Mindfulness and the Dangers of Tea Blogging

I blog frequently, and of course, also review teas on RateTea, because I love to write, but there are sometimes downsides to my high level of enthusiasm for writing about tea.

One thing that I've noticed about blogging and reviewing teas online is that, when I write about tea often, I reach a point where I am constantly looking for ideas. I go through my day, and I see various things relating to tea, and think: "Oh, I can blog about that!" or "Oh, I really want to take a picture of that so that I can include it on my blog!" While this can lead to some interesting blog posts, it can also unfortunately take away from my experience of things in the moment; getting too sucked into this mentality can be a threat to mindfulness (or a different page on mindfulness for those of you more oriented towards pyschology than Buddhism).

Today there are no pictures, and I don't have anything to say about tea. I want to experience everything not only my tea, but everything in my daily life more mindfully.

Have you ever experienced this?

Have you ever struggled with the desire to write or blog about things taking away from your own mindfulness of them in the moment? If so, how do you balance your life and resolve this struggle?

Why I Don't Want You To Click This Headline

I want people to read the pieces I publish online; the more readers I reach, the better. My message reaches a broader audience, and in the long-run, I even earn more money as I gain visibility for RateTea indirectly. So why do I not want people to click on the headline for this blog post?

You're already here, so the headline already got your attention and drew you in. First I have a confession to make: The headline was not fully truthful. On some level, I wanted you to click it, but on another level I did not. Why not? The answer lies in how I feel about sensationalism. I included a less-than-truthful headline, a form of exaggeration, in order to draw in readers.

The part of me that did not want you to click the headline did not want you to because I do not want people to be swayed by sensationalistic headlines. In my ideal world, I would like people to be immune to these sorts of headlines. Below, I explain why I think this would make the world a better place, and how you can help to advance this goal.

What is sensationalism?

Wikipedia has a rather spotty and incomplete article on sensationalism, which, although the article as a whole could use some improvement, I think hits the nail on the head with its initial definition:

Sensationalism is a type of editorial bias in mass media in which events and topics in news stories and pieces are over-hyped to increase viewership or readership numbers.

This definition cites a page about sensationalism on the website of FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting), a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing media bias and censorship.

Sensationalism causes problems in the tea world:

I want to visit some topics that I have heard people in the tea community complain about frequently:

• Inaccurate public impression of science - My recent post about the tea and prostate cancer headline is an example of how even very mild sensationalism can have a powerfully negative impact on public perception of scientific knowledge.
• Tea and weight loss fads - Tea, particularly green tea and oolong tea, and to some degree Pu-erh and white tea as well, have become associated in American society with weight loss fads. There are numerous negative impacts to this association, from people being put off from green tea because they try bad green tea sold as a weight-loss product, to negative body image issues promoted by marketing aimed at women. And most importantly, this whole approach takes away from people focusing on the quality and taste of their tea, and enjoying tea and the process of drinking it. And lastly, sites promoting tea as a weight loss product are not particularly truthful; for a more truthful approach I recommend reading Gingko's post on the slimming effect of tea.
• Myths and falsehoods circulating about tea - A lot of the myths about tea surround the caffeine content of tea, such as the myth that white tea is lowest in caffeine among teas. A lot of other myths pertain to unsubstantiated health claims, which can range from the mundane to the absurd. Fortunately, there are a lot of people out there committed to ending these myths, including such people as Michael J. Coffee who runs Tea Geek, or Brandon of Wrong Fu Cha, who also administers WikiCha and is one of the numerous contributors to TeaDrunk, another great place to get solid info that breaks through myths and misconceptions. I also appreciate the casual skepticism expressed by bloggers like Lahikmajoe, or Nicole in her post Health Benefits Schmealth Benefits. And it's also worth noting the ATB (Association of Tea Bloggers) Criteria, point 6, also get at this issue; another thing I love about the ATB.

What can you do?

I think there are numerous things you can do to curb sensationalism in news, especially in how you read news online, and how you participate in social media and various online communities. Some of my recommendations:

• Slow down - Sensationalism thrives on speed. Sensationalism flourishes and sensationalistic headlines are rewarded in an environment where people act on snap judgments, rather than thinking deeply, which leads into the next points.
• Read deeply - Do not just skim pieces. Read them in their entirety and take time to think about them. Does this seem like more work? This leads into my next point.
• Read less - Be more selective of what you read. As you read more deeply, you may reach a point like I did, where I realized that an overwhelming majority of what I was reading was remarkably low-quality, in that it communicated little new information, or was hastily thrown together, or it cited no sources, or that it was presenting opinions or mere assertions as fact or objective truth. These realizations are a good thing; they will help you to cut out whole media outlets, blogs, and websites. You will also get a better idea of what sorts of topics you wish to read on which sites. You may subscribe to a blog that posts almost daily, like this one, but you may find that only a small portion of the posts interest you enough to actually read them. This is a good thing! When you have less to read, you will be able to read more deeply.
• Think carefully before sharing - Never share or re-share a post without reading it. Put some thought into what pieces you decide to share or re-share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, social bookmarking sites, or through linking to from your blog or website. Think about what effect you are having by sharing a work or webpage. Is the work truthful? What effect will it have on the world for you to share it?

Sensationalism in the media only thrives when we fuel it. If we ignore it, and instead focus on high-quality, thoughtful journalism, scholarship, blogs, and other media, the sensationalists will just spin their wheels and eventually run out of steam.

Tea Being Hip and the Dark Side of Trends

This post is inspired by a recent post on the English Tea Store's blog, written by William I. Lengeman III of Tea Guy speaks, titled How Tea Became Hip. I originally posted a rather detailed comment on that post, but I decided that the material in the comment was important enough to me to warrant a detailed post of its own.

In this post I want to write about the concept or phenomenon of something being "hip", "cool", "trendy", "in", or "the latest thing". And I will make a distinction between what I see as a healthy way of recognizing (and acting on) trends, and an unhealthy way of viewing or chasing them. This is what I describe as the "dark side of trends".

Pictured here is an image representation of a human hip bone; picture by Stephen Woods, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

The relationship between the body part and the slang expression is not clear. Wikpedia's article on Hip (slang) has some good discussion on this matter, if you are interested.

Trends are natural, and it is good to be aware of them:

Because this post risks coming across otherwise, I want to begin by acknowledging that trends are a natural part of human society, and that it is good to be aware of them and to work with them in positive ways. It is especially important to be aware of trends if you run a business.

