How To Get People Into Tea (Teavangelism) - What We Can Learn From Swing Dance

A while back, I shared a post how into tea are you? in which I talk about my limits of being interested, not only in tea, but in anything. I draw an analogy to dance, particularly, swing dancing (lindy hop, charleston, and the like), which I'd like to continue in this post.

A lot of tea enthusiasts express to me that they want to build a richer and more diverse tea culture in the U.S. This post is about my thoughts and recommendations of how to do this. I am planning to write a series of posts on this topic, which I will call Teavangelism. But let's start with dance:



The University of Delaware has a vibrant swing club, which practices improvised dances like Lindy Hop, Charleston, Blues Dance, Balboa, as well as choreographed jazz routines and dancing to pop music. Tea culture can learn some lessons by examining what makes this club so successful.

Both dance and tea have in common that they are things that can become more or less a part of someone's life, and that they both rely on people to keep them going. If people don't buy tea and drink tea, the tea won't continue to be produced, distributed, and sold, and of course, enjoyed. Similarly, if people don't continue to dance a certain type of dance, that dance will die out, and if people do not attend a certain dance venue, that venue will eventually close or start hosting some other sort of activity.

Both dance and tea thus rely on some sort of "evangelism", a sort of "tea evangelism" or "dance evangelism", to spread the phenomenon and cultural practice of tea or dance.

What makes people keep coming to dances?

At the dances I attend, mostly swing dances, there is a constant influx of new people, and a large number of the new people keep coming back and become regulars. There are a lot of barriers to this happening: some of the styles of dance I participate in are difficult to learn, and cannot be easily picked up in a night or two. Newcomers often feel intimidated. How does the dance community overcome these challenges? I see a number of factors that lead to a vibrant, sustainable dance scene:

• There is a continual influx of new people. Nearly every dance I attend has a substantial portion of first-timers as well as relative newcomers. People are constantly inviting their friends, to keep this new flow of people.


• Dances have a broad range of people of different ability levels, who have been dancing for different periods of time. This ensures that newcomers see where one can go with dance, and also have the ability to learn from dancing with and watching more experienced dancers.


• Experienced dancers ask new dancers to dance, and they go out of their way to dance with and talk to some of the more shy people sitting around the edge.


• Experienced dancers take the time to explain what they are doing when people ask, for example, showing how to do a particular dance move, or giving them other useful feedback, but people avoid giving unsolicited feedback.


• The dance community, including both the curriculum of formal lessons, and the casual conversations people have, places a strong emphasis on respecting people's boundaries, making an effort to distinguish themselves from generic "club dancing" with a culture of picking up people. While dance can be a great way to meet people (I met my girlfriend through dance), the emphasis is on human connection, clear communication, and respect. This is especially true of close partner dancing, like blues dancing in close embrace. Teachers emphasize respecting personal space and making the dance fully consensual and respectful, and there is no tolerance or room for the sort of groping and hitting on people that often occurs in dance clubs.


• The dance culture and etiquette favors inclusion of newcomers. For example, at the dances I attend, the norm is to dance one dance with each person, and then find a new partner. This ensures that people mix up and dance with many different people, which helps to include newcomers. It is also considered taboo to dance for a song if you have already declined a dance during that same song--and this rule helps to prevent hurt feelings, making it more likely that people feel comfortable at the dance.

The absence or opposite of these factors can be a barrier to a dance scene growing, and can cause the scene to stagnate or decline. If people are not sufficiently friendly or encouraging to newcomers, and the new people do not feel comfortable or welcome, they will not return, and they will certainly not recruit their friends to visit the group as well. Any group has a natural ebb and flow, and some people will always be leaving any group, so without newcomers, any group will eventually decline.

I have talked a lot with people about what they like and don't like about different dance scenes. The number one reason that people tell me that they do not feel comfortable at a dance is if they perceive a disconnect or segregation between the "good dancers" and the newcomers. People often use words like "cliquishness" to describe this sort of situation. It has been my experience that people who describe a dance scene in this way are the most likely to leave the scene or not come back to the dances.

What makes people get into tea?

We can learn from the observations above about a thriving swing dance scene, gaining insight into how to create a thriving tea culture both in our local area, and in the U.S. as a whole. Most of these points come down to making an effort to invite people into tea culture in ways that make them feel comfortable and welcome.

