my weird stories about tea. A part of me felt the blog itself peaked in 2016, and that my irreverent joy of it petered out long before that.

And as far as it leading to professional writing projects? . . . Eh . . . we won’t get into that.

But, lately, I felt the tug of burnout. When would my last strand of proverbial tea prosaic rope finally fray and break? When would I put this here blog to rest and become a mere blip in the annals of tea blogging history?