For example, if you run a small tea shop, and some specific type of tea or herb suddenly explodes in popularity, it would be wise to stock the tea or herb in question, if it fits naturally within your offerings. If it does not fit naturally and you wish not to stock it, it would be benificial to have something in mind, such as a truthful and convincing sales pitch, that would help connect customers seeking that tea or herb with the products you sell.

Another example, which I hope to expound fully in a later post, is that Teavana is very popular, and is one of the most common entry points into loose-leaf tea for Americans. Teavana is a bit of a trend. It can thus be beneficial for people running a loose tea business to be familiar with Teavana's most popular products, and to have something compelling to say (and teas to recommend) to people who express that they like certain of the teas sold by Teavana.

The dark side of trends:

Just like in Star Wars, where there is a good and bad side of the force, I think there is a good and bad side to trends, or to the concept of something being "hip". So that you can get into the mood for understanding this dark side of trends, I would encourage you to meditate on this picture of Darth Vader. Darth Vader is one of the classic "bad guys", but, like all people, he is not wholly evil, and he exhibits good qualities when he saves Luke Skywalker's life at the end of the Star Wars Trilogy.

The above picture is included courtesy of Andres Rueda, Licensed under CC BY-2.0.

How does the concept of trends go wrong? How can the idea of something being "in" or "cool" or "the latest thing" be harmful in society?

• Unhealthy ideas can become trendy - A good example of this is the negative ideas of body image, which can contribute to eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia. Yes, this is an issue that comes up in the tea industry; see my earlier post on tea and gender roles, in which I go into this issue in more depth.
• Trends can be manipulated by money and power interests - Trends can be shaped (or even started) by money and power, such as when a corporation pumps money into a marketing campaign to create demand for a new product, or when an individual or business uses their social connections (a form of social power) to induce influential or high-profile individuals to support their trend.
  
  Because of the profit motive, these manipulations usually lead to trends that enrich the wealthy and powerful interests behind them, rather than trends that are actually most beneficial to society or beneficial to the people following them. This phenomenon is common in the fashion industry, where companies work hard to fuel trends of certain clothing being "in" and then "out", in order to encourage people to continuously spend more money on clothing, when it would be more beneficial to these people and to society to embrace practical clothing and timeless fashions.
  
  In the tea industry, these sorts of power interests and profit motives are less pronounced, but they do create an incentive for companies to create trends for the teas that generate the most profit for them, and these teas are not necessarily the highest quality teas, since the highest-quality pure teas often result in a greater share of profits reaching the producer, with less room for mark-up by retailers. I explore this issue in more depth on my recent guest post Fair Trade and the Tea Industry on the Journey for Fair Trade blog.
• The concept of "trendiness" can become associated with an unhealthy way of thinking and acting - I explain this below, because I think it is the most sinister element of the culture of trends.

Trendiness and healthy thinking:

One belief that I embrace as a fundamental belief, is the idea that all people are valuable--innately valuable, not valuable because of their wealth, appearance, or even because of their intellect or character. One way that I think trends can become unhealthy are when they are used to negatively judge or dismiss other people (or groups of people, or businesses or organizations) as being somehow less worthwhile, because they are seen as less "trendy". Some examples of this are:

• That dress is SO 90's (when said in a negative tone)
• I can't believe he's still thinking like that (said with disgust)
• This business doesn't sell X, they clearly don't know what they're doing.

These statements have in common that they express some sort of negative judgement on a person, business, or group, like disdain, disgust, disapproval, because of a failure to follow a certain trend. I find that this is overstepping a boundary for me, crossing the line from disapproval or dislike of the activity or action (which is okay by me) to complete dismissal of the person or group (which I do not think is healthy).

Think you don't do these things yourself? I'd be cautious about jumping to the conclusion that you don't. There's one particular example that I've struggled with recently, and that is racism.

This photo of the KKK was taken by a photographer only identified as "Image Editor"; the photo is Licensed under CC BY-2.0.

Racism, at least in its more overt forms, like those symbolized by the KKK (Ku Klux Klan), is "out". It is "uncool". A majority of people in the US not only dislike it, but, in its more extreme forms, find it disgusting, disturbing. The trend in American society is away from overtly racist statements. But when someone makes a remark that you perceive as racist, it is easy to jump on them, in your mind, or even out loud. But there is a difference between calling out a person on their remark, or believing that the remark is genuinely racist and disrespectful, and dismissing the person as a human being. This distinction took me quite some time to grasp; I do not think I had fully grasped it even at the age of 28. I find it hard to communicate this distinction, but here is my best attempt to sum it up:

• The unhealthy approach is to think or say something like: you're a really rotten or worthless human being for thinking or saying that.
• The healthy approach is to communicate something like: you're so much better than a rotten remark like that.

If you struggle with embracing the second way of thinking, remember Darth Vader; if Luke had killed him, he would have himself been killed. Luke, indeed, had tried to kill him repeatedly, and had solidly expressed the first way of thinking (disgust, hate) again and again. Yet Darth Vader still came through and saved Luke's life. If Darth Vader, one of the most famous bad-guys of all time, can come around, think of what a typical KKK member is capable of.

Hopefully, most of us are past (or were never into) the idea of judging another person by how "trendy" their clothing is, but I suspect that many of us still wrestle with the tougher issue of judging or dismissing people on the basis of things they do which we genuinely dislike or are genuinely disgusted by.

What do I do with this?

Because of the potential ugly side to the cultural construct of "trendiness", "coolness", or "hipness", I try to avoid promoting things as being "trendy" or "in", and I invite others to do the same. If you wish to promote something, whether it be a specific tea or type of tea, or a specific concept or idea, or even a certain fashion, I think that the most compelling way to do so is to share your own personal reason for liking it. The same goes for when you dislike something. Share your reasoning or just your feelings or intuition. But I would recommend to avoid making statements about something being "in" or "out", or any equivalent statements, because I think that this way of thinking can easily go in an unhealthy direction.

What do you think?

How do you feel about trends and trendiness? Do you think the advice I give tea companies in this post is sound? Do you believe that there is a relationship between a certain view of trendiness and the unhealthy ways of thinking that I described above? Does the racism example resonate with you? Can you think of other examples of these sorts of things in your life?

Harris Decaf Tea, Cold Brewed, Offers Life Lessons

This post is about drinking tea that falls quite far outside my normal comfort zone, both in terms of the choice of tea itself, and the way it was prepared.

Pictured here is a pitcher of iced tea that some of my friends brewed up:



This is Harris Tea's decaffeinated black tea, cold brewed. The two pitchers are the same tea, but the strength of brewing is different; the darker pitcher is obviously stronger.

