Steepster as marketing site.

Well said, Dinosara, your scotch vs. cocktails comparison is right on. Makes me laugh especially considering I best prefer tasty dessert cocktails when I go out, and tasty dessert teas when I stay in. Though I begrudge no one their red wine and darjeeling preferences. Silly to judge people over their taste in tea.

Completely agree, Dinosara.

Oh it is to perfectly acceptable to judge people by what they drink :P

Oh boy. I did believe this was a site for tea lovers ie lovers of tea in all shapes and forms, not strictly unadulterated tea snobs. I keep seeing things here and there with an arrogant, judgemental feel and it’s starting to push me away from this website. It just annoys me and makes me laugh. Sigh. Alas I’m just a confection loving amateur, and that is what I always will be. Woe is me.

Okay Ashley, let me try to clarify again. I don’t mean to offend you. It IS easy to like these kinds of teas, just as it is easy to like the song “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey. I just don’t consider them great teas that need to be reviewed in any great detail. They satisy on a gut level as does a good pop song. We don’t need a treatise on a journey song like we do on a Beethoven sonata. Great teas add to the value of our culture in an important way and I feel it is totally warranted to spend more time discussing a hand made oolong that craftspeople have labored to create rather than a mediocre tea that has chocolate and cashews added to it.

I guess I look at life completely different than you do. I just want people to be happy. I don’t like to compare things or place things higher than one another. I appreciate the goodness in all things created from passion. Journey and Beethoven bring happiness to people in different ways, and you can love them both. I wouldn’t look down on someone for picking Journey over Beethoven. It just doesn’t matter to me. I enjoy what I love, and I love when other people enjoy things. And that’s enough for me. I do what I love, and I never have an urge to look down on someone to prop myself up on a pedestal. To me everything is equally important.

I just don’t consider them great teas that need to be reviewed in any great detail.

Therefore we shouldn’t want to write about them? I’m sorry, your logic completely escapes me.

I shall instead give the word to Steepster Admins and their discussion board guidelines,
5) Respect the tastes of your fellow Steepster members. Every one has their own way of preparing and enjoying tea and that’s what makes this place interesting. Share your opinion, but don’t force it on others.

I love a lot of different things too, both silly and serious. That’s my point. But I feel it is absolutely necessary to compare things in life. We do it every day in order to find the best way to live, act raise our children, etc. I believe progress comes from making comparisons. I don’t make critical judgments to prop myself up on a pedestal. You can love both Journey and Beethoven, but let’s not kid ourselves that in the scheme of things one is more valuable to society than the other, apart from the personal joy it might bring. You seem to misunderstand that I’m not looking down on people, I’m making a critical judgment about an object.

We are very different. But that’s the beauty of humans.

Angrboda, I thought that was what I was doing-sharing my opinion. You can write whatever you want. it seems like you are the one suggesting speech-control. Going to the Steepster Admins because you don’t like my opinion about flavored teas. Really?

But somehow these things of lesser value (to YOU ) may not be compared to one another?

Look, it’s totally fine that you don’t find as much enjoyment in something, be it pop music or flavoured tea or pink undies or this or that tv-show. We get that.

But if you openly make value judgement on something, you are also doing so on the people who love it. You may not intend to, but you are putting yourself and your own values on a pedestal, proclaiming them to be universal. Or at least that they, in your opinion, should be universal.

But they are not. No matter how much you may want them to be, they just aren’t. They never will be. They can’t be, because people are different and different people like different things and have different values.

If you want to make your comparisons according to your own values, go forth and review the teas that you like, follow the people who have similar taste, don’t follow those who don’t. But please don’t come here and tell everybody else that their preferences are worth less than yours.

People’s tastes are individual. It’s not something that really can be compared.

Please be aware that we are not saying that you are not allowed to have this opinion. We are merely saying that many do not share it, and that you are not making friends with the way you phrased your opinion.

Er, I’m quoting the board guidelines, buddy. You know, the rules? The ones that people should follow?

