A Tea Addict's Journal

Entries from August 2022

A year long hiatus

August 31, 2022 · 10 Comments

Last time I wrote a post here was July 2021. That’s more than a year ago and the longest break I’ve taken from this blog. Since the pandemic started, I’ve been mostly busy dealing with various projects of mine, the most important of which is what you see above – the publication of my first book. I just got my own copies a couple days ago, which is pretty exciting. It’s also a long, long way away from when I first started this blog when I was merely a second year grad student. That year, I first started conceiving of this project that ended in this book, so in a way, it’s a nice milestone.

My next project is going to be much more about tea – I’ve been doing some research on various aspects of tea for the past few years now, as many of you have seen. The project is now slated to be mostly about tea production in Taiwan over the course of the 20th century, and its implications on what we can learn about skills, artisan production, and global trade. I originally wanted to do something more comparative, but Covid-19 travel restrictions means that it’s much harder to get that done in any reasonable timeframe. I do hope that in the next few years I’ll be able to go more to Taiwan to finish up some research and to get a book out, this time in less than than it took my first one.

Otherwise though, on the tea front, not that much is going on. I’ve been drinking lots of deathroast tieguanyin these days – just grandpa style in a mug. It’s easy and tasty. Without much travel and with all the Covid silliness, there’s been much less tea activity than normal and so not a lot to write about. I suppose a recent highlight is a session with a very well stored 1950s Red Label. That was nice.

Now that the book is out, it’s time to get cracking on the next book. Hopefully I’ll have some meaningful updates on here once I have made some more progress.

Categories: Teas
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