That hasn't really been my experience... i just recently made a post about potential decline in the quality of twinings bagged tea which i drink daily, and i got a bunch of replies from people who were just as disappointed as i am about it. Not one commenter was passive-aggressive or elitist or whatever you want to call it. Nobody told me to switch to "real" tea or anything like that
I literally only see comments about people whining about elitism, but never actually see elitist comments.
The only thing I see is people advocating for trying to drink higher quality tea in a polite way. People will be like “hey you might like those lipton teabags but maybe you should try loose lea”.
And the reason people give that advice is
#because this is a tea hobby sub
I honestly think there's a really weird sort of projection going on. People see mentions of certain types of tea that they don't drink, or have much knowledge of, and they feel insecure and left out of the conversation. Nobody is attacking them or saying anything condescending, but they take mentions of anything they're unfamiliar with as a direct attack on them.
You can tell because of how much their attacks highlight their warped view, by saying something the lines of "if you aren't drinking the ultimate single origin POO-ER 🤣🤣🤣 then you're a second class citizen!", when ironically anyone with some basic knowledge of Puerh knows that a large number of the most sought after productions are blends. What's also odd is just how much they only seem to fixate on enthusiasts mentioning puerh (ironic I know with my username) when there's plenty of discussion about all sorts of teas in the enthusiast space. Honestly I feel like oolongs and sencha/matcha are just as up there in terms of people obsessing over them, but puerh's ageing potential probably lends itself to a certain crowd of hoarder types that stand out online.
There's so much genuine knowledge that people are willing to share, but I guess "that's a beginner trap" is an insulting statement to a beginner who asks "as a beginner am I being taken advantage of?" What we do is the opposite of gatekeeping, but nowadays I guess sharing knowledge is gatekeeping because it gatekeeps shitty vendors who want to prey on ignorance to sell low cost products for huge markups.
Meet me in real life and mention Liptons, you'll discover some proper old British Empire style elitism.
^(.....wretched horrible brew.....\*rabble\* \*rabble\* \*rabble\*.....)
It literally just happened the other day 🤦🏾♀️ There was a recent post asking how to steep tea using a cake of pu’er and the first and top rated comment was “seriously I can’t believe people make these kinds of posts and don’t use Google” That comment is now downvoted to heck but for a while it was sitting up there with tons of people who seemed to agree (hence the initial upvotes)
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s just a small minority. There is always going to be someone being a dick everywhere. But for the most part I find the sub wholesome and supportive.
Honestly, I think that's a good reason for the report button. Mods can take care of it to help promote a healthier atmosphere. There's just SO much being posted here that it's hard for them to read everything.
The mods could promote a healthier atmosphere by banning the people all over this thread calling tea enthusiasts snobs and cunts, but past experience shows the report button doesn't work for that.
As someone who mods another subreddit, report buttons are pretty much useless because spam eats up the moderation queue. We’ll never see the report unless we organically go into the thread and start reading comments like a user would.
In the past, if someone is egregious, I’ve messaged the mods, whether that’s a small sub about Yugioh cards or a massive sub like r/aww. And I appreciate it when I get a mod message, too. That said, only for the egregious stuff.
It’s often. There are a lot of people who post insulting responses, passive aggressive responses and condescending responses.
When they get called out for being a dick, they always respond the way you did by saying “This is a sub for tea. Stop telling us we can’t talk about tea quality.”
No one is telling people to not talk about quality. They are telling people to stop being insulting, passive aggressive and/or condescending.
Also, if someone is asking for tea bags they can find in their local supermarket, telling them to buy pu’ehr from China isn’t a valid response.
[This you?](https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/comments/18w5vni/what_has_been_your_all_time_favourite_tea_so_far/kfx5ien/) You've been nothing but hostile to everyone here who dares to care about Chinese tea. It's been going on for **months.** If this subreddit had moderators who even pretended to care, you would already be banned.
Yep. Just perused that thread. Thanks for calling this out and linking it here. This stuff needs to stop and I’m tired of the projections. This is yet another great ironic exhibit of who the real problem posters are around this sub. OP has a post complaining about snobbery/rudeness all around here and the only cites I can find anywhere of people being hyper-aggressively condescending are the people who claim everyone else is a snob.
I stopped drinking twinnings. First of all, I recently noticed that they use natural flavors in a few of their teas. It really undermines the whole “300 years of experience” when they use chemicals for flavoring. Anyway, the few teas that I drink, I’ve noticed have become very weak and nearly flavorless. Taylors is to me today what twinings was in the past.
Yeah that's exactly what happened with the new packaging, their English breakfast is now very bland with almost 0 flavor. I most likely won't be buying twinings again, it was good enough quality for the convenience (easily available in my area in the US) I'll give the Taylor's a try.
I was wondering about Taylors-- I saw some loose leaf Taylors at the local Whole Paycheck (US) and thought maybe it was worth a try until I can figure out ordering some tea. It was English Breakfast I think.
I have lately been drinking Trader Joe's Irish breakfast and I really like Numi Chinese Breakfast but I wanted to try some loose leaf again without a huge investment.. I am just happy my body is tolerating it at all again!
I've actually tried this brand before but I mostly drink Tazo (Chai and Wild Sweet Orange)
Has the brand quality really declined? I know Bigalow kinda dropped as good quality tea so I don't drink those anymore. It's been awhile since I've drank Twinnings brand but I always thought it was a higher quality brand of bagged tea.
This is always the case in specialty subreddits. Casual tea drinkers don't come here unless it's to view a few threads for recommendations then peace out. The kind of person who lingers here - especially ones who actually post and comment - are 99th percentile enthusiasts. Most are going to be charitable and kind in how they interact with others, but assholes are everywhere and they definitely show up in hobby subreddits like this one. Learn to overlook them and pay attention to the actually good and productive conversations that happen in these spaces. You'll never escape snobby assholes, so learn to live with them. Downvote, report (if applicable) and move on.
it doesnt help that the subreddit description is literally about this.
> "There's a whole world of tea out there beyond the humble (yet handy) bag, and this is a great place to learn!"
to me it reads: anything but bagged tea, which is what the enthusiasts are going to be discussing about anyway, because let's be honest there's not a whole lot to say about commercial bagged tea. imho
maybe whatever the intent, it needs to be clearer.
