Good day to you toads. I’m back as regularly scheduled this week and I see you’ve come back to the tea blog again.
I have to be honest, I don’t know what else to tell you at the moment. We started ToadStone Dried Goods in June of 2023. In that time, I’ve learned a lot, but most of my life was not spent blending tea and I feel I will reach a point soon where we will be learning alongside each other.
More tea you say? Wrap it up? You came here for tea tips and tricks, not to hear a man in his mid thirties ramble on about how he feels he will eventually become irrelevant to the modern tea connoisseur? Harsh, but needed.
Ok, well, how about…bad tea.
Why would I want to learn about bad tea?
In an attempt to bring myself out of the tailspin I so ambitiously began a moment ago, I think there is much to be learned from bad tea. I learned that green and black cardamom are not interchangeable. That may be intuitive to some, but I have a very potent reminder of why I should only use green cardamom in our UP Chai.
Another thing I learned from bad tea is that there is a way to create a new tea experience without using additives, extracts, oils, or flavorings. We use simple, quality ingredients. Single origin tea, local produce and whole pieces, so that when you brew a cup of our tea, you will taste everything on the label–nothing more.
When I make a bad tea, I do a similar rendition of the first paragraph in my real life. I start to doubt that I am capable of running this tea company and that there is a chance our creations aren’t the specialty product we’d hoped they’d be. I fixate on the failure and unfortunately at times I will allow this feeling of dejection to permeate through into the other projects and passions I have to attend to. This too I can learn from and say, not today!
Today I can recognize that I have a panache for drama and hyperbole, which makes for better writing, but for poor self reflection.
This blog isn’t about me, it's about what I may be able to teach you. So, what can you learn from bad tea? That you are not going to be perfect. At times you will contradict yourself and be disappointed. This is a part of life. The thing to learn is that we are all in this together and when we fall, others are there to help us back up. Do not let the deep valley allow you to forget the view of the high peaks.
Stay bumpy my friends, and drink good tea!