My Top 5 Most Popular (Viewed) Blog Posts

A while back, William I. Lengeman III posted a listing of the top 5 most popular posts on his blog Tea Guy Speaks. This list was interesting to me, as three of the five posts are (highly useful) lists, tea chats and forums, tea blogs, and tea of the month clubs, which Bill has done a great job of keeping comprehensive and up-to-date.

Out of curiosity I checked my own logs and found a very different picture for the five most popular blog posts on this blog:

• More on Brewing Temperature - January 31st, 2011. This post is by far the most often viewed. In this post I quibble a bit with the recommendations that I see all over the place about the "proper" brewing temperature to use, and share my own experiences and practices on the matter.


• Afghan Tea, Afghan Food, and Afghanistan - August 15th, 2010. The second-most popular post, this is an eclectic post in which I talk about everything from the gradual geographic changes in regional cuisines, to the war in Afghanistan.


• What Tea Brands Does Unilever Own? And How Does It Make You Feel? - March 25th, 2011. Discussion about the positive and negative impacts that the ownership of numerous tea brands by a single big corporation has on the global tea culture.


• Ten of China's Underappreciated Teas - May 20th, 2010. My response to the China famous tea list.


• Tea at Wegmans Supermarket - January 10th, 2010. Discussion of the (surprisingly good) loose-leaf tea offerings at Wegmans supermarket.

Blogs are often thought of as highly time-sensitive, but the data on my site actually suggests otherwise. All but one of these posts have seen sustained traffic over time, and I think this is what makes them the most popular; they are not necessarily the posts that made the largest initial splash; the sole exception is the post about China's underappreciated teas, which saw a few brief bursts of attention, but has been largely ignored during the rest of the time.

I am curious to see how this will change over time, if these posts will remain popular or if other posts (new or old) will replace them.

Please share your popular posts as well!

Also, for other bloggers, I would also be eager to learn of which posts on your blogs have been most popular, if you track that information and care to share!