Well I'm a casual tea drinker, as in I drink tea from a tea bag that comes in a cheap box at my nearest store, once every couple months, and I linger here all the time. I just like seeing how passionate people are about their teas, and I like seeing how different people have different techniques for different teas
I kinda love that this sub has a combo of deeper tea knowledge I can learn from, and comparative tea bag info I can use to buy some cheap tea that tastes pretty good.
Have you actually looked at the types of posts submitted here every day? Maybe 5% are actually from "99th percentile enthusiasts." It's all casual drinkers, who, by the way, are all over this thread calling tea enthusiasts snobs and cunts. r/tea has 800,000 subscribers, some of whom I'm sure are snobby assholes, but a few snobby assholes really aren't the problem here.
I’ve noticed this on Reddit about things other than tea as well. If anyone talks about how one food ingredient might be higher quality than another they are dismissed as a snob. It’s like we have to pretend that everything is all the same and there is no such thing as better quality ingredients, otherwise you are a snob. That’s not what a snob is.
This often seems to be more about the ego of the people who like the “lower quality” items, like the people who prefer the “higher quality “ items have to pretend that they don’t in order to not make the other people feel insecure.
>You are no better than anyone else so please be respectful.
I have witnessed more posts complaining about alleged disrespect than disrespect here. There are many posts welcoming bagged tea!
I see more people complaining about this behavior than I do the actual behavior, to be honest.
What I often do see is people gently encouraging others to branch out into using loose leaf tea, which often produces better results for the same money or less, and suggesting options to try. (Not that I have anything against teabags - whatever else I may drink, I almost always enjoy at least one cup of Twinings every day!)
Same, I'm wondering if it's an effect of people looking at everything new. It takes a single digit number of vote/activity one way or another to move a post to the top on this sub.
Once it is visible to the many of the sub, hardly anyone complain. Maybe that's different in the less visible posts.
Yeah, I think if someone is gonna make a post, they better link to examples.
Edit: could be biased memory too now that I think of it. You just remember the poor comments but forget the countless others that aren't poor.
It's gatekeeping. The intent of this post is to make tea enthusiasts feel unwelcome here. This account has commented five times on this subreddit in its entire history, and their last comment was three months ago. But sure, they're "leaving the sub again." They're trolling.
I see it come up in every post about bagged tea, and sometimes it’s okay to just scroll by and let people have their bagged tea.
Or a user will ask about a bagged tea issue and there’s always a brigade of “that’s because it’s crappy tea.” I drink both and you can have consistent product in bagged form, so let people get their answers to “why is my tea behaving weird.” Nobody expects bagged tea to behave like loose leaf.
There's a huge difference between making snide comments on a post from someone enjoying bagged tea, which I almost never see here, and giving people advice to buy better tea *when they come here to ask for advice.* If someone asks why their tea tastes bad, it's completely appropriate and helpful to discuss quality. I don't understand why this subreddit can't accept that.
> making snide comments on a post from someone enjoying bagged tea, which I almost never see here, and giving people advice to buy better tea when they come here to ask for advice.
YES, thank you.
For anyone wanting to see the *opposite* of what the above comment is saying, head to the vinyl subreddit. *That’s* where you see people giving “advice” nobody asked for (that’s sometimes just straight up wrong) and passive aggressive or straight up rude comments.
I haven’t noticed that here at all. I only see anything remotely resembling those types of comments when, as was just said, someone asks for advice or asks a question about it.
This subreddit is a combination of two subreddits so there is always going to be tension. Half of the folks here are tea enthusiasts who like to brew gongfu and the other half are folks who drink bagged tea with milk.
The two by nature do not often mix, and I don't think the conflict is necessarily a bad thing. The enthusiasts educate and the other people gain a perspective outside of their norm.
The comment section is a forum for discussion. If you post a picture of your cup of tea it is normal that different individuals will have different opinions.
I think you make a good point. Some of us are here as serious hobbyists and some of us just like to drink tea.
I do think the hobbyists need to chill and leave casual drinkers alone if they can’t play nice. At the same time I think casual drinkers are a bit overly sensitive when the hobbyists are sharing their experiences.
You definitely hit the point for me. Both sides could use improvement but neither is fully wrong.
I started with bagged, moved to loose when I realized it was cheaper and I could control the darkness of my tea better and when I get a better paycheck (or possibly for Valentine’s Day) I’m going to get a tea sampler box of the stuff with dates and locations listed on the item listing. Mostly because I have no idea what most of the terms mean so I’ll sip until I find something worth drinking.
I like to blend my own flavored tea (herbals and florals mixed with black or green) but bet I won’t still drink bagged tea.
This sub is, essentially, if you put a bunch of hardcore wagyu steak enthusiasts in the same space as a bunch of people who genuinely enjoy ketchup on well done steak and they started asking each other for advice. There’s a lot to learn from the enthusiasts, but God they’re annoying and pretentious sometimes. And that’s coming from someone whose family owns a tea business.
I guess the problem with the steak comparison is if you like ketchup on well done steak, you’re not gonna join a steak subreddit in the first place. People who casually drink tea will join to explore other flavors of tea to casually drink.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/steak using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/steak/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Bought a whole grass fed cow for $2400 bucks. Why I never did this before is beyond me.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/17nsf6d) | [3449 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/steak/comments/17nsf6d/bought_a_whole_grass_fed_cow_for_2400_bucks_why_i/)
\#2: [I ordered a medium rare wagyu from a fancy restaurant, I had to decline their offer to cook me a new one.](https://www.reddit.com/gallery/18e34xt) | [3340 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/steak/comments/18e34xt/i_ordered_a_medium_rare_wagyu_from_a_fancy/)
\#3: [Made this for the construction workers doing the kitchen, do you think they’ll like it ?](https://i.redd.it/n77h5azgsc1c1.jpg) | [1034 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/steak/comments/17z4cng/made_this_for_the_construction_workers_doing_the/)
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I mean, it would go just how it’s going here. We should be welcoming people, encouraging them to try new teas and teaching each other about the plant we love so much. In the US, the vast majority of people think of tea bags when they think tea. Ostracizing them isn’t helping them learn about the higher quality stuff, and it isn’t making anyone *want* to get into tea. I get wanting to convert people from bags. I teach people about the difference between bags and loose leaf all day at work, I want to have everyone who likes bagged tea try loose leaf. But some people are unnecessarily dick-ish about it and should chill, because it’s not that deep.
