Which new features do you want the most?

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YES! To me that isn’t little, that’s VERY big!

I agree to this. The rating might be based on brewing technique or other variables, and it’d be nice to be able to look back and see that a specific tea is spectacular when prepared a certain way, but just average when prepared another.

I have to agree on this, although I do see why that might be odd. How would Steepster know what your overall rating for the tea was. If you happened to get a bad brew one time and gave it a bad rating how would the system know? Would you have individual ratings as well as your overall rating?

“How would Steepster know what your overall rating for the tea was.” Right now, every time you change your rating, only the new one shows. I don’t think an over all rating is necessary. If a person gives it the same rating each time they have it you know that’s what they think of it all the time. The rating for ONLY that log should be next to the corresponding log.

Example: You brew new tea first time and it’s yuck – rating 25. You brew again different temp/time and get a much better taste – rating 85. How would Steepster know that you want to retract your 25 rating? If you can’t retract it, you are contributing to a lower rating of the tea. This also means that one user can rate a tea several times to affect the rating. I do agree that this is an issue, though. For personal logging reasons, you may want to see how different variables effect the rating you give to a tea. Also, others may want to know what to expect if they change the brewing for the same tea. For now, maybe log it in text (“Brewed for shorter time, much better taste, and changed rating from 25 to 85”). P.S. Sorry for such a long reply!

Yep I did.

THANK YOU for the search! I knew something must have been up when discussions were down;) And thanks for making it so speedy! I love updates and new features but hate when steepster is down.

Also love the categories, but could each category have it’s own folder which we could click on to view the related threads. It’d be nice to not have to weild thru all the threads. And maybe since 52teas comes out w/ a new fantastic tea every week they could have their own folder?

Just choose them from the drop down menu. From what I can tell all the old ones have been auto-sorted into general but in the future, you should be able to just pick a category from the drop down menu. At least that’s how I understand it.

Yep, we need some type of moderation.

http://steepster.com/companies/tea-gschwendner
http://steepster.com/companies/tea-gschwender
http://steepster.com/companies/teag

Good point (that’s already listed), but I was talking about in the forums. Specifically the “moving” part. Some posts don’t need to and shouldn’t be moved, just rehomed.

I would totally buy a Steepster mug.

Me too. Or a cool poster with tea on it. It could go towards keeping the site running.

I want to buy the users above me, please. That way they can educate me in the art of loose leaf awesomeness.

I threw myself into loose leaf and didn’t start seeking an education til recently. While it’s awesome to learn new things from people, tea is best learned from experience and personal research as each person’s tastes in tea as well as what aspects they’re interested in differs.

Interesting. I started with books. I ordered several before I ordered tea and read them through and then ordered tea based on what I’d learned from the books. I suspect that each person’s style when it comes to learning things will differ. You sound like your style is primarily experiential while mine is somewhat more analytical (or at least bookish). It sounds like teaplz would prefer a learning style that is less isolated and more communal.

I wonder how others approach their tea education.

Mine wasn’t isolated, but the people I talked to and I really didn’t get into education of tea. It was more “What do you like?”. Then I dove in, got TOTALLY overwhelmed and am now screaming “HELP I HAVE BRAIN OVERLOAD!” lol.

Well put, Carolyn. I’m more of an involved learner. I’d rather sit down and have a conversation with someone. I retain information better when I can relate it to something and communal learning is more fluid for me in that way. That’s a big part of why I got so excited when I stumbled upon Steepster for the first time.

I think I’m a combination of analytical and communal. I did a tremendous amount of reading on tea before I even got into it. I’m a researcher by nature. But other’s opinions sometimes can really help you along on your tea experience. I’m not saying to follow everything that everyone says, but it’s nice to have people to jump to when a steep doesn’t go well, or a tea tin that has a stuck lid. I’m fully into the ideas/information exchange is one of the most important things today. Steepster is a great source for all of this information.

I don’t have the patience to do research 1st. I definitely do research, but I can’t keep from just diving in 1st lol.

That’s on the road map! Maybe someone could start a thread listing items they would like to see/buy from a Steepster store?

