Tea? It’s a dirty business!

As Sarah Rose points out in “For All The Tea in China”, tea is quite an unhygienic product by the time it arrives in those fancy containers. But that is not the dirtiness I’ll be talking about today.

I’ve been blogging about tea in written and video form for around two years now. After my tea shop closed, I had very limited outlets for my opinions on tea. So I created these things and found a bit of an audience.

I’m sarcastic, arrogant, way too self-confident and opinionated. And one of those opinions is that I am realistic.

I believe I know exactly how good, bad or indifferent my work is.

I have no hope of being anything but amateur in any respect. No-one is going to pay me to make videos or wrote this stuff.

But I want to be the best amateur I can be.

Often, I end up looking at the work of others.  Like any field, there is the good, the bad and the ugly.

I guess what I tend to dislike the most is a video that shows someone drinking a cup of tea and then saying ” I like it/loathe it/ give it 4 out of 5 / enjoy the vegetal undertones with a  hint of beetroot and asafoetida”. As there is no aroma or taste available, it’s frankly dull. And I include some of my own early work in that.

But as I have recently discussed on-line via DM with several people, it’s not up to me to pull down someone’s work. I may think someone is hopelessly inept and inane, but I don’t believe it’s up to me to tell them. By being supportive, it might help them to “improve”. (there’s that arrogance again)

So a recent new arrival on the scene seemed to me to be very much in the region of “the bad” (on my “the good, the bad and the ugly scale) and this was compounded by an absolute ton of self-belief.  Self-confident and serious to the point of rib-tickling laughter, to be unkind.

This person – accurately described to me by others in Twitter Direct Messages as “inane”, “boring”, “virtually no personality”- even  “mildly unhinged” – is also an amazing self promoter. Churning out these low-quality no-real-content videos, there are mechanised tweets way to many times per day to promote them.

That person has also reached out to me. A lot. The tone of the tweets has been sycophantic and childish. At first I assumed this person was a bit of a fan and also, not very bright- if the first doesn’t imply the second anyway. (Actually it doesn’t, I am privileged to have some amazingly clever followers).

But then suddenly, this person went from harmless  crank to something a lot more sinister.

A post was made on a Tea Trade forum, suggesting that this “reviewer” was in fact engaged in what amount to little more than a protection racket that works like this:

  1. “Reviewer” builds following and market clout
  2. “Reviewer” lavishly praises some tea companies and roundly and abusively condemns others
  3. “Condemned” tea companies try to find out what the problem is and reach out to “Reviewer”
  4. “Reviewer” demands money and/or free product to revise opinion.

That’s the sort of thing that will move someone from either ‘the good” or “the bad” and firmly into “the ugly”.

Usually, unless you are one of the people involved, it’s hard to see where blame lies in a public spat. But in this case, it’s like seeing a police officer trying to reason with a drunk who is babbling about Beelzebub and brandishing a hammer – it’s highly unlikely to be anything more than it appears. Reasoned argument on one side, vituperative personal abuse on the other.

As an aside, Tea Trade offers a wonderful voice for us teaphiles, and the whole thing was no reflection on the site. They closed the discussion down pretty fast.

So, I’ve decided that I’m going to “unfollow”, block and simply ignore this person. Additionally, I’m pretty sure that others who’ve discussed this with me via email, DM or skype are going to do the same.

I suspect a sensible person, if reading this blog and deciding it was about them, would quietly ignore it. Not so: I expect a torrent of abuse. Well, bring it on.

If someone is going to try to hijack the wonderful, silly, tannin-soaked, geeky, passionate amateur tea-blogging universe for personal greed and gain, then be prepared to fight – because I’ll be fighting to stop you.

And don’t bother saying “you and who’s army”. I’m quite sure I have one.

 

 

3 thoughts on “Tea? It’s a dirty business!

  1. I think I know who you’re talking about…and agree with the quality of their stuff thus far. But – like with anything on Youtube/Vimeo – they will improve…as long as they’re given an impetus to do so. I’ve seen Youtubers go from crap to crescendo in a matter of months. Perhaps the same will happen there.

    What I will give them (and you) credit for is discipline. They keep plugging along, cranking stuff out in a timely manner. Because, as we all know, it’s ninety percent perspiration.

  2. Lol, Yipes!

    Wow, @TheDevotea, you’ve been a little abrasive with me from the start – I assumed because of our low-brow tea videos and the fact that we’re Americans.

    As the only other video-tea-blogger I’m currently aware of, I tried to build a raport with you through insults – since I was sure that you would feel comfortable taking friendly jabs back at us and our videos (which I will admit are not filled to the brim with tea snobbery and knowledge).

    I noticed that you blocked me this morning, sir, and it kind of hurt my feelings. Even after reading this blog, I wouldn’t expect any reprisals on my part. I have a soft spot for fellow bloggers and wish you nothing but the best with your boring videos. <- (friendly jab at fellow video-blogger).

    I guess it's fine if you feel obligated to unite the tea community against us; but frankly, that is not our intended audience – which you could tell by our videos (which are geared towards Americans who are just getting into tea).

    Thanks for the (support?) @Lazyliteratus. I also enjoy your work – as well as Robert's. We film our episodes 3 weeks in advance to ensure continuity, and the one that we filmed last Sunday is so much better than the one we just posted – I'm having difficulty saving it for Aug 16th. 🙂 In addition, I spend a lot of time working on our distribution, and we should be available in the iTunes store, on Tivo, and on Roku soon for Netflix subscribers.

    Anyway, all that said – I'm little snobbier about my tea than you would probably gather from our videos. Lisa actually prefers coffee, but she tolerates my tea. The fact is, from what I know about our existing audience – they would be turned off if I started getting pickier on the show. I'll admit that they're essentially glorified commercials for the companies that are kind enough to send our little startup web series tea. Although, lately, I've been trying to kick up the entertainment factor of our shows, but none of those are on the internet yet.

    If you're SERIOUS about tea, I guess I would tell you to do as I do and not as I say! LOL.

    Tune in next Tuesday for Shanti Tea's Dragon Pearls at 8:30am PST.

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