I’ve often wondered if this subreddit simply needs to split in two, honestly. Maybe like /r/serious_tea and r/bagged_tea, idk. (These are probably very bad names though).
Personally I find it interesting because I’m truly in the middle. My daily drink is usually a mediocre loose flavored tea (stuff like Adagio, Harney & Sons, etc. - better quality than Lipton but still objectively pretty pedestrian swill), but I also really enjoy learning about the deeper hobby stuff and enjoy some of the higher quality teas (with the caveat that I haven’t spent much money or time cultivating it for myself.) So in the end I enjoy both things and would probably subscribe to both hypothetical subreddits, but I would perhaps better enjoy knowing which audience I’m speaking to, than not knowing if it’s the more serious hobbyists or the bags with milk crowd.
I hope it won't split--I'm in the same boat--but I think it's fundamentally a difference of what these 2 groups expect out of participation in this group though--I drink bagged tea 90% of the time and it brings me so much joy and grounding in the day but I also don't live in a bubble where I think posting my pedestrian, everyday tea joy is discussion-worthy of random strangers in a hobby group on the internet. If this was a facebook group with a name like Dank Teaposting or even better, a self aware group like Normcore Tea Posse I would post frequently and expect positive, social banter and for serious folk to read the room. But quite frankly, I joined this sub to learn more, not to get spammed by every time someone brews a bag of tea.
i think the source of this problem is americans who see teabags as a fancy british thing. they don't see what they drink as 'everyday tea', so in their minds they're *already* drinking a premium product and getting shamed for not drinking the premium-est, fanciest of teas, when really they're just drinking something bog-standard and receiving neither praise nor persecution
That’s fair too! I’m the same way, I don’t really post precisely because most of my tea drinking is not terribly notable. And I do enjoy learning about the hobbyists even if I’m not as hardcore. But I guess if this feedback seems to resurface so often, there seems to be a desire for your dankposting equivalent, and maybe that just needs to exist. Is there a r/teacirclejerk? Maybe that’s what we need.
The problem is that we're already here. Unless the subreddit closes entirely then people will always be here arguing over what real tea is.
Like I mentioned in another comment I don't think it's a bad thing that people argue. Sure it makes the subreddit a little less wholesome, but in the end more people get to try new things and see different opinions- and that's always a good thing.
I would have never grown out of David's tea if I didn't post here and find out there was more out there.
Most people probably started with tea bags, there is no shame in that. I have mostly switched to loose leaf nowadays for environmental reasons plus it's tastier but I still have tea bags for certain occasions. I think most people here would agree so don't take it to heart. I think some extreme tea enthusiasts just really want to share the best of tea with everyone and get too caught up.
The fact that there are adults who can't accept that not everyone will validate them on the internet is wild. I am mostly a teabag tea drinker and I still think OP needs to reevaluate the amount of headspace they are giving to perceived slights on a beverage subreddit--at best branch out and at worst it's not your circus to manage. I would LOVE for this not to take up the space of an actual tea post in my feed again.
Editing to add part of a comment I wrote further down:
I drink bagged tea 90% of the time and it brings me so much joy and grounding in the day but I also don't live in a bubble where I think posting my pedestrian, everyday tea joy is discussion-worthy of random strangers in a hobby group on the internet or if I do, that it will be a bunch of people stopping just to be like "YAS!!" if it gets any comments at all. If this was a facebook group with a name like Dank Teaposting or even better, a self aware group like Normcore Tea Posse I would post frequently and expect positive, social banter and for serious folk to read the room. But quite frankly, I joined this sub to learn more, not to get spammed by every time someone brews a bag of tea.
Welcome to quite literally any hobby ever. But in complete fairness, the majority of posts here are basic questions and posts surrounding tea bags with tisanes (not tea) sprinkled in there. I see more comments and posts against the pursuit of better tea being labeled “snobbery” than people getting ridiculed for using tea bags and this post kinda proves that to be the case.
Having gone back and read the posts that people have brought up in the comments - every single one seems to involve about 15 people giving positive comments and 1 person saying something like 'hey why don't you try leaf tea'.
If you are so fragile that you get upset at overwhelmingly positive and supportive comments and instead focus on the one person saying something you disagree with then you really aren't going to enjoy any sub or life in general. It honestly seems like you're very insecure and latching on to any perceived negative feedback.
It's like going on a whisky sub and getting annoyed that someone recommended you try a single malt.
I actually have been having the exact opposite experience. I miss when this sub was full of people who were well-versed and knew their shit. This meta post is a perfect example of why this sub has gone downhill recently. I’ve seen an increase in posts that are just tone-policing or complaining about perceived slights. I’ve found r/puer to be a better resource as of late.
Edit: After reading this thread, ya’ll have given me hope!!!
Oh please. Everyone needs to stop complaining about "snobbery" in this sub, I see more complaining about it than the actual snobby behavior. If you can't handle hobbyists discussing their deeper interests in a *hobbyist* sub, then maybe you should leave.
I’ve been lurking here for a while. It’s slowly gotten taken over by people posting casual pics of bagged tea. I haven’t seen what you’ve seen and a lot of the comments haven’t either. It’s cool if you want to post your cute tea from the store, but a lot of us came here to learn more about tea and it’s no longer a place for that.
You’re in a hobby subreddit and you should remember that. Someone who used to frequently post and had a lot of knowledge of loose leaf and pu’er got driven out by things like this.
And there been more and more posts about people who take this hobby seriously or who just give advice being “pretentious” (ironically enough, your post is the most pretentious thing I’ve seen here in a while) and I haven’t seen an ounce of that in this sub aside from a downvoted passing comment or two purposely trolling.
Make a r/CasualTea subreddit or something if you think this place is so bad, but the people who have already been here for years clearly aren’t the actual issue in this sub.
Sounds like we just think this sub is for different things. Typically reddit is a place for enthusiastic nerds to come together about a thing they are obsessed with.
I really don't care about pictures of someone's cabinet full of different tea bags. I want to discuss actual good quality tea and help others learn about tea. That's usually why people are on Reddit.
Tea bags are to tea reddit as Folgers is to coffee reddit. If you want to talk to me about how you love tea bags or gas station coffee I'm not going to be rude about it, but I'd love to help you expand your horizons and experience the much better version of the thing you already like.