I found this tea interesting to sample, because it was well outside the zone of teas I would brew up on my own. I tend to avoid decaffeinated tea, instead preferring naturally caffeine-free herbal teas if I am looking for something without caffeine. I strongly prefer loose-leaf to tea bags, and I tend to avoid the brands of tea most commonly available in supermarkets. I also rarely cold brew iced tea, as I find it tends not to produce the results I like the best. For this reason, I wasn't comfortable writing an actual review of this tea on RateTea.

I wasn't crazy about this batch of iced tea. It was perfectly drinkable, but a bit bland. I suspect this tea, however, might taste a bit better to me if brewed the way I would prefer it.

Compared to the worst loose-leaf tea:

As much as I love loose-leaf tea and prefer it to tea prepared in the manner described above, I want to note that my experience with the tea above was still pleasant. I drank a cup of the iced tea, and it was refreshing, only a little bland. There have been some loose-leaf teas that I've brewed up that I've placed great care into preparing, only to pour them out without drinking them because I found them so foul tasting.

I think there's an important life lesson here. Life is a bit unpredictable; sometimes, even if I do everything the way I think is best, things can come out in ways quite different from what I want. At other times, the setup in a situation may seem close to the worst possible, at least by my standards, but things might surprise me by turning out in positive ways.

Delving deeper: what else is going on here?

I think there is one observation about the tea situation here. The tea pictured above was brewed weakly, and I did not expect much from it. When I put care into brewing loose-leaf tea, I usually brew it more strongly, and I usually expect more from it. Thus, it has much greater potential to disappoint.

A life lesson:

I've often found that situations involving people are a lot like this. Sometimes, it seems like I would have a lot in common with someone, but I struggle to relate to them, or find myself coming into conflict with them in odd and unpredictable ways. Sometimes I've been excited about a class or a teacher, only to find that I absolutely hate it, and either drop it or find a way to barely scrape through it.



Other times, I've interact with people from vastly different backgrounds, sometimes even people that others have told me are "difficult to deal with", only to find I get along with these people just fine. I've also taken classes or read books that I did not expect to find remotely interesting (like Numerical Linear Alegbra, or the accompanying text Matrix Computations by Golub) that I ended up finding absolutely captivating.

I think the lesson here is not only that life is unpredictable and full of surprises, but also that delving into something too deep, and becoming heavily vested in a certain outcome of a situation without first getting a taste of that situation, can lead to disappointment. With a cup of tea, you can just pour it out, but in life, sometimes you are stuck with greater consequences to deal with. I find I am both happiest and most productive when I embrace the unpredictability of life, and make decisions in such a way that acknowledges the uncertainties, leaving ample room for both unexpected disliking and unexpected liking.

How about you?

Do you relate to my experience of this batch of iced tea? How about my experiences with life and with people? How about Matrix Computations? Do you get excited about that?

Truthfulness: Tea Companies: Be Cautious With Claims of Uniqueness

I recently read a post on SororiTea Sisters, a review of Assam Mothola White (White Assam) from Grey’s Teas. This post shared a commercial description of this tea, from the seller, which claims that "No other white teas are known to be produced in Assam." For those of you who don't know them, Grey's Teas is a tea company, based in the UK, which has quite a few interesting offerings in their catalog, such as an oolong produced in Assam, and white teas from Assam, Darjeeling, and other regions. I have never tried any of their teas though, but the company has definitely gotten my attention.

But their claim about no other white teas being produced in Assam raised a red flag for me. I'm not crazy about the passive voice ("...are known...") as it doesn't identify who is doing the "knowing" (or lack thereof). But I also had a gut feeling that this statement was untrue, when I read it. I have a good intuition for which types of teas, produced in which regions, are available, because of my work on RateTea. I did a quick check, using the powerful tools in RateTea that allow anyone (yes, you can do this too!) to search and filter for teas of a specific type or style, from a specific region. RateTea's listings of White Teas produced in Assam, India turned up 7 results:



Checking this list, I found Upton's offering (since retired from their catalogue) is indeed the same tea sold by Grey's Teas, from Methola or Mothola estate, as is the Assam white tea sold by Canton Tea Co and Stash Tea. But the other teas are different. Many are from Satrupa Tea Estate, and there are several distinct types or grades of tea available from this estate in Assam, all available through the Assam Tea Company, and some through other retailers.

So, this claim of uniqueness is an overstatement; Assam does indeed produce other white teas. I would urge Grey's Teas to update their description to reflect this!

Tea companies: be careful with claims (including uniqueness claims):

I urge companies to be cautious about making claims about your teas which depend on information that you may not have. Uniqueness is one example of this--uniqueness makes a claim not only about the tea you are describing, but about all other teas in an area or of a certain type. When making a claim of uniqueness, unless you have exhaustively travelled to a whole area and checked every estate, I don't think it's safe to make a claim about uniqueness. And keep in mind that producers and sellers may make false claims about their products' uniqueness in order to sell them, so be cautious about passing on a claim of uniqueness that a seller made to you. Instead, say: "We are not aware of any other white teas produced in Assam..."

This statement is more truthful because it speaks from your own personal experience rather than making a global statement. A global statement may or may not be true; a statement of your own personal knowledge is true.

Some ideas for rewording the description from Grey's Teas include:

• "Very few white teas are produced in Assam."
• "This is only one of a few white teas produced in Assam."

It is perfectly possible that Grey's tea wrote their description a long time ago, and that, when it was written, the statement was actually true. It is also possible that the company did not know of any other Assam white teas. In these cases, they could have written:

• "As of [whatever date], this was the only white tea produced in Assam."
• "This tea is to our knowledge the only white tea produced in Assam."
• "When we began carrying it, this was the only white tea we knew of produced in Assam."

These claims are more truthful, and their truth does not change when new information becomes available. This is because they speak from personal experience and/or include dates or historical info rather than making a claim of universal truth. These sorts of descriptions protect a company in the long-run, because they do not require diligently checking the description in the case that something changes and the description is no longer true.

False advertising can become legally problematic:

False claims of the uniqueness of a product are a form of false advertising that can range from a legal gray area to solidly illegal.

I seriously doubt that anyone would want to start a legal battle over something as trivial as the claim mentioned above, but as a general rule, making any false statement about your company's products can open you up to legal exposure, such as lawsuits from customers, competitors, or activist groups, or action from governmental agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. It also can look bad and discourage potential customers from buying your products, especially when you make a statement that a potential buyer knows to be untrue.

To impress potential customers with your knowledge, you want to speak from your experience and limit your marketing to material you know to be 100% truthful. No one knows everything, but it often conveys wisdom when a person communicates that they're aware of exactly where their knowledge ends.