• Make a deliberate effort to introduce new people to tea. You can share tea with your friends; you can offer tea when entertaining people at your house, and you can give out tea as gifts to people who you know drink tea. You can also give teaware (including teapots, tea infusers, and the like) as gifts to people who have expressed an interest in tea. Also, as a note, although I prefer loose-leaf tea for many reasons (including sustainability), I nearly always carry a few high-quality tea bags with me, so that I can share them with people at events where it is not practical to brew loose-leaf tea, or give them casually to people who express interest in tea but are not familiar with brewing loose-leaf tea.


• If you run a tea business, tea tasting, class, workshop, or other tea event, make an effort to include people with a broad range of experience with tea, and make there be something for everyone to enjoy or take away. If an event includes only tea experts, a lone tea newbie will be more likely to feel out of place; similarly, though, a lone expert might feel out of place at an event oriented more for newbies. This same sort of thinking can also inform your choices of what teas to sell in a tea shop or online tea store. Although every company has its focus, and some cater more to connoisseurs than others, it is always wise to carry some highly accessible teas as well as some unusual offerings, as well as carrying teas with a range of prices.


• When enjoying tea, try to combat or prevent the appearance of cliquishness to whatever degree possible. For example, if you regularly enjoy tea with a group of friends, when a newcomer is present, go out of your way to include this person. Although some people have a natural tendency to reach out to newcomers, others tend to be most comfortable with their existing friends and people with whom they are already familiar. If you have these tendencies, be aware of them and make an effort to check in with newcomers and include them in the conversation.


• Make an effort to be respectful and positive when talking about tea, especially when you talk about people who are less knowledgeable about tea than you are. If you talk about others negatively, it can make people cautious. They will start to think: "Wow, I know even less about tea than so-and-so...I wonder if this person is going to talk this way about me behind my back." This can be a tough line to walk: sometimes we want to make a statement that we think a company's teas are overpriced, or that their products aren't very fresh. However, it is possible to express these viewpoints while still being respectful on a human level of the owners and employees of the tea company in question.

Whether you run a business or are someone who considers tea a hobby or interest, these points can help you to make tea culture more appealing to newcomers.

It can be a challenge to follow all of these guidelines at all times; as someone with a highly critical mind, I personally struggle a lot with remaining positive and respectful of people when I have something to criticize about their actions or businesses.

I am planning to follow up on this post, going into more depth on some of these points.

What do you think?

Do you think about "Teavangelism"? What do you think of the advice or principles discussed in this post? Have you ever been made uncomfortable by any "tea people", whether someone in a tea shop, or someone serving you tea? Were there any people who helped you to become more interested in tea by inviting you to events, helping you to feel included, or giving or sharing tea with you?

Accessible Teas: Easy Teas to Appreciate

A post by Ken MacBeth(lahikmajoe), titled do I really have to like white tea? got me thinking some time back about the question of accessible teas, that is, teas that people not as familiar with tea would be likely to appreciate.



What makes a tea accessible? There is no one answer, but there are certain trends.

Because tastes are subjective and highly variable, a tea that might be an instant favorite of one person might be completely inaccessible (or perhaps, more of an acquired taste) to another. For this reason, I've found that, in order to figure out what teas might be most "accessible" to a given person, it is necessary to ask the person what they like, or at least to observe them and listen to their opinions on food and drink.

Nonetheless, I've served countless different teas to numerous people over the past few years, including at tea tastings where people sampled many different teas each, and I've observed certain fairly strong patterns in people's reactions. When planning a tea tasting, especially one oriented towards people relatively unfamiliar with tea, I have found it helpful to include some more accessible teas in the selection, although I also like to include some unusual or unfamiliar ones as well, both in order to broaden people's palates, and because there will usually be one or two people who, even from the start, prefer the "stranger" teas.

Teas that I have found to be highly accessible:

This list represents my own personal experiences of serving tea; other people may have had other experiences. But these are the teas I have found that people I've served tea to have been most likely to appreciate most easily:

• Strong black teas - A lot of people (including both coffee drinkers and those who are really not into coffee) enjoy strong black teas. A lot of people like to sweeten their tea and/or add milk, and this practice tends to work best with strong black teas, but I've found that these teas also appeal to many people, like me, who drink their tea straight. I've found that it's hard to go wrong with high-quality, fresh, loose-leaf black teas from Assam, Kenya, and Yunnan province. Ceylon and Keemun can also be accessible. The tea does not have to be the highest-grade, and it is often best to avoid the most expensive teas; I often have found, for instance, that plain Dian Hong tends to have more universal appeal than Yunnan Gold made predominately of tips. But I find that freshness is very important; even people unfamiliar with tea will tend to notice and be more impressed by strong black teas with a powerful, fresh aroma than stale or low-quality teas.


