Staying Active on Steepster...General Motivation?
I love the swaps and TTBs. They really keep me reading. Love the tasting notes to guide purchases even though I don’t order on-line very much. I also like gifting people who are just beginning and have few teas. I like the personal notes that people include.
I have been surprised at the number of people I used to see on here all the time that are no longer posting :(
While I have quite a few teas that I love in my cupboard so I’m getting all my favorites, I haven’t had many swaps lately. For no reason, I keeping looking for packages like a junky looking for drugs. I have a couple TTBs coming soon. I hope I don’t overdose
when the teas finally arrive. I do feel so much more connected when I have new notes to write and people to thank. I’ve been reading notes a lot but I haven’t had much to write.
I tend to drift when I start making tea tastings and writing tea notes a “job”. As soon as I start thinking I need to write a new tea note today, just for the sake of writing a note instead of wanting to drink a nice cup of tea, I start losing interest. I’ll usually lurk or like other people’s notes, but I won’t be really active on the site for a while.
My being ‘active’ is usually drinking a mug of tea while having the webpage open. I will write reviews often. Not much in the way of swaps lately (my stash is mostly samples.)
I totally understand the feeling Ellyn. I feel the same way sometimes. I tend to check the site a lot but I’m not an extremely active user. I drink a lot of tea but I don’t usually post tasting notes. I go in phases.
I’ve never really been into swapping or teaboxes, despite 3.5 years on here. I check Steepster every day but rarely post a note or join a discussion. Many of the people I felt I knew aren’t around any more (or lurk like me!) And though I love reading the notes and discussions of newer members, I find it hard to make new connections. I also rarely drink or try new tea so there isn’t much need for a tea note. I do check the forum every day though.
Finally, no offense to the overlords but Steepster keeps trying to sell me tea and that isn’t what I’m looking for. I also don’t swap often (as mentioned above) so the many teabox threads don’t tend to hold my interest, and that is the bulk of the content at the moment. Certainly not a problem though.
I come back for the tea, the recommendations and the company. Even when I don’t contribute, I still feel part of the tribe. You all get it!
I’ve always wanted to do a teabox, but have been essentially intimidated out of doing one. Many of them are US-only (I’m in Canada), and the ones that either will ship to Canada or are Canada-only are composed of members that are basically exactly the same as last time. No new people unless an old one drops out, and then the newbies need someone to vouch for them…well, I don’t know anyone on Steepster. I don’t have anyone that could vouch for me being a responsible enough person not to run off with the box and drink all the tea. I get where that’s coming from, since I would want my investment in a teabox protected in some form, too. But it just means that people like me will forever be excluded from such things. I guess such is life.
Looking at your history, I don’t think you would have any issue getting into a tea box. You have tons of tasting notes. I know for me, I put that disclaimer up there because there is always someone who wants to join who has no followers, no photo, no profile set up, no tasting notes. It just feels like they aren’t invested. But you do seem to be.
Canadian postage is so insane. I thoroughly enjoyed the few swaps I’ve done but sending the package on cost so much that it wasn’t practical for me to keep it up. The one I have been most interested in is the Unflavoured TTB going around but there was only one other Canadian and the cost and time seemed prohibitive so I didn’t speak up. Perhaps there are too many wallflowers in the tea world. :) I considered joining the Canadian one as well but I prefer unflavoured blacks and don’t necessarily have anything interesting to contribute so it seemed silly.
@Jen, I think Marzipan is right and that you would be a great Teabox person. I have noticed a lot of people signing up and then never really coming back so I do see why there are caveats but I think you’d be fine. A few years ago someone (Angrboda?) did a TTB which had a tonne of issues. The dozen or more going on now seem to be flowing REALLY well, especially compared to just a few years ago.
Never been part of a TTB (by choice), but I remember reading about all those issues from a few years ago Uniquity. You are right, boxes seem to travel really well these days, and there are so many of them! Good bunch of people.
I agree about Canadian postage, I end up sometimes paying almost as much as a new tea order. I did a Christmas gift box last year and the person who won my box lived in San Francisco. It ended up costing me $30 to send that box.
I don,t swap much, but it’s more because I feel overwhelm when I get tons of samples to drink. I’m more the type who likes to drink a lot of my favourite teas on a regular basis. I have a few regular tea buddies I do it with from time to time, but that’s all.
And I also agree that Jen M would have no problem entering a TTB.
Aww. Thanks for the vote of confidence to the three of you! I guess I just have to wait for my “in”. I certainly wouldn’t want to do it often, because: expensive. But every so often as a nice treat to myself? Sure why not.
And like I said, I do totally understand why there are restrictions put on teaboxes. Both location (shipping is expensive, and more expensive in Canada because we suck) and people participating (you want people you trust). One day I’ll manage to sneak my way in and no one will be the wiser. Muahahaha…
The majority of the time I’ll have a tab up for each website I visit consistently, along with 1 or 2 other sites on topics that I am exploring (Like last few months it’s been Food blogs.)However, there are times where I don’t get around to logging onto steepster, or if I do I don’t say anything to anyone and even not really look at anything. Been going thru that on and off for the past few months. Unfortunately along with it, my tea interest has waned, though I suspect most of it has to do with the weather. (Yeah I know I know I an make iced tea but it’s bit of a pain to make for 1. Because I can’t have it within minutes…and most powdered mixes suck…and plus it doesn’t really satisfy tea taste buds because it has a different mouth feel.) Last thursday when it got fairly cool I had some tea then, and that awoke some of my earlier interest, but then the heat creeped back up.
I participate for tea knowledge, community, and humor! I found Steepster invaluable two years ago when I was looking for information about enjoying tea places in London. I found this thread ( http://steepster.com/discuss/1574-london-tea-must-sees ) which had great recommendations, and because of that I visited Postcard Teas and really enjoyed myself.
I’m a lurker by nature; I spend much more time on Steepster than is indicative of my posting rate/tasting notes, but I hardly ever actually say anything. Half the time I’m not even logged in. I’m like that on teatra.de as well.
I’ll even fight the lack of a mobile layout to browse the site during class on my phone, just to read posts.
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