to score or not score, that is the question...

I stopped rating for a short time then started up again when I decided I don’t care what others thought of my rating system. The fact Steepster uses a 100 point system automatically takes me back several decades to high school. 65 and below was an F. 95-100 was an A. Most teachers graded on a curve.

It may be intended here that an average tea is a 50. I can’t wrap my brain around that. I am not sure Steepster’s system really does either as a tea with one review will usually show as an averaged score of around 77.

I did manage to do some altering in my mind so that an average tea bag starts at 65 and average loose leaf starts at 75. A company really has to blow it to score less with me. I see a B as 80-89 and an A as 90-100.

To be honest, I don’t look at the ratings of a tea if I’m considering trying it. I look at the reviews and what people’s experiences with the tea have been. Mostly because ratings are just other people’s numbers and have little meaning to me.

That being said, and at the risk of repeating what alot of the people here have already said, my ratings are for myself. If I don’t like a tea, I’ll rate it accordingly. I have my own scale that I use, and if I rate a tea low it’s so that I can either A – avoid whatever was in it or what kind it was, or B – depending on the rating, try to find another version/blend/brand/etc of the same type of tea that I might like better. I don’t add ratings on a tasting note so that other people can use them to determine their own ideas about said tea. And I don’t really worry about if there’s someone who might not agree with the fact that I’ve rated a tea low (or lower than eveyone else seems to have) because I didn’t like it. I have the right to my own opinion and the person can skip over that opinion if they don’t like/agree with what I’ve said. In fact, I’d encourage it because tea drinking is supposed to be a relaxing experience and getting worked up over a low rating or review kinda defeats the purpose. Lol.

my reply is MY opinion.

i decide whether i will assign a numerical rating to a tea or not. the circumstances under which i MAY not: 1) i had a very small sample and can’t try it again. 2) i suspect it may have been operator error. 3)i deliberately bought a sample i suspected i wouldn’t like in order to try the ingredients in a different way.

in my profile i am specific about my ratings: a high rating may NOT reflect liking it… you can respect something without liking it. i feel an accomplishment is worthy of recognition. the teas i truly like are unmistakeable: i use enormous metaphors, add links to pictures and youtube songs and am generally boisterous. either way i am always specific about why.

sometimes i rate, other times i don’t. it’s my cup of tea, my palate and my call. of course i say that good naturedly… everyone is allowed to rant and i would never suggest otherwise. just keeping things transparent is all.

@Angrboda candor saves time.

I think I should stop here because my point isn’t being understood.
Of course everyone has a right to do and say what they want about the tea they’ve been drinking. But, to be oblivious to how this may effect the success of a tea company by one’s careless whims seems to me counter to what the humility of tea is about. I too have given a few reviews less favorable in the past several years but not without suggesting a correction.

my dear bonnie… i was replying only to the original post and the tone in which it was written, not to any other reply. and of course you should be speaking here, you’ve been here longer than any of us. (and you’re awesome) (with adorable grand babies) (and have a cool website… although i would be allergic to the incense).

everyone has their own system on here, numbers for keeping track of whether they want to buy, numbers to tell the vendor what they think, no numbers because they’re more alpha than numeric. everyone has their own reasons… you and terri don’t assign numbers, i usually do… and neither is wrong.

YES i am aware that my review (as with anyone else’s) can affect the success of a tea. however— i certainly would never try and tank the success of either a vendor or tea. that said the onus on the vendor to impress me with their product.

i have spent so much time in customer service. i learned a long time ago that without candor and sometimes criticism (numerical or verbal) you do not get better. if you listen to your public you become more refined, as does your understanding of what your consumers want (which is imperative for all companies/vendors/people that work selling stuff to other people). for me even a negative is all about the betterment of the tea and the vendors.

this place is supposed to be a safe forum. we can vent, we can be opinionated, we can love tea and cheer it on because it is superlative… what is less helpful is if any individual is criticizing how members choose to function within the safe forum. while i usually stay out of politics, weighing in here was appropriate.

Oh gee, I’m almost afraid to rate teas anymore because of all the fuss it causes around here. However, I strongly depend on my ratings to keep track of teas as after a while, I forget what I liked or didn’t like (and scanning through logs is way too inefficient). I am not a tea connoisseur nor are many of the other users here. I would not necessarily recognize “quality” in one tea over another according to written standards, but I know what I like. Sometimes, I prefer the taste of a cheaper less gourmet version of a type of tea. What keeps sales going for tea companies isn’t how top-of-the-line their teas boast of themselves, but whether or not the majority of untrained palates out there like them enough to buy again.

I am another who doesn’t use rating alone as a deciding factor to buy or not buy tea. There are sooo many teas that I love that have low ratings on steepster. I’d like to believe that most of us are smart enough to make such informed decisions too.

For the most part, I don’t get the impression that the rogue “I hate earl grey so Im rating this low” note has a major influence on the success of a tea. I can sort the teas by rating on this site and the bulk of what shows up first really are the premium top-of-the-line teas and vice versa if I search through lower-rated teas I see what I expect to see there too.

I don’t mean at all to offend anyone by this reply or by my use of ratings. Everyone here has a valid point, but until the rating system has clear set guidelines defined by the site admins, the argument is largely moot. As long as these rules don’t exist, it seems silly to be telling each other the “right” way to do things. I personally would like to have the option to set my ratings to private so that I can use them for my purposes and not feel bad about my personal tastes and untrained palate.

this post is beginning to disturb my calm.

i see friends justifying why they choose to rate or not to rate when they shouldn’t have to. people are arguing with one another over history, calling one another out.

zahikanaan, i must ask: did you intend this upset or were you hoping for a healthy discourse that spiraled away from your vision? reexamining one’s intent, debate, a healthy give and take of information; these are all beneficial. initially your rant prompted that reaction, but my literacy does not read it as such at this point.

this a passionate forum, filled with intelligent, passionate people that come from many cultures and walks of life… here we are united by our mutual appreciation of tea. we are musicians, writers, mathematicians… in so many ways we are disparate… but our presence here connects us.

we are here because we have found a community. not a one of us needs to justify that, nor explain our comportment within it.

It’s very simple really – if there were no scores on steepster, I’d never pick a lot of amazing teas I am enjoying here. So, definitely score.

I find it kind of hard to believe that a tea can have over 100 reviews and score over 90 without some kind of bias. To me the joy of tea is that there is no perfect tea and there are so much variety that there is something for everyone.

I think I’m more skeptical of teas that consistently have nothing but high scores from lots of users than I am of teas that have average scores or a couple of really low scores.