• Hojicha - Hojicha is a bit of a specialty tea, but I've found that it has a pretty wide appeal. Many people who tend not to like green teas tend to like it; its strongly-roasted aroma makes it appeal to coffee lovers, and yet it still seems to satisfy green tea lovers as well. Its smooth flavor also allows it to appeal to people who tend to not like most stronger-tasting teas. Given that it can be relatively inexpensive, and that many Americans have still never tried it (or even heard of it), I think hojicha is an excellent example of a tea to include when sharing tea with new audiences.


• Genmaicha - This mild-flavored Japanese green tea also tends to go over well, I think in part because the vegetal aromas of the tea are downplayed and partially replaced by the pleasing, toasty aroma of the toasted rice, something that seems pretty easy for most people to appreciate.


• Darker white teas - These include darker Bai Mu Dan / White Peony (although not all examples of it, some of it can be rather light and subtle), Shou Mei, and other teas as well. I have sometimes even found low-grade, broken-leaf white tea can be relatively accessible. The light oxidation of darker white teas I have found removes some of the vegetal tones that people object to in green teas, and often produces aromas like autumn leaves, which most people have pleasant associations with.


• Sheng Pu-erh - (For those unfamiliar, RateTea provides a brief explanation of the distinction between the two types of Pu-erh tea.) I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but I have found that sheng Pu-erh tends to be much more accessible than Shu Pu-erh, and in general, much more accessible than I would expect based on the way people talk about Pu-erh. I have even found this to be true of Sheng Pu-erh that has barely been aged at all (1-2 years), including very edgy batches which are highly bitter, astringent, smoky, or have other qualities that one might think of as being off-putting. Most Americans that I meet have sampled several low-quality shu Pu-erhs, often from tea bags, and have never tried sheng Pu-erh. The typical response that I get is: "This doesn't taste anything like Pu-erh. All the Pu-erh I've tried so far tastes like a damp basement, but this tastes more like black tea / oolong tea / green tea / something else. I like it."

The above observations (as well as those below) are merely coarse trends. In groups, there are usually a number of people who will still dislike the teas with a more universal appeal.

Herbal teas that I have found to be most accessible:

I nearly always offer caffeine-free herbal alternatives when I serve tea or run a tea tasting, both because I want to accommodate people who cannot or do not consume caffeine, and because I think herbal teas are fascinating to explore in their own right. These two herbs are the ones that I have consistently found to be the most accessible:

• Lemon myrtle - I like to call this the "lemoniest of the lemony herbs"; it is almost more lemony than lemons themselves, if that is possible.


• Tulsi / Holy Basil - This was an herbal tea that I instantly liked. With a strongly clove-like aroma, similar in some respects to sweet basil, and also having strong suggestions of other spice (like cinnamon and nutmeg), I found this tea to be pretty accessible, and I've found that people I serve it to tend to consistently like it.

What tends to be less accessible?

I've found that teas that, from my experience, are more likely to receive negative or lukewarm reactions, include silver needle white tea (too mild), single-estate single-harvest Darjeelings (too vegetal), Shu Pu-erh (too dusty/earthy), greener oolongs (too alien), and gyokuro (too vegetal).

Contrary to what one might expect from the fact that most people seem to have a sweet tooth, I have found that most of the naturally sweet teas, like pouchong, greener oolongs, and some green teas, are not the most accessible. People may not say they like bitterness, but I think there is some degree to which people still do expect (and like) their tea to be bitter. I also think that the teas that are naturally sweeter tend to be dominated by vegetal characteristics, which I think are one of the main reasons that people dislike green teas, greener oolongs, and some Himalayan teas. The same goes for the shu vs. sheng Pu-erh distinction: shu Pu-erh is nearly always smoother than un-aged sheng Pu-erh. Yet I find many people object to the aroma of shu Pu-erh, saying it tastes like dirt or mold.

Keep in mind how many people love black coffee...and even higher-quality black coffee is more bitter than most of the more bitter teas.

What do you think?

Have you found any patterns or trends like the ones I've described here, when serving tea to others, especially, to people who are relatively inexperienced at sampling teas?

Which teas do you think are truly the most accessible in a broad sense?

Tea And Gender Roles: Gendered Marketing

Some time ago I read a post by Tony Gebely, titled Tea: Not Just For Girls. Tony writes about how there is a widespread perception in American society that tea is associated with "tea parties", a phenomenon that is associated with women or girls, but that in the tea business and industry, and among people who view tea as a serious interest or hobby, men are actually more well-represented than women. Lahikmajoe has also written about this topic, in the post add tea preparation to her feminine wiles.