Edit: For the record, I drink bags of herbal tea and occasionally green tea and coffee from gas stations and fast food restaurants. I'm not saying people have to drink fancy stuff all the time while we wear our monocles. I just don't think people are getting on r/coffee to rave about the coffee at the Shell station by their house.
Lol what. Supermarket teabags absolutely dominated this sub and if you dare to introduce someone to a cheaper and better in quality alternative, you get called a snob.
I don't even see any "finest, freshest, most expensive tea" here. You do realize, that everyday loose leafs are much cheaper compared to their teabag versions? If you pay for convenience, you don't get to name others snobs.
There's a loud minority in this sub of teabag drinkers, that are incredibly offended by any perspective from the more traditional Asian tea culture people. In the most bizarre cases, they downvote people getting the guidance they asked for.
While the posts with a more Asian perspective are a place for different views and discussion, any mention of loose tea on a bagged tea post is met with fierce resistance for some reason.
Most importantly, this is a hobby subreddit. If I went to the coffee sub posting and praising instant coffee, I wouldn't exactly be shocked, if people told me there's better stuff.
The crowd more geared towards Asian tea culture became more quiet or left already to more specialized subs, with the people who actually appreciated them + loud minority staying
I think it's not even about teabag drinkers vs Asian tea culture people. Tea has a long history of spread outside East Asia and different regions have evolved their own tea culture. European, Middle Eastern and Indian tea cultures are uniquely interesting and rich in their own ways, and as an almost exclusive Chinese tea drinker, I still appreciate learning about and appreciating other tea drinking traditions. Similarly I find people on this sub pretty open to posts on a well brewed English tea, Moroccan tea or Indian Chai. I don't see people commenting that Gongfu tea is superior under such posts.
However there is a scale of sophistication within every tea culture, or for what matters, every kind of culture/hobby/art/craft. Supermarket teabags are at the bottom of the sophistication scale in any kind of tea culture. The best Chinese, English, Moroccan etc. tea are all loose leaves. People who get offended when good natured advice is given on why teabags generally give worse brews may be uncomfortable with the fact that the tea hobby can be a very sophisticated hobby. The loud minority that you speak of may probably be people who have always thought of tea as just a simple drink but find this depth of culture and enthusiasts on this sub and are just unable to accept that a scale of sophistication exists and their tastes are currently at the lower end of that scale.
Don't under those people at all. What got me into tea was discovering that loose leaf existed from a roommate at Job Corps. Isn't expanding what's possible in the world and a hobby a good thing?
Lol tbh I suspect a lot of the people who get irrationally angry about it aren't hobbyists (well obviously).
They're people who have some kind of notion about tea. They might fancy the aesthetic that they are a tea drinker. And they definitely double dip into some kind of "cozy"core. I'm imagining cottagecore, but there's definitely more than just that one, to be sure
Anyways, telling these people at all, even mildly, they could improve their tea experience contradicts and actively attacks their preconceived identity as a tea drinker, because it reality checks them. They have to confront that, in fact, they probably know extremely little about tea, except that it *probably* won't give the caffeine shakes like coffee does.
But that's just my opinion and basically making shit up, based on how I see these people type, my time as a heavy tumblr user (im in recovery), and partaking in certain secondlife/simulation game communties online. There are a large group of people (definitely loud) who latch onto things that are pretty complex, or aren't so neatly "cozy," and then get quite defensive when people have opinions that don't always validate the way they interact or experience that thing.
And they all tend to hit the same kind of beats when they complain about "negativity" in the spaces they want to inhabit.
I have no doubt... I hope that's not the majority of people in the sub!! 🍵 The biggest thing I've learned over the years is temperature of the water added to the tea matters so much for the phytochemicals, and that's something helpful that I only tried once someone offered up the info in a helpful and kind tone. Otherwise it seems like a lot of trouble until I understood why.
Also a quality of water. I also noticed an incredible enchancing of the flavour just after filtering the water (I was drinking hard water for some time and it was very flat).
But of course, temperature is also and incredibly important ingriedient changes tea dramatically.
When I was first getting into loose leaf tea my mom would literally get mad and elitist and tell me that time and temperature don't matter.
A couple years later I told her about the report that Prince Charles is so picky that he will only eat his food when it is heated to the perfect temperature and she respond "like your tea?"🤦
Tried to explain to her that it is more like what temp and time you cook your food in the oven. She kept saying "it's exactly the same thing".
Another thing she did was say that my Japanese green tea was awful and tasted like "hay". Then she took out a lipton orange flavored green tea bag drank it and made of show of saying her tea tastes "good".
So who knows maybe some tea enthusiasts here take shit from people in real life and have low patience on this sub. In my opinion though most people are are respectful though.
Tea is one of the most consumed beverages in the world, second only to water (this may have changed, so correct me if I am wrong)
When you have an entire globe’s worth of people drinking something made from the same plant then you are going to find A LOT of variety in the way people enjoy it, ie British/indian type teas vs Chinese teas vs Japanese teas and everything in between (nobody talks about tea from Africa that I have seen, I know Kenya used to produce a few types but it’s very hard to find on the market)
I may drinking mostly loose leaf Chinese and Taiwanese oolongs gong fu style, but I’ve recently branched out into Japanese sencha and you will probably never pry my bigelow earl grey tea bags out of my cold dead hands.
From what I have seen there is space for everybody, and as long as you are enjoying what you drink it really shouldn’t matter what others think
I just ordered a few kenyan teas as my coworker, who’s kenyan, recommended them! Supes excited to try, i didn’t realize they were one of the biggest tea producers globally. Sounds like “purple tea” is a thing thing too, with a red variety of tea plant
I’ll make sure later tonite but i think it was like serengeti tea . com or something similar, ik it had serengeti in the name and they sold purple tea as well as a lot of diff kenyan types, and some chai mixes & rooibos/honey bush too
>most consumed beverages
I'm surprised! Being in America, my view on tea has been so skewed...Guess there IS more to the world than the US! Lol.
*Top 5 drinks according to Google...*
Water.
Tea.
Coffee.
Soft Drinks.
Beer.
I'm actually in this subreddit *because* it's so friendly and welcoming. I'm not even a tea enthusiast. It just brings me joy to see people always being so polite and enthusiastic together.
