Tea Blogs I Love

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I’ve loved tea long before I knew what industrial design was, originally because coffee was forbidden and cocoa was too sweet. It’s still my favorite drink. Leaves, hot water, and a teapot or cup combine to form a complete universe, which you then get to drink up. Tea can also be a pursuit, and people who love tea fill the empty space left by its simplicity with discussions of paraphernalia, technique, and taste. Below are my favorite tea websites, kept by people who know a lot more about the drink than I do:

The Simple Leaf: Nikhil left consulting to start an online teashop with his dad. His blog focuses on Indian tea, which I need to learn more about, and his unpretentious approach to tea as an everyday drink is refreshing.

I met Lawrence when I asked for a design crit for Sorapot. He’s a doctoral candidate living in Beijing. He writes about his adventures with aged puerh, a kind of Chinese compressed cake tea, and his blog is part travelogue, part tasting journal. Even though puerh isn’t my favorite tea, I read Marshal’s blog daily because he’s such a good storyteller.

TChing is a collaborative tea blog started by Michelle and Sandy, and it’s another daily read for me. I love that “design” is one of their primary themes.

While not strictly (or even mostly) about tea, Tastespotting is a wonderful site. My friend Jean launched Tastespotting this month to see how the visual sharing interface she developed for Notcot.org would work for a community of passionate foodies.

Tea Tour NY, my friend Kiki’s blog, is about tea culture in this exciting city, as the name suggests. Kiki hosts a monthly tea group, and her appreciation for tea as a social gathering point comes through in each of her posts, even the recent one about Yixing teaware.

Phyll Sheng seems to approach tea as a cipher to be decoded. His posts are super technical and a lot of fun to read. As a noobie, I especially appreciate the range of different teas he explores. He also writes for TChing.

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