This is a topic I actually have been wanting to write about for some time, because it's a topic that I feel strongly about, and that strikes a personal note for me.

My experience with gender roles:

When I was a child, I remember my reaction to gender roles: I thought they were stupid. I saw no good reasons for them, and I would react negatively whenever I saw someone, whether an adult or another kid, telling someone that it was not appropriate for them to play with a certain toy or act a certain way because that toy or activity or action was "for girls" or "for boys" or made them look or seem "like a boy" or "like a girl". As a kid, I asked "Why?" a lot, and no one ever gave me a good reason for the way some people considered it good for boys to act a certain way and girls a different way, and why some people considered it bad to cross that line.



As a kid, I consciously sought out toys that I saw as gender-neutral, like legos. I remember finding both Barbie and G.I. Joe unappealing because they were clearly presented as only being for one sex.

In most ways, I conformed to gender roles. I did not want to be a girl, dress like a girl, or play with dolls or other toys that society seemed to view as "for girls". But I reacted negatively to the idea of being told what to do, how to act, with respect to gender roles. And I noticed that the people I liked most were ones who often did not conform fully to gender roles. A lot of my friends were tomboyish girls, and boys who were interested in the social dynamics of adults. And the role models and authority figures I was most comfortable with were ones that I never saw enforce gender roles, but who treated children (and adults) consistently regardless of their sex.

I also remember feeling angry when people would tell me stories of sexism, mostly older adults telling me about times in their past when women were not given the same options or respect given to men. I also remember identifying this sort of sexism, mentally, with people enforcing gender roles negatively on boys. In some cases, in cases where I overstepped a cultural gender boundary, I remember being called homophobic epithets, or hearing such epithets hurled at other boys. Both of these forms of sexism, to me as a young child, seemed stupid and completely unnecessary.

Now, looking back as an adult, I think that I had gender roles pretty well figured out as a kid--my childhood reaction to resist gender roles and distrust people who tried to enforce them was normal and healthy.

How to handle gender roles constructively?

Certain activities tend to be populated more by men or boys whereas others are populated more by women or girls. And it's fine for things to turn out this way. Humans have certain innate biological differences, which include differences in abilities, strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, likes and dislikes, and a whole variety of other attributes. There's nothing wrong with having more men or more women naturally fill certain roles in society.

The problem is when we start introducing negativity and coercion into the social structure of society, when people deviate from those roles. There's no problem if a certain profession tends to attract one sex or another. The problem is when someone stepping into an uncommon field for their sex results in negative stigma. The problem is negativity and judgment, and coercion--when people exercise sexism in hiring practices, in promotion or assigning salaries, or when people belittle, insult, or harm others, whether adults or children, who deviate from gender norms.

I also have a problem with people making normative statements or telling people, directly, or by implication, what they "should" do. We all know that I dislike the word should. When people say that boys "should" like certain things or girls "should" like other things, or worse, that they "should" not like certain things...or that certain toys are activities are for boys or girls, or worse, that they are not for boys or not for girls....I think that's overstepped a boundary...it's no longer just a natural gender tendency, but it's become a damaging, constraining social norm.

Sometimes there are reasons for limiting the membership of a group to one sex. Certain discussion groups or book clubs may focus on women's issues or men's issues, and may want to create a safe environment where people can bring up issues that they may be afraid to talk about around the opposite sex. But creating a group limited to one sex is not the same as enforcing gender roles coercively. I feel comfortable with people choosing to form single-sex groups, because this is a consensual activity, something people agree to participate in. Gender norms are not something people consent to; rather, they are imposed on people, and this is where I have a problem with them.

Back to tea: gender in marketing:

Gender roles also appear in marketing, sometimes subtly, sometimes overtly. There are whole stores and brands oriented exclusively or primarily towards men or towards women, and there are even a few examples of this in the tea industry.



Above is a screenshot from ManTeas, which strikes me as more of a parody than a serious marketing effort. Yes, the logo really is that bad. But, ManTeas doesn't really bug me...if anything, it seems to me to be making fun of both the association of tea culture with femininity, and our cultural ideas of masculinity as well. My only disappointment with ManTeas is that I don't see any sign of recent activity on their website...does anyone know if they are still operating?