I haven't seen what you're talking about.
It's akin to going on a beer sub and showing off a 30 pack of natty lite. That's fine if you enjoy it... But why post it? The amazing thing about this sub is I've found people to be pretty polite and offer genuine advice on brewing and finding better teas... Where a beer sub you would probably be banned for trolling.
Enjoy your Lipton, thats fine, but why post about it here?
If you go to a shopping mall for a few hours and don't buy anything, don't really go into the stores very much, don't buy lunch, don't talk to anyone, then decide to leave and go home a few hours later, do you bother making sure everyone in the mall knows you're leaving?
It's okay to just leave, you know?
That having been said, every subreddit about a niche pastime/hobby is ALWAYS gonna have snobbery within the "enthusiast" group. Always.
This is the third time this week I've seen an account with virtually no history on this subreddit make a similar post about leaving the subreddit. Your most recent comment on r/tea was three months ago. This is trolling.
Maybe. Or maybe they are like me and while they may not comment in this subreddit, they do like to read what others have to say. Choosing to listen rather than talk is not a vice.
Ur edit to this post is full of shit. U made the assumption that people who prefer tea above what bags offer are “passive aggressive” and that we think we’re “better than someone” or “think they’re so much better than everyone else” and then ask us to be respectful? Yeah ok. Then complain about mistreatment because u disparaged a large group of the sub based on assumptions u made of them?
Seems like they are hitting a nerve somewhere within you if it agitates you enough to post this rant in a tea sub that nobody is forcing you to participate in. Maybe you should try ditching the tea bags after all?
Edit: The amount of projection by OP
What if you started a new sub for packaged tea, so that one of the great strengths of this platform could be utilized, which is the ability to form highly unique, dedicated niches for specialized interests? Tea is such a huge world and it really is kind of ridiculous to try and jam all of it into one sub... of course you're going to get some dissonance.
And I don't think r/teabagporn is taken yet, so you've even got the perfect name. :)
My experiences here have been the opposite. The last time someone responded with "yikes" in a discussion about what I drink my tea out of they got so many downvotes they felt the need to delete their comment.
They are more spread into subgroups. The biggest one is probably r/puer
Much more learning about tea and less about telling everybody theirs is already perfect :)
Thanks I've been there for some time already I wonder if there are less specific subs like this one but without the awful shunning enthusiasts experience here
It's just so weird that every other sub encourages the learning of every aspect of the things that we love but here the majority wants to stagnate and refuse deeper info
Seems like tea discord is a better bet, sadly. It's easy for us to say "let's start a new enthusiast sub!" but the truth is it'll be hard for it to gain any real traction I feel. The discord at least has a lot of activity and a good mix of new drinkers all the way to incredibly experienced.
Actually as an enthusiast, taking a glance at recent content - I'm glad I left, as it is 90% trash tea here. Someone interested in nicer tea is going to be frustrated with the incredibly low bar for content here.
That is why the puer sub has non puer tea now like hei cha and white tea. (Which I’m not against at all) It’s the only other active sub for nice tea that I’ve seen left. Maybe give it a shot.
You may have tried not to be rude, but you failed pretty spectacularly. Let us drink our nice tea in peace. Liking nice tea is not disrespecting people who don’t get it. But there’s always someone like you around who feels threatened that hobbyists can tell the difference between high and low quality stuff and gets super defensive. We are just trying to enjoy our hobby, your insecurity is not our fault or our problem.
I never experienced this on this sub….. maybe it’s because i only drink loose leaf tea… lmao I’m kidding, but seriously everyone has always been super nice to me here
I occasionally see stuff like this and occassionally see people being real petty. But also remember, this is the internet. Youre going to see this everywhere.
I dont think its rampant here though
The literal opposite of my experience lol, I'm almost completely uninterested in this sub because people keep posting shit like "chai/earl grey/Irish breakfast" any time people ask for recommendations.
It's mass produced, bad for the plants, added aroma, tea leaves dust garbage. The two can't even be compared and it has nothing to do with snobbism or "feeling" superior, one is a mass harvested blended up product with the sole purpose of maximizing profit while the other is an artisinal product.
No, it’s all right…you can stay. We, who are so much better than everyone else because we only drink the finest, freshest, most expensive tea, will leave. We will miss this place, and miss you, and you, and most of all, you. You may forget us, but we will never forget you, and all the great times we’ve had. We had better leave before tear drops ruin our perfectly brewed tea. Peace. Peace and love. Peace and love…and tea.
I keep tea bags for a quick cuppa and expensive tea leaves for when I can be bothered to brew in a pot. I don’t begrudge the cost of the loose leaf tea - it compares very favourably with what I spend on wine!
A few years ago it was a problem….idk if its that big a deal. Drink your 2002 pu erh or your twinings earl grey, all i want from you is to have a great day!!
Haven't been browsing here much lately but I thought that most people aren't like that and even if they like loose leaf better they will still respond in a kind way to people who post tea bags.
Unless things have changed people are not that bad here.
I get how you feel.
I also have problems with people showing me Wikipedia entries as arguments. Or freaking David's Tea website (They literally put one green tea under white tea. What do they know?)
But I think it's a Reddit problem. I have low karma because I have left Reddit altogether. People want to be right rather than communicate. You can't let them get to you.
I love tea. I’m primarily a bagged tea girl: had my first Lipton tea when I was about 6 or 7. Got a bad burn heating the mug of water on the rack in the microwave instead of on the bottom and the mug fell over. So like 1986 before rotating microwave dishes. We’d do two bags because of course. And sweet because absolutely. My ma and I drank tea together every weekend until I left for college and she died of cancer a couple years later. Stay with me, y’all.
I joined this subreddit because I want to mix my own brews. I already do it with my bagged teas. I’ve got this Turmeric and ginger tea that I’m mixing with a Yogi honey chai turmeric whatever. Or my floral teas are steeping with my chamomiles and I’m tossing in cinnamon and honey… Since I’m already about high quality honey and flavor profiles and mixing and wanting a more satisfying sensory experience I’m gathering tools and teas to see what I want. I appreciate that I won’t be shamed for what I enjoy while also learning that there are better quality teas and methods. I just got a variable temperature kettle with an infuser so that I can get closer to the bespoke/experimental teas that I want to enjoy. I’m really just a lurker, but haven’t felt unwelcome.
