I don’t like the term “blog”. It sounds like a gurgled choke. Or an onomatopoeic comment on the quality of my writing. Can’t we come up with a more sophisticated term for what we do?
When I started my tea sommelier business 3 years ago I wanted my “blog” to be a vehicle to prove that I had something to say, that I could build on my past career and fuse it into the new. I also hoped that I would earn the respect of my tea colleagues. I’m still not sure who my audience is or what they most like to read about – social history of tea, travel, tea profiles, recipes? So I cast a wide net hoping to draw in a variety of tea dabblers and professionals. I often feel that the boat is floundering, the fish swimming through the net and onto the site they were really looking for.
The spark that drives me to continue is the quest for new discoveries in the world of tea and new ways to share them. Loose leaf tea is still so strange in the North American world that we have yet to form our own culture around it. Id like to help with that and that’s what keeps me on the hunt.
Samuel Pepys was the first diarist to mention tea in 1660’s London. While he wouldn’t have wanted his daily musings and intimate details to be made public while he was living, he surely knew and probably drew a secret pleasure from the understanding that they would someday be read and probably published and shared. He went to great lengths to keep the volumes safe from the fire of London in 1666.
In a sense the weblog is our diary, albeit an instantly public one. Whether or not you embrace social media or keep track of your analytics, if you work in the tea industry or have a retail tea business, you likely have a perspective that is unique to you. You may be surprised that others would like to hear about your life with the leaf.
On Sunday, June 9th, 8am, at World Tea Expo in Las Vegas, I will be part of a panel of established tea bloggers who will look at how tea blogging is good for business. If you are planning to attend 2013’s World Tea Expo, please sign up toute de suite! Prices for sessions are 20% off until April 25th.