What do you think?

As a tea shopper, how do you react when you encounter a claim that seems to be an overreach? How about if you work within a tea company? How do you react when a competing business makes a claim that somehow infringes on one of the products you sell? Do you consider how things might change in the future when you write descriptions of your products? Do you think that I am being nitpicky here, focusing on a tiny point, or do you think this is getting at an important issue of truthfulness in advertising?

And do you agree that in general, speaking from your direct experience and avoiding uncertain generalizations produces more truthful statements, and statements that retain their truthfulness better as time passes?

On Soliciting Tea Bloggers to Review Your Samples

I've been uninspired to write lately, which is why my posts have slowed down a bit, but today I read a Google+ post by Nicole of Tea For Me Please that got me thinking and inspired me to write this post. So first, thanks Nicole!

Nicole commented about unsolicited comments from tea companies, which she describes as companies "...practically demanding that I write about their product and promote it to my readers without so much as a proper introduction..." This post sparked a lot of discussion.

Cinnabar of Gongfu Girl also offered a particularly relevant comment here: "It's always the same formulaic communication that starts with them saying how much they like my blog, followed by statements that prove they haven't actually read anything I've written."

The rude approaches described by Nicole, Cinnabar, and others in the discussion, can offend tea bloggers. They can make a negative impression, and they can make it unlikely that a blogger will ever accept or review samples from your company, or promote or write favorably about your company. In this post I want to explain how I think it is best to approach tea bloggers. This all seems like common sense to me, but the fact that so many companies don't follow it makes me think it is worth writing about.

Offering samples is a good thing:

First, I want to say that I love samples, and I think that sending free samples to bloggers can be a great way to gain visibility for your tea company. I'm certainly not trying to discourage tea companies from offering samples with this post. Rather, I would like to encourage tea companies to think about how they approach bloggers when offering samples.

Pictured here are some samples from Life in Teacup that I recently received. This company is one of my favorite tea companies, offering unusual Chinese teas that can be hard to find elsewhere:



Another very different shipment, also of high-quality Chinese teas, was from TeaVivre, a new tea company that ships directly from China, that has quickly gotten my attention as offering high-quality Chinese teas at reasonable prices:



If you want to read some reviews, I recently posted reviews of TeaVivre's Xin Yang Mao Jian and their Chun Mei (Zhen Mei), and of Life in Teacup's Zhang Ping Shui Xian, Charcoal Roasted, Zhang Ping Shux Xian, Traditional Greener Style, and Keemun Mao Feng. Stay tuned for more reviews.

So, how to offer samples?

If I were to give some advice to tea companies offering samples, I'd make the following points about how to approach tea bloggers:

• Be honest, and avoid flattery. Don't say that you like a person's blog, or read a person's blog if you are just finding it for the first time. If you actually read the blog regularly and enjoy it, then it's okay to say this, but it is better to show this by commenting regularly or referencing the posts in your own writing. But if you just found the person's blog in a list of tea blogs, and are emailing them primarily to offer samples for reviews, then say that. There's no reason to be ashamed of making honest attempts to promote your business, but flattery and dishonesty can make a very negative impression. These sorts of actions come across to me as unnecessary, unprofessional, and desperate, three qualities you absolutely do not want associated with you or your business.


• Understand that an offer of samples is an offer, and be fully content with bloggers refusing your offer. - It is reasonable to offer samples to a blogger with the understanding that they will review them if they accept the offer. But a blogger is always free to reject any offer of samples. Accepting samples, and reviewing them, even though it involves receiving a free product, is a lot of work. By offering someone samples, you are asking someone to do free work promoting your company. Getting upset at someone for refusing to do you a favor is never a healthy thing to do. And if you're upset, recognize that this is your own private issue and not the blogger's, and keep your thoughts to yourself--sending a nasty note to someone in a case like this is tremendously unprofessional and disrespectful.


• Read the blogger's blog and site, and make sure they are a good match for your offer, before offering samples. - If you offer samples of flavored green teas to a blog that exclusively reviews Pu-erh, you're making clear that you did not take the time to even glance over what the blog is about. In some cases, bloggers post policies about samples and reviews; make sure to read these notices if one is posted. Always read the "about" page if a blog has one, and always read a number of posts before contacting the blogger. By contacting a blogger without checking to see that their blog is a good match, you are wasting your time as well as the blogger's time.

Watch who you hire to do your PR:

Nicole also remarked in her comment that in some cases, it seems that companies are paying PR firms to do this. I want to chime in, publicly, that I've also experienced this. In one exceedingly silly case, I was having trouble with a certain company posting ratings and reviews on RateTea which I suspected to be fraudulent. The pattern I saw was a series of new sign-ups, all with hotmail addresses, who would write a few reviews (with 100/100 or near-100 ratings) of this company's teas, and never review any other company's teas or log in to the site again. Needless to say, I deleted the accounts, but in order to cut down on spam, I did some detective work and tracked them down to a PR consulting firm that the company had presumably hired. I emailed the firm, and although I did not receive a response or apology, the fake reviews stopped.

The moral of the story here is to be very careful when hiring PR firms. Because a PR firm who engages in disrespectful behavior like this can damage your company's reputation, I would advise people to really drill PR firms on the topics of respect, ethics, and interpersonal communications, before hiring them. If a company cannot demonstrate to you that they consistently communicate respectfully, honestly, and ethically, then find another company.

A sample solicitation:

If you want to offer samples to a blogger, it's really easy. First, make sure the blog is appropriate for your offer, and if not, find another blog that is more appropriate. Then write something simple, like:

"Dear X: I represent Y tea company; I'd like to offer you samples of teas for you to review on your blog, please let me know if you're interested."

If the person responds that they're not interested, thank them for their time and leave them alone. It's one thing if you have something specific more to say--that's fine, but including flattery, or adding a rude response if they decline your offer, will just dig you a deep hole that you may never get out of in that person's eyes.

Obsessive-Compulsive Tea Shopping, and Unity in Addictions

I just discovered an interesting discussion thread on Steepster, How do you stop the compulsion to buy buy BUY more tea?!, through a post on the Life in Teacup Blog how to deal with obsessive tea shopping... . This got me thinking about addictions in general, and I decided I wanted to write on the topic here.



Pictured here is some heroin, an illegal drug that can be highly addictive. Addiction, including addiction to hard drugs like heroin, is something I have thought about for a long time; when I was in high school, someone on the periphery of my social circle died of a heroin overdose.

This post is only tangentially related to tea, but I think it is an important topic, and I hope people find it useful.