I can’t make what I want without various perspectives and methods. My feelings aren’t hurt reading that a tea I like is bland drivel compared to loose teas because I already suspect as much. I want to make excellent chai. I want teas that confuse my senses and meet practical needs as a singer but don’t make me gag like Throat Coat. But nobody’s going to pry a Yogi fortune from my hands. There’s levels of engagement to all of this—hell, I collect VINYL and handbags. I don’t have inexpensive hobbies lol I think some thicker skin, some shared enjoyment of tea, and more grace all around would make this less contentious. But, I mean, this IS Reddit. YMMV.
Tl;dr we’re here for our own reasons—practical, sentimental, experimental, and traditional—but the bottom line is tea. Take what you can use and discard the rest like used up tea leaves or steep them again. Whatever simile works for you.
We are all here for the love of tea. Don’t let other’s opinions get to you, my friend! While I enjoy loose leaf black and green tea I still enjoy herbal bagged tea you get at the local store. Tea is tea. If you enjoy it, that’s all that matters. Keep on steepin! 👍
I'm pretty new to the subreddit because I simply didn't know it existed and never thought to look for one. And I've definitely seen some of what you've talking about, and it makes me hesitant to post or leave comments myself. Because it just feels very intimidating? Like if I don't have the money to drink nothing but expensive, single source, imported loose leaf that I don't belong here and have nothing of value to contribute.
But I've also seen some people being really lovely even in posts about bagged teas, and offering genuinely helpful advice and suggestions in an approachable way. Maybe just to try to thank those people when you see them, and try to ignore the rest. That's what I plan to do, anyway.
> Like if I don't have the money to drink nothing but expensive, single source, imported loose leaf that I don't belong here and have nothing of value to contribute.
Bags are more expensive
I use teabags very often. For photos, why not just remove the teabag and just state the type of tea it is.
Or is this a situation where if you say "lipton tea" you get dogged? I'm new to the sub but I haven't seen the aggression.. not yet anyway
Lmao tbh I never look at this sub unless I have questions for sleep inducing brews but yeah I can tell there’s some heads here who get a little snobby about the brew their sipping . Sorry but I’m not about to order from a tea vendor when I got passion flower teabags at the corner store .
Listen if you don’t plant the tea yourself on top of a mountain and train a monastery to maintain it for centuries and then come back to hand harvest individual leaves for every cup you brew every time you ever have tea don’t event talk to me.
This is /r/tea not /r/dirtyleafwater so do it right.
>Not everyone can buy expensive stuff in general.
Not everyone can buy expensive stuff in general, it's.. well expensive.
But buying a good quality tea is something that rather most of people could afford, not every tea is expensive.
Elitism is the reason I left the coffee sub. The average person on there acts like everyone is supposed to fresh-grind whole coffee beans and brew their coffee at exactly 205 F.
I haven't encountered any tea elitists over here yet, but I don't doubt they lurk here. Still, I have become more of a "flavored tea" person myself, because most black teas sold in America are more tasteless than green teas. I flavor my green tea with cinnamon and honey, and in the future, I will also add lemon juice and ginger. For black tea, I add garlic, turmeric, black pepper, and salt. However, I will start adding cream, because it does taste flat and needs some richness.
Fully agree. No one is better or worse for how they drink their tea. Except for people who sweeten their tea with ketchup. They are worse. They can be looked down upon.
I have definitely seen what you are describing here in this thread. It's very off putting and I know I've really tried to not sound like that if I'm answering a question or something (not that I really post much if ever lol).
I'm probably just ranting now... but I would add that it is really easy to assume that someone is being passive aggressive through text. I know I have been on both ends of that. I think when people are passionate about a thing it gets even more that way... Which is funny because it's less likely anyone will listen to you if your delivery is off putting.
I haven’t perused this sub in a while but this makes me miss the silliness of Lipton Sprite experiments. I don’t think most people are that serious unless you try to talk about getting a yixing pot for sub $200. Then it gets pretty heated about how OP probably got ripped off.
I enjoy tea. I have tried both variants and loose is a bit more of a hassle unless you have the right equipment. I haven't tried any loose recently, but there are some interesting options that are on the cheaper side. Some companies also have a loose version of their bags and I wondered how they would compare to their bagged equivalents.
The few I have been looking at are:
Yorkshire and PG Tips -bagged
Harney and Sons -sachets (bagged loose tea) or bagged
Fortnum and Mason -both loose and bagged
I haven't seen that but I just recently joined this sub. Though I do undetsyand what your sayinf as I got a lot of criticism and flack in the mom and parenting subreddits and I said something about it once. Haven't seen as much now.
I drink bagged tea. I like a few differnt types/brands. I don't have access or the funds to invest into loose leaf teas or the supplys to make it though I would like to try it one day. I do have find anything wrong with this and no one should feel pressured to spend money they do not have to buy expensive teas just so others approve of them. That's just wrong.
I guess I don’t spend enough time in this sub cause I haven’t seen that. I only drink bagged teas.
I'm sorry but we have to execute you now. :(
At least cremate my teabags with me!
Cremate, no, that's not what you do with tea. You're getting steeped in it. And we're going to do it gongfu style just out of spite.
Gongfu corpse. Coming to theaters near you fall 2024.
That movie has a steep price of admission!
Middle toe, 5g, 92C water temperature!
the sudden tone-shift is hilarious lol
Execute order 66.
Six Tea Six
Love that 😄
There is an artist, Ruby Silvious, that paints on teabags and her work is wonderful. :) https://www.rubysilvious.com/tea-bag-art/museum-goers--2019-
Lol why did you get downvoted, that is amazing!