But...back to the topic of serious marketing. Outside of the parodies, and the relatively milder cases, I hate advertising that is specifically oriented towards men or women. I'm not talking about a company or product that naturally appeals more to women or to men. I'm talking about advertising for normally gender-free products that is unambiguously oriented only towards one gender (and is completely serious about itself). When it comes to this sort of marketing, I absolutely hate it, with a passion. Here is an example of some of this sort of marketing, a screenshot from one of my favorite companies, Lego:



There's so much about this marketing that I find objectionable. I already don't like the idea of separating lego sets into ones "for boys" and "for girls", but the way this is executed is troubling to me in further ways. It strikes a personal note because it threatens to turn one of my favorite gender-neutral toys from childhood into a strongly-gendered one. And I don't like the identification of the label "friends" with a toy marketed for girls only--and the associated implication that friendship is something "for girls". Like I said above, I have always found interpersonal relationships fascinating, and even as a kid, was drawn to boys who were more socially-oriented. And, over the years, most of my friends have been girls.

And look at the shape of the girls' bodies used in the marketing material...they all look pretty thin to me. While some girls might naturally be this thin, these bodies do not reflect the full range of natural body types of healthy girls. Marketing and toys are definitely linked to body image...if you're skeptical, read What Barbie does for a little girl's body image - this sort of marketing is a contributing factor to eating disorders.

This sort of issue also hits close to home for me; I have had a number of close friends who have suffered from eating disorders, including Anorexia nervosa and Bulimia. And I just don't understand it...women with a broad range of body types can be beautiful. Why can't marketing material reflect the natural diversity of the human body?

Back to tea:

As usual, I've gotten a bit off the topic of tea; I now have two headings in this post titled "back to tea". Does the tea industry use gendered marketing that plays into negative body image issues for women? Unfortunately, yes. One thing that I see most often, oriented towards women, is the weight loss marketing fad, used to sell green tea, oolong, Pu-erh, or blends including various herbs. Here's an example from Teavana:



The words "guilt-free, slimful beauty inside" occur in the description of this tea. Needless to say, I don't have the most positive reaction to this marketing. And I really wish Teavana would retire this tea, or at least rename it, and ditch this aspect of the description.

In summary:

Women and men are not the same...they never have been and they never will be. But there are problems when we enforce gender roles in ways that are coercive or negative. There are also problems with strongly-gendered marketing. One primary issue in gendered marketing is marketing oriented towards women which promotes a negative body image. In the tea industry, this sort of marketing is primarily oriented in terms of faddish associations between tea and weight loss, or "detox" teas.

What do you think?

How did you feel about gender roles as a child? How do you feel about them now? Do you agree with my criticisms of the marketing here, or do you think I'm being overly harsh?

Teas From Rare Tea Republic, And On The Consistent Character Of A Company's Teas

One thing that I have noticed fairly consistently over time is that different tea companies tend to have certain trends about what characteristics their teas tend to have. These trends are both evident in the choices of which styles of tea a company chooses to carry, and in the particular examples of each category of tea that a company sells. Thus, in trying a particular type of tea from different companies, I have observed differences which will often fit into a broader trend indicative of that company.

For example, Adagio Teas, from my experience, has tended to stock teas that are lighter, smoother, sweeter, and milder. Rishi Teas, on the other hand, has tended to stock teas that are a bit darker, stranger, and stronger tasting.

Rare Tea Republic:

Recently, I received four samples of teas from Rare Tea Republic. If you want specifics of each tea, you can read my detailed reviews of each of these teas by visiting RateTea's page on Rare Tea Republic. But here I want to comment on the company in general, and then on the trends I observed about the teas.

Here is a screenshot of the company's website:



As I have been writing about websites lately, I want to comment on this company's website: I like it very much! It is visually pleasing, with a clean but somewhat formal and elegant look, and it has its own unique character that immediately stands out from other tea companies. Showing consistent branding, the packaging of the tea itself fits with the look-and-feel of the website. I think this is a good marketing decision!

But visual things alone do little to impress me: what I like most about the company's website is that it provides a lot of information about each individual tea. In particular, it gives the specific region (not just country) in which each tea originates, as well as the plucking date. There's not a huge amount of information, but there's the information that I want. The company also offers some interesting teas, and, while it is focused on artisan teas, it has a fairly broad range of prices among its offerings.

And perhaps most importantly, the company seems to be interested in providing detailed information on where their teas originated, and in the broader context, promoting artisan tea culture in general.

Trends of this company's teas:

The catalag of Rare Tea Republic shows a clear focus on teas from the Himalayan region: all of their teas currently offered are from India or Nepal, with the exception of a single offering from Kenya. However, the offerings of teas from this company are quite atypical for the regions it covers, including numerous green, white, and oolong teas. This alone gets my attention. But the black teas they sell are also unusual. Of the four teas I sampled, three were black teas:



Can you even tell from the look of the leaf which of these teas are black teas? The tea on the right is the green tea, Jun Chiyabari Himalayan Evergreen. The leaf did not look much different from black teas from the same region, but upon tasting it, I will say, this tea was the most like a Chinese green tea of any tea I have ever tried from the Himalayan region of Northeast India, Nepal, and Bangladesh.