If you were thinking initially of compulsive shopping, and are shocked by my leap to heroin, you may think I am exaggerating. But I hope that if you bear with me, you will find that my analogy has an interesting reason behind it, and the reason is not to shock or exaggerate. And, after explaining myself, I will conclude the post with a suggestion of how to overcome compulsive tea shopping.

There is unity in addictions:

I personally believe that there is unity in addictions, in the sense that, whether a person is suffering from compulsive shopping, unhealthy behavior in sex or relationships, drug addiction, compulsive gambling, self-injury, video game addiction, or anything else, the person is suffering not just from a specific form of addiction, but from a general state of addiction. All forms of addiction have in common that a person's self-control is not strong enough that they are able to choose long-term benefits over short-term behaviors that produce some sort of immediate mental reward or stimulation.

There is some science that is beginning to confirm the idea that different types of addiction have a lot in common, in terms of what is going on with the brain. I also find it interesting that twelve step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, and other similar programs, have been developed not only to help with alcoholism, but with a variety of other sorts of addictions, and these different programs have basically the same approach. The approach begins with admitting that the people have a problem with addiction, and that self-control is inadequate. In terms of my understanding of addiction, I would say that these programs work because they change a person's beliefs (the step of believing that one has an addiction and choosing to want to overcome it is a critical one) as well as providing a network of social support.

My experience with addiction:

Addiction is not something I discuss from afar; I personally have had problems with video game addiction, and it got bad enough that I deleted all video games from my computer years ago. I could spend hours playing role playing games and neglecting all sorts of other activities. More recently, I have struggled with addictive behavior towards social media and online communication media such as Facebook and gchat. I have also seen people close to me struggle with alcoholism, self-injury, and unhealthy patterns in relationships. One of my friends found a twelve step program helpful for overcoming problems with codependency in relationships, and I have seen people overcome alcoholism while others have failed to overcome it.

Some interesting resources on addiction:

If you're interested in this topic, NPR has recently had a number of programs (and published articles) on this topic. One that I found a particularly interesting read was Addiction Is Not A Disease Of The Brain. Wikipedia's article on addiction is also well-developed and has a lot of interesting and relevant material on it. The overall picture I get by reading different materials on the topic of addiction though is that addiction is complex and involves many factors, including brain chemistry, actions, habits, and life choices, social networks and relationships with people, and beliefs about the effects of various actions.

My thoughts on how to overcome addiction:

Some people "overcome" one addiction only to fall into another. I think that this is not a true victory over addiction...truly overcoming addiction involves overcoming the whole state of addiction, in which someone seeks some sort of immediate gratification through some sort of impulsive activity. The question of which activity is more harmful is often a relative one. Playing video games may seem relatively benign when compared to heroin use, but a true video game addiction, in which a person spends hours every day playing video games, and neglecting their job, school, health, or significant other, could actually be more destructive to a person's life than someone trying heroin once and never using it again.

I think that the best model for overcoming addiction is a holistic approach, one that aims to help a person reach a healthy state in which they are thinking and acting based on the long-run rather than immediate gratification. I think that an essential part of this is feeling happy and content in the moment. Addiction is all about satisfying immediate cravings; if you are consistently able to enjoy the moment without engaging in any of your addictive vices, and, without these activities, you can feel like you have everything you need in the short-term, then you have overcome addiction. I find mindfulness exercises like meditation, or the appreciation of subtle pleasures to have a positive effect on this whole process. A lot of people use addiction to run away from their problems...difficult situations, feelings, or memories they don't want to confront. It is hard to overcome addiction if you genuinely believe that your life is in ruin, as you will feel that you have nothing to lose, but if you feel like your life is worthwhile and in order, your willpower will be greatly increased. At least, that's how I view things.

How to overcome compulsive tea shopping:

I find it ironic that people suffer from compulsive tea shopping, as for me, tea is something that is associated with mindfulness, taking a break in my day to focus both on the act of preparing a cup of tea, and on the aromas, flavors, and other sensations while drinking a cup of tea, or my company when sharing tea with others. So perhaps a remedy for compulsive tea shopping would be to spend more time enjoying the tea. If you're truly enjoying what you have, you don't need any more, right?

What do you think?

Have you had any personal experiences with addiction, either mild or severe, that you are comfortable sharing in the comments? Do you think there's much truth in the "unity in addiction" view that I put forth here? What do you think about my suggestions of how to overcome addiction?

Top 5 Mistakes I Make When Brewing Tea

This top 5 post highlights the most frequent mistakes I make when brewing tea.

• Brewing tea that's not great quality - I know this isn't really a "brewing" problem, but when I ask the question: "Why didn't this cup of tea turn out well?" the answer is often that the tea used to prepare it was not particularly fresh or high-quality. Although I've encountered some green teas and a few oolongs that are truly picky about brewing, most teas I drink aren't, so if the tea turns out truly bad, the tea is usually the culprit.


• Not making the water hot enough - I rarely brew tea too hot, mainly because I am aware of the types of teas that tend to be sensitive to water that is too hot, and I tend to be cautious with them. However, I also find that there are many teas that I prefer brewed with fairly hot water, that other people recommend brewing with cooler water. I thus find that I err too much on the side of water being too cool for my tastes, especially when following written brewing instructions. Another reason that I can brew tea with water that is too cool is if the room is cold and I do not warm up the mug or tea pot before brewing.


• Oversteeping a whole-leaf tea on the second infusion - I often make multiple infusions of my tea when brewing western-style, in a mug, using a tea infuser. I generally do not do a "rinse" of the leaves as one does with proper Gong Fu brewing. When not doing a rinse, however, the leaves tend to take some time to become wet and start infusing, so the first infusion may be rather weak. The second infusion, however, can become much stronger even with a shorter steeping time. For example, I recently steeped a green tea for 2 minutes, and it came out just right. I steeped it a second time, for 1 minute, and it was much too strong on the second infusion. Oops.


• Using too little leaf when brewing greener oolongs - I find the amount of leaf necessary when brewing greener oolongs to be hard to gauge. If I've used too much leaf, I can usually detect this from the smell, as soon as I pour water over the leaf, and make a short infusion. When I use too little leaf, I just end up with a bland cup. I seem to make this mistake a lot. For some reason, I don't have this problem with darker oolongs as much.


• Brewing a cup of tea out of habit when I am not really in the mood for it - As much as I love tea, I'm not always in the mood for it. There are a few times in my day, especially in the morning, when I regularly make myself a cup of tea. On those occasions when I make a cup of tea out of habit without really wanting it, I usually don't enjoy it very much. I find that this problem is preventable if I imagine what (if anything) I want to brew up before actually starting to do so. The problem is only on those days when I'm on auto-pilot.