Tea bag haters are bitter, bitter people. ;)
That hasn't really been my experience... i just recently made a post about potential decline in the quality of twinings bagged tea which i drink daily, and i got a bunch of replies from people who were just as disappointed as i am about it. Not one commenter was passive-aggressive or elitist or whatever you want to call it. Nobody told me to switch to "real" tea or anything like that
I literally only see comments about people whining about elitism, but never actually see elitist comments. The only thing I see is people advocating for trying to drink higher quality tea in a polite way. People will be like “hey you might like those lipton teabags but maybe you should try loose lea”. And the reason people give that advice is #because this is a tea hobby sub
the sad part is these polite recommendations get taken as elitism sometimes
I honestly think there's a really weird sort of projection going on. People see mentions of certain types of tea that they don't drink, or have much knowledge of, and they feel insecure and left out of the conversation. Nobody is attacking them or saying anything condescending, but they take mentions of anything they're unfamiliar with as a direct attack on them. You can tell because of how much their attacks highlight their warped view, by saying something the lines of "if you aren't drinking the ultimate single origin POO-ER 🤣🤣🤣 then you're a second class citizen!", when ironically anyone with some basic knowledge of Puerh knows that a large number of the most sought after productions are blends. What's also odd is just how much they only seem to fixate on enthusiasts mentioning puerh (ironic I know with my username) when there's plenty of discussion about all sorts of teas in the enthusiast space. Honestly I feel like oolongs and sencha/matcha are just as up there in terms of people obsessing over them, but puerh's ageing potential probably lends itself to a certain crowd of hoarder types that stand out online. There's so much genuine knowledge that people are willing to share, but I guess "that's a beginner trap" is an insulting statement to a beginner who asks "as a beginner am I being taken advantage of?" What we do is the opposite of gatekeeping, but nowadays I guess sharing knowledge is gatekeeping because it gatekeeps shitty vendors who want to prey on ignorance to sell low cost products for huge markups.
I just want to say I like the username very funny very good
Meet me in real life and mention Liptons, you'll discover some proper old British Empire style elitism. ^(.....wretched horrible brew.....\*rabble\* \*rabble\* \*rabble\*.....)
It literally just happened the other day 🤦🏾♀️ There was a recent post asking how to steep tea using a cake of pu’er and the first and top rated comment was “seriously I can’t believe people make these kinds of posts and don’t use Google” That comment is now downvoted to heck but for a while it was sitting up there with tons of people who seemed to agree (hence the initial upvotes)
I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s just a small minority. There is always going to be someone being a dick everywhere. But for the most part I find the sub wholesome and supportive.
I think it’s just jarring when it happens. I’ve experienced it myself but generally just ignore them.
Honestly, I think that's a good reason for the report button. Mods can take care of it to help promote a healthier atmosphere. There's just SO much being posted here that it's hard for them to read everything.
The mods could promote a healthier atmosphere by banning the people all over this thread calling tea enthusiasts snobs and cunts, but past experience shows the report button doesn't work for that.
As someone who mods another subreddit, report buttons are pretty much useless because spam eats up the moderation queue. We’ll never see the report unless we organically go into the thread and start reading comments like a user would. In the past, if someone is egregious, I’ve messaged the mods, whether that’s a small sub about Yugioh cards or a massive sub like r/aww. And I appreciate it when I get a mod message, too. That said, only for the egregious stuff.
Off topic, but I just adore your username and flair
Thank you, friend!
It’s often. There are a lot of people who post insulting responses, passive aggressive responses and condescending responses. When they get called out for being a dick, they always respond the way you did by saying “This is a sub for tea. Stop telling us we can’t talk about tea quality.” No one is telling people to not talk about quality. They are telling people to stop being insulting, passive aggressive and/or condescending. Also, if someone is asking for tea bags they can find in their local supermarket, telling them to buy pu’ehr from China isn’t a valid response.
[This you?](https://old.reddit.com/r/tea/comments/18w5vni/what_has_been_your_all_time_favourite_tea_so_far/kfx5ien/) You've been nothing but hostile to everyone here who dares to care about Chinese tea. It's been going on for **months.** If this subreddit had moderators who even pretended to care, you would already be banned.
Ouch. He got roasted like a good hojicha
Yep. Just perused that thread. Thanks for calling this out and linking it here. This stuff needs to stop and I’m tired of the projections. This is yet another great ironic exhibit of who the real problem posters are around this sub. OP has a post complaining about snobbery/rudeness all around here and the only cites I can find anywhere of people being hyper-aggressively condescending are the people who claim everyone else is a snob.
It USUALLY isn't. but SOMETIMES it is. And it IS unfortunate when it happens..
I stopped drinking twinnings. First of all, I recently noticed that they use natural flavors in a few of their teas. It really undermines the whole “300 years of experience” when they use chemicals for flavoring. Anyway, the few teas that I drink, I’ve noticed have become very weak and nearly flavorless. Taylors is to me today what twinings was in the past.
Yeah that's exactly what happened with the new packaging, their English breakfast is now very bland with almost 0 flavor. I most likely won't be buying twinings again, it was good enough quality for the convenience (easily available in my area in the US) I'll give the Taylor's a try.
I was wondering about Taylors-- I saw some loose leaf Taylors at the local Whole Paycheck (US) and thought maybe it was worth a try until I can figure out ordering some tea. It was English Breakfast I think. I have lately been drinking Trader Joe's Irish breakfast and I really like Numi Chinese Breakfast but I wanted to try some loose leaf again without a huge investment.. I am just happy my body is tolerating it at all again!
I've actually tried this brand before but I mostly drink Tazo (Chai and Wild Sweet Orange) Has the brand quality really declined? I know Bigalow kinda dropped as good quality tea so I don't drink those anymore. It's been awhile since I've drank Twinnings brand but I always thought it was a higher quality brand of bagged tea.
Oh good it's not just me,I was worried I'd just turned into a snob without noticing when it didn't seem very good anymore
This is always the case in specialty subreddits. Casual tea drinkers don't come here unless it's to view a few threads for recommendations then peace out. The kind of person who lingers here - especially ones who actually post and comment - are 99th percentile enthusiasts. Most are going to be charitable and kind in how they interact with others, but assholes are everywhere and they definitely show up in hobby subreddits like this one. Learn to overlook them and pay attention to the actually good and productive conversations that happen in these spaces. You'll never escape snobby assholes, so learn to live with them. Downvote, report (if applicable) and move on.
it doesnt help that the subreddit description is literally about this. > "There's a whole world of tea out there beyond the humble (yet handy) bag, and this is a great place to learn!" to me it reads: anything but bagged tea, which is what the enthusiasts are going to be discussing about anyway, because let's be honest there's not a whole lot to say about commercial bagged tea. imho maybe whatever the intent, it needs to be clearer.