Jason, help me on something. The Steepster logo. Is it a cup of tea or a teapot? OR BOTH?! This is now driving me crazy. If it’s both, then that’s an amazing piece of graphic design, good sir.

I think it’s a flat top tea pot w/ a handle… thanks teaplz, now you have me analyzing it to:)

All three of us (Steepster Overlords) think it looks like a different thing. Although Jack (http://steepster.com/jack) knows the original intention. I think (and I like it because of this) that it’s intentionally open for interpretation…you see what you want out of it.

On that note, I’d love a field to specific if the tasting note was drank hot, cold, chilled, sweetened, etc. I drink all my teas hot, but I noticed some people have different preferences.

On the temp scale, all the way over to the right is iced. Beyond that I think a person could just state it in the tasting note.

Ahh, you know what I realized, a lot of people (myself included) don’t set the temperature on the tasting notes.

I agree with this, as somebody who enjoys gripping up her pennies. Most of the time when I can get upscale bagged teas like Zhena’s at Grocery Outlet I say so, but some folks may not care for dollars and cents as part of the actual notes on tasting. It would be nice to place it in another area, especially if users do end up being able to locate each other by region; it’d make it easier to try new teas available everywhere, but support local economies and jobs.

I like the latest activity feature for several reasons.

1. I can keep it running in a tab and just keep peeking at it if I know I’m going to be browsing the site for a while.

2. It gives me a chance to see notes whatnot from users that I’m not following. I’ve started following many people as a result of what I’ve seen from the live feed. I don’t often get around to checking out the “tasting notes” page to look for logs there, because it can quickly become overwhelming. This way, I get a nice little snapshot. I figure that I’ll stumble across active users who write things I’d like to see because either I’ll catch them on live feed at some point or I’ll see a lot of people liking/commenting on their entries.

3. It saves me from having to hit refresh and find my place again on the dashboard or other pages.

4. I think it’s fun to watch. Especially when there are a lot of people online and the site’s going nuts.

I think that you’ve already answered your own question as to why the live feed only shows the past hour when you mentioned the bit about waiting for it to catch up. It would take 24 times as long to catch itself if it went for the entire day.

Anyhow, I just see this as a nice bonus feature that the Steepster team decided to include for us. I find it useful, but if you don’t that’s fine, too. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who are using it differently from me or perhaps are avoiding it completely. Either way, there is a lot of other great stuff to utilize on Steepster, right?

Very true, takgoti. I think I will be one that doesn’t use the live feed much, but now I understand how it is useful. Thanks. Do we have a thread for newbies to ask questions?

I’m one of the people who doesn’t use the live feed. I think it is the cause of some internet problems I’ve had. (It predictably causes problems for me in Safari with Comcast if I leave it running so I’m avoiding it for now.) But there are many different features for different people. No one is going to use all of them or use them the same way.

In general, I am not as interested in what people do (put things in their cupboard, note that they like a tasting note, etc.) as in what they write in their tasting notes or on the board. So I’m the opposite of takgoti. I make heavy use of the Tasting Notes and the Discussion area and don’t use the Latest Activity feature, which, even if it were trouble-free for me, is somewhat overwhelming.

I hate the live feed. I’ll search thru the dashboard long before using it.

I myself really like the live feed. Then again, I’m really into finger-to-the-pulse things. I’m a heavy Internet user, and very net-savvy, linked into dozens of websites and such, so features like this really interest me. I’ve sat through live Twitter interviews, streaming live concerts, and stuff like that. I don’t have to constantly refresh a page to see if comments are coming in, and I can leave it running in the background and check it ever so often to see new stuff coming in. It really is interesting and useful, but I can see how it could be a turn-off for some people.

@Tea4Me Whoops, sorry, that completely slipped by me! There is no thread for newbie questions, but by all means feel free to start one. I think you’ll find that most folks here are friendly and willing to try and answer any questions you may have about how the site works.

Yes, I think that was mentioned. I think a lot of people are wanting that feature, too.

That was mentioned a couple times.

I think it’s a really good idea.

Yes, I want to know this, too – how many people own the tea. Additionally, perhaps the option to search by most commonly purchased. So you can see the type of herbal tea or rooibos tea that are owned by more people. The “best sellers”.

It coming :)