How do the teas tend to taste?

So what are the trends I observed about the actual characteristics of this company's teas when drinking them?

• They were all complex in aroma and smooth, but full-bodied in flavor. None of the teas I tried were strongly bitter, harsh, or astringent, nor were any thin: all were rich but somehow mellow.


• They were all highly vegetal and herbaceous, but, not in a way I found objectionable. I often find that green, oolong, and some first-flush black teas from Darjeeling and surrounding regions like Nepal can have aromas that are too vegetal for me. I liked the quality of these teas more.


• All the teas struck me as more similar to each other than they were to other teas from the region that I've tried from other companies. This company seems to be selecting teas for particular characteristics, so I imagine it will find a niche market of people who like those qualities.


• They all perform well under multiple infusions. In some cases, even brewing western-style with a long (5 minute) infusion, they produced a second flavorful cup. From my experience, this is particularly uncommon among black teas.


• The teas from Rare Tea Republic, I found, were quite versatile with respect to brewing: although some of them (like the Jun Chiyabari Himalayan Evergreen) produced radically different results when brewed in different ways, they all tasted pleasing regardless of how I brewed them. This contrasts with my experience of Himalayan teas with a highly vegetal character--I've found that these teas tend to be picky about brewing.

My one disappointment about these teas was their similarity to each other. I've tried a lot of teas, including some very interesting and unusual black teas, like the ones I described in my recent post top 5 most unusual or interesting black teas. If I had sampled one of these teas from Rare Tea Republic two years ago, when I did not have as much experience with tea in general, I undoubtedly would have described these teas as unusual, but now, I don't think they stand out quite as much. That said, they are high-quality, complex teas that I found very pleasing.

I also want to make one final note on price...the teas from this company are on the pricey side, but I also found that they are so flavorful that less leaf is needed to produce pleasing cups of tea. Considering that the teas worked well for multiple steepings, and that the leaf went quite far, and the quality is consistently good, these teas offer much better value than their price alone might lead you to think.

In conclusion:

I was quite impressed with this new tea company, Rare Tea Republic.

Have any of you tried any of their teas?

Top 5 Most-Viewed Styles of Green Tea on RateTea

This week, my top 5 post highlights the most often-viewed pages for styles (varieties) of green tea, on RateTea. This ranking is not what I would expect, although a few entries make sense. One thing that surprises me, however, is that the top four entries are all types of tea originating in Japan. Only one Chinese green tea makes the list, and it is not one of the most well-known ones, although I do think it is a rather interesting one.



The list:

• Matcha - This page being #1 actually makes sense to me. Matcha is something that Americans tend to be pretty interested in, but know little about. There are a lot of websites promoting the health benefits of matcha, but fewer more impartial resources on it. I've also heard the sentiment expressed frequently that people do not know where to buy good matcha, so it would make sense that they'd come to a site like RateTea to read about it. Ironically, it is one of the least-reviewed types of green tea on the site. I hope people at least enjoy the informational content. And I do hope that some people can go on the site and review some more matcha; I'm not a real matcha enthusiast so I'm unlikely to seek it out to review any time soon.


• Gyokuro - Gyokuro is a bit of a high-end specialty product. It gets a lot of views because it is linked to from the articles on L-theanine and matcha; gyokuro is one of the teas highest in theanine and is also the tea that the chemical was originally isolated from.


• Sencha - As it is the most common style of Japanese green tea available in America, it makes sense to me that sencha would make this list.


• Hojicha - One of the "least green" green teas, and also one of my favorites, this roasted green tea has a mellow flavor, but an aroma that I think of being more similar to coffee than any other green tea. I would not have predicted hojicha making this list, but I can see why it is on here, because it is a rather interesting type of tea.


• Anji Bai Cha - Anji bai cha, meaning "Anji white tea" produces a light-colored infusion, but is a green tea if viewed by production method. It is a bit of an esoteric tea, and it gets traffic mainly because it is linked to from the page of L-theanine, because it, together with Gyokuro, is one of the teas highest in theanine.

Lovers of Chinese green teas will be pleased to learn that the runners-up were gunpowder green tea and dragonwell (Lung Ching), followed by mao feng green tea. And, for what it's worth, it's a close race; matcha gets somewhere between two and three times as many views as mao feng. Overall, the different pages on green tea on RateTea seem to get roughly comparable amounts of attention.