I’m sharing my opinion in response to your opinion. Is this speech control?

I love pop music and television. And why has Western culture “evolved” to the extent that people have to take critques of things they like personally, as if they too are being criticized? I love Bob Dylan, but when people tell me he has a terrible voice and hate his music, I don’t feel personally assaulted. There are plenty off unfavorable reviews of teas I love on this site. Am I to feel hurt because of it?

Exactly, Angrboda. Exactly.

I misunderstood you’re phrase “I shall instead give the word to Steepster admins.” It sounded like you were going to contact the Admins, but I now see what you meant.

palm-face

I’m sorry if this is harsh, but people like different things. That person didn’t like the Sencha. Maybe they had never tried it before and therefore didn’t know they didn’t like it. Maybe they just didn’t like Sencha in the same way that I think celery is one of the most vile substances on the planet. Not only do people like different things, but they also rate according to what they, personally, like. So if you don’t agree with someone’s rating of someone, I’m sorry, but you’re just going to have to deal with it. Does it not also skew the rating system if the lowest fifth of the rating scale is not allowed to be used in praxis?

Fact is, tea is sold in flavoured and unflavoured varieties. It has been for ages. Remember that one of the very most classic teas out there, Earl Grey himself, is a flavoured tea. Some people are more interested in the unflavoured stuff, the base flavour profiles for the entire tea culture. That’s fine. Some people like the flavoured teas, to see how the base tea flavour can work with the added flavour, or they just like that particular added flavour. If someone liked an orange flavoured tea, for example, would you tell them to go drink a cup of boiling orange juice instead? Not really the same thing, is it? Some people like both varieties, and even more people find the flavoured teas a place to start when first going beyond the average supermarket brand teabag. Personally, I like both. I know of an orange flavoured pu-erh, for example, that is excellent because I think those two flavours really compliment each other. Think of it a bit like seasoning a tomato sauce. Sometimes you just want to use one herb in it. Other times you want a mixture of three.

Besides, it’s not like tea doesn’t come flavoured in and from the producing areas. Think of Sencha sakura, think of chai, think of jasmine…

I can totally see how, for someone like you who seem to be part of the more experienced group in the community and who takes a more basic and …what’s the word I’m looking for here? Someone who likes to know where things come from and prefer things done properly from the bottom up rather than average industrialised conveninece. What’s that called? Anyway, whatever the word is, I’m under the impression that you like this sort of approach to your tea, yes? I can totally understand how, based on this, you can get frustrated that others don’t have the same values as they are obviously important to you. But people are different, and there just isn’t anything to be done about it.

(As for your example of whisky in the original post, did you know that many scotch whiskys have caramel added for colour enhancement? Did you also know that distilleries play with different casks to get certain flavours out in the whisky. Sherry casks, for example, my father tells me, and he knows just about everything worth knowing on the subject, are quite popular. Bourbon also, but rather cheaper than sherry casks. Be careful of the questions you ask him, however, as he will literally launch into lecturing mode, and the fact that he obviously lost you at some point within the first paragraph will not stop him.)

Sorry, this got way longer than I anticipated… o.O

You were looking for the word snob weren’t you, its ok, I’m not offen … sob, sob … offended. ;)

Actually no, silly. :p I’ve got it right on the tip of my tongue. It’s one of those ends in -ist words, I think. Disturbingly, I can’t even think of what I would call it in Danish. If only I could, I could look it up. Oh well.

“If I am to be sensitive to the flavored tea crowd, then I think they have a responsibility to not belittle teas they have no interest in.”

Do you know this person, and their interests? Their intentions may have not been to belittle but just their honest opinion, and on this site you have no authority to judge and tell people what they can and can’t do and how and what they can and cannot rate. This doesn’t seem like the kind of website you’re looking for, so why not just keep looking for those that you’d be more happy participating in instead of you yourself belittling this website?

Ouch! And yet you are judging me for not liking flavored teas. All I am saying is that I am not the only judgmental person on this site. Her review was dismissive and unserious. And thanks for the suggestion, but I really like Steepster. I think I’ll stick around.

