There is a Blog Carnival of Association of Tea Bloggers hosted by Jason at Walker Tea Review going on about why bloggers blog about tea and I couldn’t resist adding my two cents on why I chose to start LeafJoy and start writing about tea! LeafJoy is a labor of love which I just started in the last month, and I’m looking forward to getting to know the whole community better!
To start: I have always been fascinated by tea. Part of blogging is a way for me to accumulate all of the learnings about tea and put it all together. With all humility, I believe that I’m only a novice at tea and have a lot to learn. Digging into knowledge about tea is like peeling apart layers of an onion, and I am constantly amazed at how much I absorb every day.
Joining the conversation
In the last year or so, I’ve been spending a lot of time observing the different conversations taking place through blogs, Twitter and sites like Steepster from people who are just crazy about drinking tea! I started a Twitter list and have a big folder on my Google Reader where I can read and take part in everyone’s tea adventures. I have a few friends who are also big tea enthusiasts and thought I’d bring my offline conversations online. A big part of the reason why I’m writing this blog is to join the conversation and not lurk in the shadows.
Documenting a passion
Have you ever had a wonderful experience, and wanted time to freeze and the moment to last forever? Experiences are elusive and I’ve always wished you could capture them in a jar and keep them forever. Writing a blog at LeafJoy about teas is an activity that is also designed to make me more thoughtful and introspective about the teas that I drink. I believe in the idea that you become better at something the more you do it. There’s a lot of writing about living present and in the moment, and it is part of taking the time to appreciate and describe the aesthetics of drinking tea. Tea is not just something I sip, but a ritual and introspective way to examine the process of drinking tea from how the leaves look to how the flavor changes with each infusion.
Living the tea culture
Another reason why I write about tea is how much I love the idea of tea culture and bringing that to the US. Tea, unlike wine, has not yet achieved mass market popularity in the US. However, if you’ve ever spent any time in Asia, tea culture is big there. Tea is an embedded part of social interactions with other people, and I have so many happy memories of meals and get-togethers over steaming cups of tea. There are notable parallels with how Americans regard wine and Chinese regard tea. In China, gifting rare, high-quality teas is a common way to show respect.
Tea is a wonderful way to create opportunities to create community and interact with other people. It’s not a journey that you should take alone.