Listing A Phone Number And Address On Your Tea Company Website Or Online Tea Store

This post, continuing my series on best practices for tea company websites, is about how to list phone numbers and/or mailing addresses on your site, and about the benefits of listing them.

RateTea now lists phone numbers on the pages for each brand of tea, for brands which had a phone number openly listed. Use it as a convenient reference, and contact me if your company's phone number is not listed (or is listed incorrectly--hopefully we did not make any mistakes though). This post grew out of what I saw on different tea company websites when looking for phone numbers. The post is not comprehensive: there are a whole other series of issues to consider when dealing with international phone numbers, and it focuses on US-based numbers.

Phone numbers:

The importance of phone numbers for tea companies varies widely. Many companies rely on old-fashioned mail-order business with orders placed by phone for a substantial volume of their sales, whereas other companies do not even list a phone number. Although some tea companies do not list a phone number because they are run as side-projects of a person who has another full-time job, there are also major companies with multiple employees, like Adagio Teas, which do not list a phone number.



Telephones may not look like this 1896 model any more, but they have not been made obsolete by the internet--people still use them frequently.

I personally believe that the best practices are to have a phone number, to answer the phones during business hours, and to prominently display the phone number on your website. However, it is not possible for all companies to do this, and indeed, many of my favorite tea companies do not list phone numbers, so I won't say that it is at all bad not to do these things, just that it is good to do them.

Having a phone number and prominently displaying it has three major benefits as I see it:

• A phone number conveys instant legitimacy. Even in today's day and age, a large number of people are skeptical of buying anything online. A phone number offers reassurance that your company exists and has some degree of stability and financial solvency, which can make people more likely to buy tea from you, as well as making people more likely to trust your website as authoritative.


• Phone conversations offer human connection and a personal touch. The web can be a bit cold and faceless, and if someone talks to one of your employees on the phone, your company becomes real to them in a way that it never can if they only interact through blocks of text sent electronically.


• Having a phone number which you answer regularly can enable people to get instant answers to questions. In some cases, this can result in you making a sale rather than losing the sale to another company, if another company is quicker to respond to an inquiry. In other cases, it may not affect your sales directly, but it still makes a customer or potential customer feel good by having their question instantly addressed.


• Phone numbers give frustrated or angry customers a way to quickly and thoroughly have their grievances addressed. If a customer of yours ever gets frustrated for any reason, you want them to call you ASAP so that you can resolve their question. I know it does not sound pleasant to talk on the phone with a customer who is stressed or upset, but having the customer call rather than email and wait for a response opens up the possibility of listening to them, treating them respectfully and kindly, and addressing their problem immediately and thoroughly. As a case in point, I have had two people post negative comments about Adagio on one of my Squidoo pages. As I personally have found Adagio Teas to be a wonderful company to deal with, and know many people who have ordered from them without complaint, I suspect that a contributing factor for the person's negative experience is the fact that Adagio does not have a phone number to offer instant solutions to costumer complaints. Tea companies will always make some mistakes, and some customers will always get angry; a phone number can lessen the chance that the person decides to publish a negative review before the problem gets fully addressed.

How to list phone numbers?

• If you have a special phone number that spells something in letters (like TEA, which translates to 832 on a phone dial-pad), translate the number on your website. These code-names may be cute, and may make your number easier to remember, but they also make it harder to dial. Translating letters to numbers is a non-trivial task, slowing down a customer, and introducing errors. Some phones, including old cell phones with worn-off letters, do not have letters visible on the keypad, and thus listing only your "Phone Letters" can prevent someone from easily knowing what your phone number is.


• Don't list a phone number unless you actually answer it or check the messages on it regularly. While listing a phone number may be a best practice, if you just have voice mail or an answering service that you do not regularly check, it is better to not list it.


• Make numbers into clickable links using the <a href="tel:xxxxxxxxxx"></a> tag. This will enable one-click dialing for mobile users as well as browsers on a computer who have software available for dialing out (like Skype or Google Voice). While this is great for listing land lines, a caveat is that making cell phone numbers readable as text can allow robots to scrape the numbers from the web, sending you spam texts, an uncommon, but annoying problem. When listing cell phone numbers online, storing the number in an image file rather than as text can prevent scraping and spam.