How about you...what are some of the mistakes you make when brewing tea?

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?

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.

Drinking Tea And Herbal Tea To Relax Or Reduce Anxiety: Beyond Drugs

This post is about tea and herbal tea, and the process of drinking tea or herbal teas, as it pertains to anxiety and relaxation. A little over two years ago, in my post Tea & Health: Beyond Chemistry?, I raised the question:

Could the health benefits of tea be partly due to how making and drinking tea slows you down?

That post seemed to generate a generally positive response to my question. Since then, I have researched this topic and found some conclusive evidence for this effect. You can find a lot of this work on the newly published page on RateTea about herbs and herbal teas to treat anxiety. This page describes some herbs which are known to have varying degrees of relaxing and anti-anxiety effects, but it also explores the ways in which the process of drinking herbal teas or tea can be relaxing and anxiety-reducing. In this page, which references some scientific studies published in peer-reviewed journals, backing up some of these claims, I explain how:

• The act of drinking hot fluids like tea relaxes the body.


• Merely holding a warm beverage provides an immediate change in state of mind and thoughts.


• The aroma of a cup of tea can produce an immediate relaxing effect; this has been verified scientifically in the case of some herbs, like lemon balm, as well as with jasmine tea; I do not know if this effect has been verified with any pure teas, but I suspect there are pure teas that have this sort of effect.


• Focusing on the experience of drinking a cup of tea or herbal tea can promote mindfulness, which has been shown as an effective and sustainable way to reduce anxiety.

I would not say that there is airtight science tying together all these points yet; a lot of my conclusions in that article amount to drawing conclusions by combining well-known scientific facts with slightly less scientific, but common-sense reasoning. I would like to see scientists test more of these points directly, but until now, I want to at least present the pieces of the puzzle that have been more firmly established.

What do you think?

What do you think of the conclusions that we draw in the RateTea article about the process of drinking tea or herbal teas being relaxing? Do you think the reasoning in the article is solid, or is any of it a bit more of a stretch?

How Into Tea Are You? How Is Being Into Dance Like Being Into Tea?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about my level of depth, interest, and focus, in various aspects of my life. A discussion on the Tea Trade Forums led me to an LA Times story on rare tea enthusiasts, which sparked some of this thought. When I first started working on RateTea, I was interested in tea, but was early on in the process of learning about it. Now, I know a fair amount about tea, having spent a few years researching it in a fairly intense manner, sampling different teas, and becoming tied into the tea industry in various ways. But I would not consider myself a tea expert, and I regularly encounter people who know far more about tea than I do, and perhaps more importantly, who are more into tea.

These people are more excited about tea than me. Tea is their passion. I will be the first to admit, tea is not my passion. Yes, that's right, I'm not that into tea. Just how much am I into tea? I'm into tea in much the same way I'm into dance. Here is a picture of one of the styles of dance that I like to do regularly, called lindy hop, a type of swing dance. This photo was taken at Rittenhop, an event run by the Lindy and Blues organization, whose tuesday night dances I nearly always attend:



There are some people who are really into dance: they dance many nights a week, and on weekends they frequently travel to various big dance weekends, which include weekends focusing on workshops and dance lessons, as well as those focused on social dancing. Some of the people with the highest level of enthusiasm for the dance scene will lose a lot of sleep at these events, and between their work and dance, they have little room for other hobbies and social activities.

When I dance too much:

There is such a thing as too much dance. I have gone to physical therapy twice for dance-related injuries, and they were both not acute injuries, but rather, injuries associated with chronic over-use. I've stayed up later than I normally would because of dance, and felt bad and off-kilter for the following day or two. And I've had moments when I realized that my whole social life revolved around the dance scene, and that I felt a strong need to diversify my social circles. And I cut back from dance and diversified my life in all of these circumstances.


I'm more interested in balance in my life. I like dance not for its own sake, but because I like the exercise and the social interaction, I like the sort of community of quirky, intelligent, creative people that the dance scene attracts, and I like the dance form as something that can be a source of creativity and inspiration in my life. I like dance because it produces good results in my life. But I am not interested in attending every big dance weekend, not even every one in my own city. I do not care about being the "best" dancer (if there is such a thing), and I do not feel like I'm missing out if I miss a major dance event. I value my sleep, I value having a broad range of hobbies, and I value having a diverse social life. I want to dance only to the degree that it enhances, rather than detracts from the other elements of my life.

My interest in tea:

My interest in tea is similar. I like tea not for its own sake, but I like tea because I like how it tastes, and how it makes me feel. I like the effect that drinking tea has on my life. And I like the effect that paying attention to how tea tastes, and learning about where my tea comes from, has on my life.

However, I am not interested in getting so focused on tea that it would detract from other elements of my life. For example, I'm not interested in drinking so much tea that I have trouble sleeping because of the caffeine, and I'm not interested in spending so much money on tea that it takes away in any substantial way from money that could be better put to use elsewhere. And I'm not interested in thinking or learning so much about tea and where my tea comes from, that I start thinking less about my food and where it comes from.

My interest in tea fits in a holistic way into my life. And at times, I find myself obsessing over tea, and I realize this is too much, and I need to hold back.

What I want to encourage in others:

I want to encourage this approach in others. I want people to become interested in tea, not to become interested in tea for its own sake, but so that they start paying more attention to food and drink in general. I want people to start listening to their bodies and raising awareness of their mind and bodies through paying attention to how tea makes them feel. I want people to drink tea with others and to take a break in their day to enjoy tea, and I want people to see the mental and emotional and spiritual benefits of taking these sorts of breaks.

And I think this is a good general rule to follow, when asking yourself how interested you want to be in something. Is your interest in this one thing making your life as a whole better? If so, then keep being that interested or more interested. If your interest is detracting from your life as a whole, by taking away from other aspects of your life, then scale back. This point will be different for different people. But I'm about at that point for tea. I'm not interested in being any more interested in tea, nor any less interested; I'm content where I am.

How about you?

What Happened to Admari Tea? And Some Subtle Points On Language In Tea Marketing

I recently learned that Admari Tea has undergone a fairly radical transformation. Admari tea was a small tea company based in Midland Park, NJ. The company has moved to Miami, FL, but perhaps more importantly, it has shifted its focus dramatically, discontinuing its sales of all loose-leaf teas, and instead selling only tea bags.



