What gets us to buy? Influence: Science & Persuasion is a book written by Robert Cialdini on the psychology of buying (or compliance). Despite being written for the every man or every women as a defense against marketing techniques, the book has ironically been adopted as an important work by marketers. Influence includes a diverse array of examples and studies, many of which we encounter very regularly in our lives. It’s a easy and highly relevant read, that is both approachable and eye-opening from an a day to day and macro point of view. In this article, I’ll be breaking down and covering how these sales tactics work specifically in the tea world. There are six key principles covered in the book.. (more…)
Category: Tea Learning
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Traveling in Taiwan, Things I Like & Don’t Like. TW Report Part 1
Big thanks to Max, Tony, and all the others who tossed in bits of advice or recommendations. Another high-recommendation but less personal thanks goes out to Marshaln whose blog and archive was and is highly valuable in navigating Taiwan in search of tea.
I recently embarked on a trip to Taiwan and Hong Kong. I’ve been to Asia a couple times, but this is my first time traveling to both of those places. Needless to say I was rather excited, both to travel and to explore teas. I went with three friends, two from high school and the last one from college. The three friends have varying degrees of tea indoctrination. One of them is moderately into tea (MS), another (DW) drinks a ripe pu’erh from Yunnan Sourcing daily, and the third’s (JF) caffeine of choice usually ends up being coffee. A fourth (ZM) showed up for a few tea spots at the end of the trip and is a fairly regular drinker with broad(ish) preferences. I hadn’t planned on writing a report but when I got back and was bombarded with.. “James how was your trip?” “You might be talking about this on TeaDB soon, but I wanted to ask…“ (more…)
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Relative Price & Tea
I have two friends, MS and SK, that I occasionally drink tea with. If I’m at a 9 or 10 (out of 10) as far as tea fanaticism, they’d both be around a 5 or 6. They drink daily, but have a more normal (healthy) appreciation of camellia sinensis. MS’ tea of choice is usually Yancha or occasionally a Dancong. SK is a little more broad but is similar, usually opting for darker, roasty oolongs (Yancha, Dancong, Taiwanese). Neither one has particularly gaudy/expensive tastes and they both pay similar amounts on rent, food, and living. Both also got introduced to tea around the same time and are willing to spend some spare money on acquiring reasonable quality loose-leaf tea.. That’s where the similarities end.. SK just graduated from nursing school where she accumulated student debt and has just started to work it off. MS graduated with a technical engineering degree five years ago and has had consistent, decent-paying engineering jobs since. (more…)
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![Loving the Crane is Hard to Do. Tuition/Xiaguan Report Log for the Newb [August 2015 Drinking Report]](https://teadb.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/ripe-puerh3-940x198.jpg)
Loving the Crane is Hard to Do. Tuition/Xiaguan Report Log for the Newb [August 2015 Drinking Report]
After such wonderful raw pu’erhs in previous months, why subject yourself to lowly factory tea. Believe me. I asked these questions many times. So why do it? (a) I really need to do a stash check and determine how these teas really are. (b) I’ve made alot of mistakes in buying pu’erh, wasting both space and money. Many of these were my tuition, and I think it can be an illuminating exercise to look back and reflect. If you’re only interested in my opinion on young or old premium tea you can probably stop reading and come back when the younger Menghai County report comes out in a few weeks. (more…)
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2005 Xiaguan 8653 via Taobao — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #44
2005 Xiaguan 8653 acquired directly from Taobao. A good way to get inexpensive slightly-aged factory productions.
https://www.taobaoring.com/
https://mx-tea.world.taobao.com/ -
2006 Old Bear vs. 2006 XG FT Purple Box — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #43
Battle of the fang. A comparison between White2Tea’s Old Bear and a Guangdong-stored 2006 Xiaguan Feitai production (picked up via Taobao).
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Evaluating & Purchasing Teas. A Few Things That Might Alter Your Perception.
You’ve just come back from an amazing experience at a tea shop at your local Chinatown. Not only did you strike up an engaging conversation with the tea shop owner but you got to drink through several different teas and eventually pick out your favorite of the bunch. Eager to recreate the experience, you dump $40-100 on a 150g bag of tea (not saying it was cheap). Except there’s one problem. You can’t make the tea taste the same. It’s not necessarily bad or worse, just different. You’ve tried using a lot of leaf, a little leaf, brewing for a long time, brewing for a short time, different water, lower temperature, higher temperature, yixing, no yixing, etc.. Other than adding cream & sugar (because you have a soul), you’ve pretty much tried everything. Disregarding the possibility of being duped (bait & switch) or other sorts of foul play, what’s going on here? (more…)
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Useful Pu’erh Resources/Blogs — TeaDB James InBetweenIsode Episode #41
Some useful websites for your pu’erh journey.
Mentioned:
http://marshaln.com/
http://half-dipper.blogspot.com/
http://jakubtomek.blogspot.com/
http://deathbytea.blogspot.com/
http://teacloset.blogspot.com/
http://twodogteablog.com/ -
5+ Year Old “Menghai County” Raw Pu’erh [July 2015 Tea Drinking Report]
Shoutouts to Dignitea, Brian (double B), and Hster for providing teas for this month and allowing the content to be what it is!
By now you know the drill. I drink a bunch of teas following a certain theme. Blah, blah, blah. This month is Menghai County. One problem.. Menghai County is big and I have a ton of teas that qualify. So, like the Yiwu reports (1, 2) I’ve split this in two. So why am I doing 5+ year old Menghai County tea first? Simply, I’m more calibrated for these semi-aged teas because I more recently have been tasting through similarly aged “Yiwu” teas. (more…)