Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

  • A (Jasmine) Pearl of Wisdom

    Since I’ve been paying lip service to tearooms lately, I thought I’d finally tell a story I’ve been meaning to for a long time. That tea tale being about a teashop I frequent regularly, but haven’t covered extensively on this blog. It’s a place I visit about as religiously as I do Smith’s, and I…

  • A Tearoom Trilogy

    I do a lot of talkin’ about unique teas I’ve notched off, but I haven’t properly paid lip-to-cup service to the more interesting tearooms I’ve encountered of late. If you’ll bear with me, fair reader, I shall highlight the last three I’ve ventured into, and what makes them unique. Tea Chai Te – Sellwood Location…

  • I Can’t Believe It’s Almost Not Oolong

    Norbu Tea has been one of my go-to hookups for weird teas for – well – almost as long as I’ve sipped. Greg Glancy seems to have a palate similar to mine, or at the very least an unrelenting geek-ish lean for teas with stories behind them. I finally had the pleasure to meet the…

  • A “Tea”-ny, Tiny Fanboy Crush

    A few weeks back, the unthinkable happened. In a summer where my average work day was ten-plus hours, I got off shift by 3PM. This had happened – maybe! – three or four times in the last three or four months.  It could be more, but I’m not willing to research my “check-ins” to find…

  • It’s a “Dog-Drinks-Darjeeling” World

    The time? April or May-ish. Weather? Typical for Oregon – wet. My mood: Panicky. My one solace between an impending move, a dreaded upcoming vacation, and a soon-to-be-havoc-y work schedule were tea deliveries. A few vendors were contacting me early to get their early Spring wares featured. I was still determining what my blogging focus…

  • Moonlight Tandemonium!

    It all seems to come back to World Tea Expo, doesn’t it? Well, here’s another one. But let’s start from the beginning before the beginning – i.e. pre-Expo. Several months ago, the follicly-blessed Jo Johnson talked about a tea from a company called Wild Tea Qi. I’d never heard of them, or their wares, but…

  • Tea. Earl Grey. Burnt.

    I’ll start this off by saying: Never before have I encountered an Earl Grey origin story like this. But I’m getting ahead of myself… Sometime back in Spring, I started yacking with a blender in Montana (of all places) via Twitter – one Gary Robson. By sheer appearances and demeanor, he didn’t come across to…

  • A Korean Tea Coin and a Firepit

    A Korean Tea Coin and a Firepit A “steep story” by Geoffrey F. Norman   Dokk-cha (or “Tteok-cha, as I like to call it) is a type of pressed tea from Korea. If you’ve been following along in my latest exploits, you will recall I made mention of it in my Canadian-Burlington tea-picking adventure. Pedro…

  • Tea and a Tea Garden

    One might recall – if they actually read this blog – that I made an impromptu trip to Eugene, Oregon…for a beer. An oolong beer, to be precise. While there, I also stopped by the shop that provided the oolong – J-Tea International. It’s a great little shop situated in the ‘burbs run by Josh…

  • Steepless in Seattle; Tea Drunk in Burien

    Prior to making the trip up to Burlington, I made secondary arrangements for the day after. It was never my plan to head directly home after the tea-pick-a-thon, but rather to bum around parts of Seattle. And by that, I should specify that my idea of bumming around involves drinking tea for four-plus hours. I…

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