Do you log each tea you drink during the day or just new ones?
I tend to log teas for the first and second impression, but do you log each tea you drink throughout the day including repeats? Just curious.
I’m pretty random about what I log. I typically don’t log the first time I drink a tea I dislike. I typically don’t log each time I drink a tea. I log teas when all the stars align in the sky and I have time, something to say, and a tea I want to impress upon myself for some reason (either good or bad). The exception to this is that I generally log samples since otherwise I won’t remember what I liked and didn’t.
Well, I’m still soooo new here and really digging the novelty. (Noveltea?) When I’m working at home all day and drinking tea throughout, I’ll probably tend to log it all just because it’s fun.
I can see later that when a pattern emerges (mint for breakfast, then a chai, then something fuity or chocolatey, etc) I would probably back off and just write a note about something new.
This is a good question, and I am interested to see how others answer. I have been debating with myself about what I should do.
Personally, it depends on whether you view this site more as a tool to connect you with other tea drinkers or as a tool for yourself (as a database so to speak). If it is more to connect you with other tea drinkers, then I think that you should probably only log new teas and/or new insights into teas that you previously logged so that you receive quality feedback from the other users of this site.
However, I also view this as a database of sorts, you can put teas into your cupboard and you can see how many times that you have logged a tea (i.e. how many times you drank a certain tea). If you are interested in keeping track on this data then you should log every time you have a tea.
I personally would like to see a feature in which you can decide to log a tea but not share it with the steepster community so that way they don’t get flooded with the same teas over and over again.
Speaking for myself, I regard Steepster primarily as a way to connect with my own emotional responses to teas and to enjoy other people’s emotional responses. It is not primarily as a database filled with numbers that it appeals to me. Nor is it as a way to connect to others that it appeals to me.
Also speaking only for myself, I would miss it if other people didn’t share their multiple experiences with teas. I enjoy watching the soap opera that is takgoti’s relationship with her teas as they rise or lower in her favor (As the Cup Steeps-A Soap Opera of Tea). I like the strange accounting Cofftea does as she recounts each steep and seems to assess it as much as a financial product as a product of pleasure. It’s almost like reading sections of Walden. I adore the gems of wisdom I gather from our more knowledgeable members like Leafbox Tea and East Side Rob. I’d miss all of this if they logged a tea only once. I don’t mind being flooded.
Carolyn, I completely agree with you, and I wasn’t suggesting that we get rid of that, because in those instances there is new information that is being shared, and I think that is a great reason to log a tea for a second time.
For me though, I enjoy looking through the numbers and seeing which teas I have logged the most, because it gives me a reflection of my own personal tastes. I can see that I have logged a certain tea more often than another tea and then make inferences from that. In addition, I can insure that I don’t ignore other teas that I have, by seeing which ones I have logged the least.
This means however that I often log teas without any additional notes or steeping information. I don’t know how useful this is to the steepster community, and I would like the option for it to not be published publicly so that those posts which do have some great insights can be more readily accessible.
I think it is more or less hidden if you put no tasting notes. You can see it if you look at someone’s profile but if they put no tasting notes for a tea it doesn’t show up on the Dashboard where it shows what your friends are doing. (You can see your own, of course.) I don’t think it shows up on the Latest Activity screen but I use that so seldom that I couldn’t swear to it.
I think it isn’t currently flooding the areas that most people use to keep up. My suspicion is that very few people check each person’s profile individually each day to see what they’ve logged.
If that’s the case then I have no objections, and I will begin logging every tea that I drink!
For the most part I’ve been logging each cup. I find it interesting to see which teas I reach for again and again, if I make any changes in brewing time, etc. Plus, I think it’s fun!
I also have not felt bored or overwhelmed with the frequency of anyone’s posts – If anything I get sad when I don’t see much action on the site and crave more posts!
I’m all sorts of inconsistent about it.
I tend to log everything the first time I try it. If I’m home I’ll typically log whatever I’m drinking, mostly because I think writing the post is fun in and off itself. :)
If I’m not at home I’ll sometimes backlog what I had with the impressions that I remember, or I’ll take notes and log it properly depending on the quality of the tea and whether I’ve had it before and what not.
At work, I’ve got one kind of tea and I drink that until the tin is empty. I log that every now and then if I’m bored and have nothing sensible to do.
I have considered just logging teas without writing a post if I can’t come up with anything to say about either the tea or the circumstances in which I’m having it because I like to read about those in other people’s posts too. I typically get a different experience out of drinking a tea if I’m having it alone or at home or if I’m having it with company or in a cafe or to go or some such. (Also, I think it makes people seem more like people rather than just random tea drinkers. It’s the community feel.) Most of the time, though, I can come up with something more or less rambly to write, and as mentioned before, I enjoy writing the post as much as I enjoy drinking the tea.
I used to log a new tasting note for each time I drink it, now I just log the 1st infusion then comment on my posting… unless the leaves carry over to the next day, then I’ll start the day w/ a new post.
I don’t log every cup, per se – when I brew at home, I brew in a 4-cup teapot, so that would get redundant after awhile. But I do log each time I start on a new tea, even if it’s a repeat from earlier in the day. I’m trying to get in the habit of logging resteeps, but I often forget.
I’ve been logging every cup, because I’m obsessive like that, and if I didn’t, my brain might burst. But I always try and include stuff in my post that’s a bit “outside” the cup itself. How I was feeling. What led me to choose that cup. If there’s any difference between my tasting of that cup a previous day and today. I actually am finding that my mood definitely affects my taste buds. So… yeah. Maybe I’ll dial it down a bit eventually, but right now I can’t stop!
Unfortunately, I can’t log the way I really want to because I can’t change my ratings. I think that’d be especially benefitial for those of us that log a tea each time we drink a cup, or at least steep a new serving of leaves. I can see where someone may think “What’s the point if I already gave my rating and can’t change it?”
I log new teas for sure. I have been logging my daily tea several times, certainly not everyday, when I have something new to say….More of a reminder to myself.
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