Theme - Oolong

„One of the things I often advocate for newcomers to tea drinking is to sample widely. Learning about tea is, on some level, not very difficult at all. It requires experience and an active mind to reflect upon and learn from the experiences gained. To gather this experience though, the only way to really do it is to drink a lot of tea. Reading about it or hearing about it really doesn’t do much good, for it is only theory that lacks backing from practical experiences.“

„The important thing of all this tea drinking and learning is not so much the drinking itself, but the critical reflection and evaluation that takes place simultaneously. Forget about what others tell you – what do you feel and think when you’re drinking this tea? How does it compare with what you have tried? How does it challenge what you already think you know?“

„Then there is the more nuanced problem of what to do with the samples. It’s quite easy to say that sampling widely will give you experience in tea drinking. In practice, however, that’s not so simple. Of course, trying all kinds of teas will most certainly give you experience. However, it is experience on a relatively shallow level. Certain kinds of teas, such as really bad or really good teas, will probably manifest themselves quite readily. Others, however, are not so obvious. It is actually easier to try teas if you, say, cup them, but then it becomes work and the process is not very enjoyable. This is, ultimately, a hobby, and not a job (for me anyway) so taking the fun away like that is basically missing the point.“