Yeah, but if you are trying to actually impress someone it’s not where you start. I buy Yorkshire when I am hard up for cash because I am already addicted to black tea and it’s ridiculously cheap but in the realm of tea in general it’s equivalent to the same supermarket coffees.
If you actually want to hook someone you give them the good stuff first to show them the experience to aspire. If it’s coffee go to a roaster, buy whole bean, grind it yourself before brew and use good technique in prep or go to a shop that knows their shit to do it all for you. If it’s tea go and spring for a loose leaf properly sealed, pay attention to steep time and ideal water temp. You want to see their eyes shine when they take their first sip with the realization of a new word opening up.
Give it like a few years and they’ll drink Yorkshire of their own volition. If you didn’t grow up with tea as a nostalgia you got to traverse a barrier and create a memory they want to relive in another way.
Actually having to search out specially selected obscure teas, relatively expensive equipment and follow stringent instructions on how to correctly prepare something will put most people off.
If someone wants to learn to play the guitar you don’t go out and spend 1000s on a top of the range guitar and amp and pay Dave Grohl to give you lessons. You get a beginner level rig and see if you like it first, then graduate onto refining.
How on earth did you interpret I was suggesting you place that kind of burden on a beginner - are you mental?
No! You, the converter make tea for the convertee so all they need to do is put fabulous tea in their face and benefit from your experience… Or just go to a good restaurant and have actually great tea. Point being is if you want someone to potentially like tea the burden of proof that tea is awesome is on you to prove.
Some might be swayed by giving them stale preportioned box tea that is formulated not to be awesome - just harder than average to fuck up with a long steep time because it’s overroasted… But good luck.
I have converted non-coffee /tea people and it’s not like they’ve never had tea before. Some people legit don’t like it but more or have been trained to ambivalence because people have given them a lot of mediocre tea and sold them the idea that the mediocre was good. For those people it takes way more than another banal so/so experience solidifing their notion that tea kind of is just “okay” to actually get them curious.
Yeah, but if you are trying to actually impress someone it’s not where you start. I buy Yorkshire when I am hard up for cash because I am already addicted to black tea and it’s ridiculously cheap but in the realm of tea in general it’s equivalent to the same supermarket coffees.
If you actually want to hook someone you give them the good stuff first to show them the experience to aspire. If it’s coffee go to a roaster, buy whole bean, grind it yourself before brew and use good technique in prep or go to a shop that knows their shit to do it all for you. If it’s tea go and spring for a loose leaf properly sealed, pay attention to steep time and ideal water temp. You want to see their eyes shine when they take their first sip with the realization of a new word opening up.
Give it like a few years and they’ll drink Yorkshire of their own volition. If you didn’t grow up with tea as a nostalgia you got to traverse a barrier and create a memory they want to relive in another way.
Actually having to search out specially selected obscure teas, relatively expensive equipment and follow stringent instructions on how to correctly prepare something will put most people off.
If someone wants to learn to play the guitar you don’t go out and spend 1000s on a top of the range guitar and amp and pay Dave Grohl to give you lessons. You get a beginner level rig and see if you like it first, then graduate onto refining.
How on earth did you interpret I was suggesting you place that kind of burden on a beginner - are you mental?
No! You, the converter make tea for the convertee so all they need to do is put fabulous tea in their face and benefit from your experience… Or just go to a good restaurant and have actually great tea. Point being is if you want someone to potentially like tea the burden of proof that tea is awesome is on you to prove.
Some might be swayed by giving them stale preportioned box tea that is formulated not to be awesome - just harder than average to fuck up with a long steep time because it’s overroasted… But good luck.
I have converted non-coffee /tea people and it’s not like they’ve never had tea before. Some people legit don’t like it but more or have been trained to ambivalence because people have given them a lot of mediocre tea and sold them the idea that the mediocre was good. For those people it takes way more than another banal so/so experience solidifing their notion that tea kind of is just “okay” to actually get them curious.