I am not judging you for not liking flavored teas. You have the right to like what you want, however by the rules of this website you don’t have the right to be rude and judgmental in a mean spirit, and that is how you’ve come across, which is why members immediately noted that you would offend many.

“To me, flavored teas are confections that use tea as an ingredient. Would you take the finest wines, scotches or caviar and bury them with pedestrian condiments? I would like to follow people who like to experience the best unadulterated teas on the planet and know where to find them.”

If you believe people are free to enjoy what they want, how about not looking down on them or putting them down for doing so?
I read in your profile you don’t like to come off as a snob, this isn’t proving point.

Triumph, I do have some sympathy about your view of which tea is better than which. But once we start to compare and rank like this, it will become harder and harder to dicern what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate. For example, if someone says a high quality sencha is better than a flavored green, you will probably agree and some others may not agree. Then, if someone says, gyokuro is better than fukamushi, or longjing is better than maofeng, would you still agree? If someone says, aged gyokuro is better than a fresh one, would you still agree? If this continues, we will surely reach a point that everybody has a schema of comparison and ranking that nobody else would agree with.

I think it’s human nature to have differentiated mind. Everyone has an agenda in mind what’s better than what. But differentiated mind is basically source of all conflicts in the world, so it doesn’t harm to try to have a bit less of it :-p

I do yoga and study Hinduism and Buddhism so I agree with you about the differentiated mind. I probably would not make try to claim that a gyokuro is better than a longjing, just as I wouldn’t claim that Tolstoy is better than Faulkner. But Tolstoy is better than Robert Ludlum.

I was going to stay out of this discussion, but I find myself being sucked in. To say that Tolstoy is better than Robert Ludlum is faint praise, Triumph! Come now! That’s like saying Jane Austen is better than Danielle Steel.

For what it’s worth, I like Tolstoy better than Faulkner. I would much rather curl up with a cup of tea and a good translation of “Anna Karenina” than a copy of “The Sound and the Fury,” or even “As I Lay Dying.”

Agree.

And when you find a community of tea connoisseurs you would expect to find mostly fine teas. However this is not a community of tea connoisseurs, this is a community about all things tea

Excellent point, well made.

Well said. I appreciate your bluntness as you equally speak with humbleness and respect.

Not all flavored teas use an average tea base. If you don’t drink a lot of flavored teas then you probably wouldn’t be able to make said assumption. Yes, there ARE many flavored teas with mediocre tea bases. But some blenders look at it as an art and meticulously craft their blends from start to finish and they have the ability create highly enjoyable teas, which yes, are very different from pure unadulterated teas, but still enjoyable nonetheless to many, even those who TOO enjoy high quality unadulterated blends. There are no rules that you can’t enjoy unadultered teas and flavored blends alike.

I feel that there are more flavored teas on this website, because the sky is the limit on what can be blended with the same base tea to have differing results in taste. There are also many vendors who get their tea from the same wholesaler and don’t mention where the tea originated. I am sure many of the flavored teas in the database are duplicates. I am actually more frustrated with repackagers who don’t add anything to the product and don’t disclose its origin.

As for the Pancake Breakfast…. I have it and it is very good. I appreciate the creativity of that vendor, and he rarely if ever rates his teas. I admire the way he is able to think outside of the box and come up with a unique flavor blend for every week of the year. He has a niche market, and does what he does very well. And he is an honest businessman with great customer service.

The appreciation of tea is a journey. I will admit to no longer appreciating many of the teas I liked in the beginning. However, some of the flavored ones are exceptional, and they have their place in my cupboard, as well as the cupboards of many.

I wonder, when EG and jasmine scenting was first invented, how many found that utterly bizarre… Give it 300 years and Pancake Breakfast may have turned into a classic.

Why is some form of flavouring better or more acceptable just because they’ve been done longer?

Inquiring minds wants to know.

So sad I missed Pancake Breakfast, at least Cashew Turtle is on it’s way :D (10 left!)