Admari Tea's new website has two quotes that I want to highlight:

“A Buddhist monk once asked his master, ‘No matter what lies ahead, what is the Way?” The master quickly replied, “The Way is your daily life.’ This is the very essence of The Way of Tea. The principles of the Way of Tea are directed towards all of one’s existence, not just the part that takes place in the tearoom.” (Excerpt from Tea Life, Tea Mind by Soshitsu Sen XV)

And later on the page:

The way of tea is your daily life; your daily existence. The beautiful ritual of tea and respect for a simple ingredient, when done with reverence, can carry over, and bring meaning to every aspect of your life. At Admari Tea we recognize that in the modern world, the ritual must sometimes take a back seat to the hectic pace of life. So we are bringing the quality, the beauty and the reverence to you.

I totally understand that there is a large market for tea bags in this country, and globally, including a market for high-quality whole-leaf tea in pyramid sachets, and that companies are going to want to fill this business niche. However, there is something about the message being put forth by Admari tea that does not resonate well with me.

I want to go into depth about how I perceive this company's new message and marketing, because I think that the company's marketing has some negative elements to it that may alienate potential customers, and I think they can make a few simple modifications to the language in their new marketing that would help them to engage with potential customers in a more positive way. My remarks here may seem nitpicky, but I think they are important: sometimes tiny changes in wording can produce profound differences in how people react to language. I think the case below is one where a few very small changes could produce very large improvements in perception.

What are tea bags about?

Tea bags are about convenience. I have never heard any compelling argument in favor of tea bags, other than the convenience argument. Tea bags standardize the brewing process, save time, and allow people to brew tea with less equipment--all of these boil down to convenience. But tea bags require resources, which makes them inferior from a value and sustainability perspective. They also take away the control and flexibility of measuring out an exact amount of leaf, and they take away some of the possible benefits of using different brewing vessels or methods, such as mug brewing of loose-leaf tea. They are associated with a faster pace of life, which emphasizes quick and convenient consumption of food. On a spiritual level, they disconnect people from their tea and its origins; they move away from experiencing tea as a whole food and as slow food and move towards experiencing tea as an industrial product or consumer product.

It is certainly possible to experience tea more richly while using teabags, by being more mindful of the aromas, experiencing it as slow food, seeking out higher-quality tea, and putting care into brewing it, as I did in my post Multiple Infusions of a Tea Bag. But this type of experience is somewhat at odds with the experience of convenience and the fast pace of life.

A contradiction in marketing and message?

I think Admari tea is presenting a bit of a muddled message or apparent contradiction in their marketing. On the one hand, they're citing one of the quotes from the Sen Sōshitsu, referencing Buddhism, and talking about the "way of tea", the ritual of tea, respect for tea as an ingredient, and presenting a general approach of mindfulness about one's food. But on the other hand, they are caving into societal pressures. When they say: "...the ritual must sometimes take a back seat to the hectic pace of life." this seems like a cop-out to me.

And not only does this statement feel like a cop-out, it also feels like an intrusion or affront, like it is directly assaulting some core aspect of my beliefs or value system, and I imagine that many others may react similarly, even if they are not able to articulate it as thoroughly as I do here. Why?

A key issue is how they present "the hectic pace of life" as if it were a universal, immutable aspect of the world. Life is not inherently hectic or fast-paced. It can be fast-paced, or slow-paced, depending on who, where, and when you are talking about. A more honest way of wording this would be "...if your life is hectic or fast-paced..." or "...the hectic times in your life..." I also particularly object to the wording of their statement, using the word must. The hectic pace of our modern society is not inevitable, and, while some people are still caught up in it, it is not necessarily a good thing. And even when presented with hectic or fast-paced circumstances, people can respond in different ways, and often, the most productive and healthy way to react is to take a brief time for a meditative break, which, incidentally, one can sometimes do by taking the time to brew a cup of tea and drink it mindfully.

I think that statements that imply that the fast pace of life is somehow innate, universal, and unchangeable, actually cause harm by legitimizing the fast-pace of things even when it is harmful to people on a spiritual, physical, or emotional level, or harmful to society as a whole. And they cause harm by making people believe that life is always that way, and that one must cave into societal pressures to act and live that way, even when this way is destructive. A healthier viewpoint is one in which a person realizes that life will sometimes be fast-paced and other times slower, and that one can be empowered to influence the pace, speeding it up when it is too slow and slowing it down when it is too fast.

More, on the use of the term "reverence":

Another point which I object to occurs in the following sentence. After all the grandiose talk about the way of tea, their claim: "So we are bringing the quality, the beauty and the reverence to you" seems overstated, particularly in the use of the term reverence. Admari Tea is bringing a tea bag to the marketplace; it may have quality to back it up, and beauty, but reverence is something that you cannot package or sell as a product. Reverence is something that people must bring of their own accord to the way they experience tea. And I think that packaging a product in a tea bag actually places a barrier that makes it more difficult (although not impossible) to experience reverence for one's tea. To use this word, which typically is reserved for spiritual or religious topics, in the context of a consumer product, I think oversteps a boundary for me, and also elicits a negative reaction. Their use of the word reverence in this context seems to cheapen the word, and it strikes me as a bit irreverent.

Integrity in marketing:

I'm a big fan of honesty and integrity in marketing. Companies can and do market top-quality whole leaf tea in high-quality sachets. There is no guarantee that loose-leaf tea is better in quality than tea bags. Also, there is large existing market demand for tea bags, and I would not negatively judge a company just because they chose to sell tea bags (as I explain more in my recent post). But I do think that Admari Tea is trying to pull itself in two different directions here.

I think integrity in marketing is not just a question of simple factual matters, but also encompasses the spirit of the marketing. I object to some of their use of language in marketing, and as I am someone who tends not to be easily offended, I suspect that others may also react negatively as well, especially to their combination of referencing Buddhism and the Sen Sōshitsu, and using the word reverence, in the context of a move that most people would probably see as moving in the opposite direction, away from these concepts.

A recommendation for Admari Tea:

I think Admari Tea would benefit from softening their use of marketing in such a way that is more honest and avoids some of the apparent contradictions that I raised here, and I'd also suggest that they still offer some loose-leaf tea for sale, even if it is a slight inconvenience or results in a small financial loss. While it is understandable, given the constraints of market demand in our society, that some tea companies would choose to focus on tea bags, I think that it is important to always at least allow shoppers the option of the best possible choice, especially from the perspective of value and sustainability, which is loose-leaf tea. Both of these changes would make me think more favorable of them as a company. The indirect benefits to Admari Tea in terms of greater perception among serious tea drinkers and those with a more religious or spiritual inclination would more than offset any small financial loss associated with making these changes.