• Do not include your number as a long string of 10 digits without spacing. Use standard formatting, separating your phone number into area code, followed by 3 numbers, then 4 numbers. People find it hard to remember long strings of numbers--giving the number structure will make it easier for people to remember it, both long-term, and in their immediate short-term memory (thus making it more likely that they copy it correctly if they write it down). I personally prefer the (xxx) xxx-xxxx format instead of xxx.xxx.xxxx, although both formats are fine. I prefer the first because it more clearly identifies the area code.


• If you want people to call your number (such as to place orders), place it prominently on all pages of your website, ideally at the top, in the header. Such placement is less important if you have only a phone number for informational purposes. You can also place a phone number in the footer of each page.


• If you have a phone number that you do not place in the header or footer of your site, make it accessible from both the "Contact Us" page on your site, and the "About" page, or whatever equivalents exist on your site. Because there is no agreed-upon standard on the web of where to list a phone number, people looking for your phone number may go to any of these pages. I am surprised at how many companies, both large and small, have a phone number for customer service, yet do not list it on the "contact us" page, showing only a web form.


• Identify your hours of operation, either on all pages of your site, next to your phone number, or at a minimum, on the "contact us" page or whatever pages on your site have your number.

Here is an example of a phone number that is placed prominently at the top of the website at Simpson and Vail, with the hours of business listed directly underneath:



Seeing this number makes a good impression on me, even if I never call the number. By clearly denoting hours of service, it makes clear that this company keeps regular business hours, thus increasing its legitimacy in my eyes.

Listing Mailing Addresses:

Like phone numbers, mailing addresses are also important in establishing legitimacy. This is true even if your mailing address is no more than a warehouse, and you do not have any retail storefront. Displaying an address identifies where your business is located, which can help people to like you, if they like or are familiar with the geographic region in which you are located. Most businesses receive a lot of junk mail already, so you're unlikely to open yourself up to a lot more junk mail by having an address listed online.

Like phone numbers, addresses can be listed on all pages of your website (more commonly, in this case, in the footer), but this is less important than for phone numbers. It is good to list your address both on the "Contact Us" and "About" pages of your site, as well as anywhere else you think it relevant.

Even if you do not choose to list a whole address, I think it is still a good idea to mention where your company is physically located (such as a city and state, or at least a metro area), at the minimum, on your about page.

What do you think?

Do you think having a phone number is a good idea? Do you buy into the advice I offer here? I'm curious to hear the responses to this post in particular, because I know that some of the regular readers of this blog run tea companies that do not list phone numbers on their websites.

The Benefits of Mindfulness - And An NPR Program

Mindfulness is one topic that I like to write about, and one that comes up frequently in the context of tea culture. Wikipedia has good, separate pages on mindfulness in Buddhism and mindfulness in modern psychology; the two concepts are not identical, but overlap quite a lot.



A mindful state is not characterized by a straight, narrow, or perfect focus; it is more like this zigzagging path, straying a bit from side to side, and being full of distractions and imperfections, yet having a clear direction.

A little over a month ago, I listened to a program on NPR's Science Friday about mindfulness, called Be Here Now: Meditation For The Body And Brain, which contains an interview with one of the authors of a book called Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Although this program does not mention tea, it explicitly mentions food a number of times, talking about how, as people get caught up in fast-paced lifestyles, they often stop paying attention to how their food tastes. If you are interested in mindfulness, you might really enjoy the program.

In case you don't have time or aren't interested in listening to it (I'm often not in the mood for listening to radio programs or podcasts when I'm reading blogs), a brief summary of some of the key points that I took from it are as follows:

• Many of us, in our society, have very fast-paced lives, and go through much of our days on "autopilot", preoccupied with worries, and often not paying much attention to the moment, which includes both paying attention to the thoughts going through our heads, and paying attention to physical sensations, like those in our body, or the flavor and aroma of the food and drink we consume.


• A lack of mindfulness corresponds to a continually heightened stress response in the body, including changes in the relative activity of different regions of the brain. This can put us at increased risk of depression, and can exacerbate or directly cause psychological disorders such as generalized anxiety disorder.


• Simple exercises in mindfulness, such as paying attention to the sensations in our body, our senses, and the thoughts in our mind, can promote a more mindful state of being in our lives. Even a few minutes a day spent meditating in a certain way can produce profound changes in mind and body.


• When in a more mindful state, we actually become more productive, and we also have greatly improved capacity for empathy.

This summary represents my understanding of the program, not necessarily the views of the people hosted on it. But I found that overall, the program strongly resonated with my experiences.

If you ever feel busy, stressed, overwhelmed with worry or anxiety, or if you have trouble with depression, agitated mood, or irritability, I think you might benefit from listening to this program. I found it very helpful and informative.