What do you think?

How do you react to the examples of Admari Tea's marketing that I gave here? How about other companies using similar language and rhetoric to market their products? Do you agree with my suggestions, or do you think you'd make different suggestions? Do you think that my suggestions would result in a tangible economic benefit to Admari Tea?

Flavored Teas, Tea Bags, Boycotts, and Bullshit

I recently read a post on Tony Gebely's World of Tea, titled No Bullshit Tea Companies. I found this post very interesting on several levels. I like certain aspects of it but there are other aspects on which my perspective differs and I wish to respond to. I responded to the post in the comments, but I wanted to further respond, because I just had to write more about private prisons, Islamic terrorism, and the tea party movement, in a post that is really more about tea companies than anything else.



The gist of the post is that Tony has compiled a list of companies that (a) sell tea in loose-leaf form only, and (b) sell only unflavored teas. I am a huge proponent of loose-leaf tea; I drink almost exclusively loose-leaf tea myself, and I am constantly encouraging people to go over to it, as it is superior in terms of quality, value, flexibility, and sustainability. I also love pure teas and traditionally-processed teas, and tend to be less of a fan of teas flavored with extracts or flavorings. And I am saddened when companies discontinue their loose-leaf tea offerings to focus on tea bags, as happened recently with Admari Tea.

And I think it's useful to compile lists of companies that focus on pure teas. But I question the usefulness of identifying tea companies solely by whether or not they focus exclusively on pure, loose-leaf teas, and disqualifying or refraining from including ones just because they sell teas in tea bags, or sell some flavored teas.

I don't dismiss companies selling a high-quality product just because they sell other products that I am not interested in:

I want to highlight one of my favorite tea companies as an example: Upton Tea Imports. Upton is my favorite tea company. It sells only loose-leaf tea, and it has a clear focus on unflavored teas. As of writing this post, their catalogue includes 160 teas in their category of blends, flavored teas, decaf teas, and herbals. Yet they have 261 pure black teas, 107 pure green teas, and 42 oolongs.

Upton occasionally does things that I don't like. One thing that I've always found strange about Upton is that they sell numerous flavored teas that have artificial flavoring. I can't see ordering any of these teas, personally. Yet I don't think this detracts at all from the quality of their pure teas. This morning I tried a tea from a new tea garden in Nepal, Singalila Estate. Upton not only has some outstanding teas, it has some unique and novel offerings, including some herbs that I buy regularly that are hard to obtain elsewhere, like lemon myrtle.

I also think Upton is consistently fair in their pricing, and consistently accurate in their writing of commercial descriptions of tea. And Upton is just one example; I can think of other companies whose loose tea I really like, but which also sell flavored teas or tea bags that I would not be interested in, including Rishi Tea, Arbor Teas, Harney & Sons, Foojoy, Adagio Teas, Hampstead, and Ten Ren Tea.

Boycotts: where to draw the line?

In my comment on Tony's post, I brought up the topic of boycotts. I don't think that the exclusion of companies from a list necessarily is the same thing as a boycott, but I do think that such inclusion or exclusion makes an implicit statement about what companies you wish to support buying or not buying from. And I think that it is generally more useful to compile lists of companies based on what they sell, rather than what they don't sell. I brought up boycotts because I think they are the sole exception, at least in my value system, from this principle.

There are certain times when I think it is appropriate and constructive to refrain from supporting a company because of a certain product they sell or a certain practice they are engaging in. For example, if I learned that a company was knowingly profiting from something grossly unethical, or directly engaging in unethical business practices, I would remove them from listings of tea companies, and recommend against buying from them.

Some examples of behaviors that would get me to do this would be using black-hat techniques to manipulating search rankings (see boutique spam for an example), deliberately misrepresenting a product, publishing bogus health claims to promote a product.



And in terms of boycotting a company because of a service or product that a company could provide that I would have ethical problems with, I would like to point to something that happened when I was at Oberlin college, 1999-2002. Oberlin ousted Sodexo-Marriott as the company running their dining halls, and disqualified them from bidding on future food service contracts, because the company had investments in privately-owned, for-profit prisons, both owning its own prison in England, and owning a portion of Corrections Corporation of America. The school decided, and I would say rightfully, that there are serious ethical problems with supporting a company that derives profit from the incarceration of people. When I learned of this, I decided to personally boycott Marriott hotels as well.

And now to the second point I wish to respond to.

Bullshit: what is it and what is it not?

I'm often reluctant to use the word bullshit with people, especially when I'm being conscious about offending people who have differing views. But I do think the word is a useful one, often capturing a meaning and connotation that no other word captures exactly.

That said, I do not like Tony Gebely's use of the term bullshit to refer to flavored teas or tea bags. I'll be the first to admit that some things in life are just straight bullshit. I see a lot of comments in political rhetoric that I think could be accurately labelled with this term. Examples include when politicians or candidates make claims of subjective interpretations as fact. "The policies of Clinton / Reagan / (Insert favorite president here) resulted in economic growth / recovery / (Insert positive result here.)" Really? When people call bullshit on these statements, they're standing on solid ground: cause and effect is complex, correlation does not imply causation, and the political and economic systems are not fully understood by anyone.

Another example are gross generalizations about groups of people or cultures: "Rap music is so anti-intellectual" (Really, have you ever listened to Black Thought or Talib Kweli)? "Muslims are terrorists and hate America." (Really? The Pew Research Center poll below suggests a hefty majority of American Muslims believe terrorism is never justified.) Or a common one among my liberal friends: "Members of the tea party movement are racist and xenophobic." (Really? Have you ever had a serious conversation with anyone who is a member of the tea party movement? And which of the numerous tea party organizations are you talking about, since there are so many different groups with this name?) These generalizations can be accurately described as bullshit.



And then there are the times when someone is talking, in a presentation, job interview, or just a casual conversation, or perhaps writing in an article, or writing an essay on an exam, and you know that they're just totally making stuff up. I see stuff like this on tea company websites or on the less reputable tea blogs sometimes, in tea descriptions, or pages talking about the health benefits of tea. And I also think it's accurate to call out this stuff bullshit.

But I would not apply this label to something that just doesn't fit your tastes!

What do you think?

Are there any tea companies whose loose-leaf tea you really like, that also sell tea in tea bags, or flavored tea, which you are less interested in? What types of unethical products or services would a company need to provide before you'd consider boycotting them? And do you use the word bullshit in public speech? Where do you draw the line between bullshit, and things you just don't like or don't think are correct?

P.S. Tony, I still think you are awesome, I just felt like giving you a hard time in this post.