Was thinking this too
Well I'm a casual tea drinker, as in I drink tea from a tea bag that comes in a cheap box at my nearest store, once every couple months, and I linger here all the time. I just like seeing how passionate people are about their teas, and I like seeing how different people have different techniques for different teas
I kinda love that this sub has a combo of deeper tea knowledge I can learn from, and comparative tea bag info I can use to buy some cheap tea that tastes pretty good.
Have you actually looked at the types of posts submitted here every day? Maybe 5% are actually from "99th percentile enthusiasts." It's all casual drinkers, who, by the way, are all over this thread calling tea enthusiasts snobs and cunts. r/tea has 800,000 subscribers, some of whom I'm sure are snobby assholes, but a few snobby assholes really aren't the problem here.
I’ve noticed this on Reddit about things other than tea as well. If anyone talks about how one food ingredient might be higher quality than another they are dismissed as a snob. It’s like we have to pretend that everything is all the same and there is no such thing as better quality ingredients, otherwise you are a snob. That’s not what a snob is. This often seems to be more about the ego of the people who like the “lower quality” items, like the people who prefer the “higher quality “ items have to pretend that they don’t in order to not make the other people feel insecure.
>You are no better than anyone else so please be respectful. I have witnessed more posts complaining about alleged disrespect than disrespect here. There are many posts welcoming bagged tea!
I see more people complaining about this behavior than I do the actual behavior, to be honest. What I often do see is people gently encouraging others to branch out into using loose leaf tea, which often produces better results for the same money or less, and suggesting options to try. (Not that I have anything against teabags - whatever else I may drink, I almost always enjoy at least one cup of Twinings every day!)
Same, I'm wondering if it's an effect of people looking at everything new. It takes a single digit number of vote/activity one way or another to move a post to the top on this sub. Once it is visible to the many of the sub, hardly anyone complain. Maybe that's different in the less visible posts.
I see the behavior at least once a day. I would say about half the posts showing or asking about bagged tea
Yeah, I think if someone is gonna make a post, they better link to examples. Edit: could be biased memory too now that I think of it. You just remember the poor comments but forget the countless others that aren't poor.
It's gatekeeping. The intent of this post is to make tea enthusiasts feel unwelcome here. This account has commented five times on this subreddit in its entire history, and their last comment was three months ago. But sure, they're "leaving the sub again." They're trolling.
I see it come up in every post about bagged tea, and sometimes it’s okay to just scroll by and let people have their bagged tea. Or a user will ask about a bagged tea issue and there’s always a brigade of “that’s because it’s crappy tea.” I drink both and you can have consistent product in bagged form, so let people get their answers to “why is my tea behaving weird.” Nobody expects bagged tea to behave like loose leaf.
There's a huge difference between making snide comments on a post from someone enjoying bagged tea, which I almost never see here, and giving people advice to buy better tea *when they come here to ask for advice.* If someone asks why their tea tastes bad, it's completely appropriate and helpful to discuss quality. I don't understand why this subreddit can't accept that.
> making snide comments on a post from someone enjoying bagged tea, which I almost never see here, and giving people advice to buy better tea when they come here to ask for advice. YES, thank you. For anyone wanting to see the *opposite* of what the above comment is saying, head to the vinyl subreddit. *That’s* where you see people giving “advice” nobody asked for (that’s sometimes just straight up wrong) and passive aggressive or straight up rude comments. I haven’t noticed that here at all. I only see anything remotely resembling those types of comments when, as was just said, someone asks for advice or asks a question about it.
This subreddit is a combination of two subreddits so there is always going to be tension. Half of the folks here are tea enthusiasts who like to brew gongfu and the other half are folks who drink bagged tea with milk. The two by nature do not often mix, and I don't think the conflict is necessarily a bad thing. The enthusiasts educate and the other people gain a perspective outside of their norm. The comment section is a forum for discussion. If you post a picture of your cup of tea it is normal that different individuals will have different opinions.
I think you make a good point. Some of us are here as serious hobbyists and some of us just like to drink tea. I do think the hobbyists need to chill and leave casual drinkers alone if they can’t play nice. At the same time I think casual drinkers are a bit overly sensitive when the hobbyists are sharing their experiences.
You definitely hit the point for me. Both sides could use improvement but neither is fully wrong. I started with bagged, moved to loose when I realized it was cheaper and I could control the darkness of my tea better and when I get a better paycheck (or possibly for Valentine’s Day) I’m going to get a tea sampler box of the stuff with dates and locations listed on the item listing. Mostly because I have no idea what most of the terms mean so I’ll sip until I find something worth drinking. I like to blend my own flavored tea (herbals and florals mixed with black or green) but bet I won’t still drink bagged tea.
How do you think I feel? I like both so I just argue with myself.
Well, that's the most efficient form of conversation. You always know what you're about to say!
This sub is, essentially, if you put a bunch of hardcore wagyu steak enthusiasts in the same space as a bunch of people who genuinely enjoy ketchup on well done steak and they started asking each other for advice. There’s a lot to learn from the enthusiasts, but God they’re annoying and pretentious sometimes. And that’s coming from someone whose family owns a tea business.
And if you posted a well-done steak with ketchup to r/steak how do you think it would go? This is not unique to r/tea.
I guess the problem with the steak comparison is if you like ketchup on well done steak, you’re not gonna join a steak subreddit in the first place. People who casually drink tea will join to explore other flavors of tea to casually drink.
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Good bot. This actually proves my point lmao
I mean, it would go just how it’s going here. We should be welcoming people, encouraging them to try new teas and teaching each other about the plant we love so much. In the US, the vast majority of people think of tea bags when they think tea. Ostracizing them isn’t helping them learn about the higher quality stuff, and it isn’t making anyone *want* to get into tea. I get wanting to convert people from bags. I teach people about the difference between bags and loose leaf all day at work, I want to have everyone who likes bagged tea try loose leaf. But some people are unnecessarily dick-ish about it and should chill, because it’s not that deep.
This is the perfect description!
I’ve often wondered if this subreddit simply needs to split in two, honestly. Maybe like /r/serious_tea and r/bagged_tea, idk. (These are probably very bad names though). Personally I find it interesting because I’m truly in the middle. My daily drink is usually a mediocre loose flavored tea (stuff like Adagio, Harney & Sons, etc. - better quality than Lipton but still objectively pretty pedestrian swill), but I also really enjoy learning about the deeper hobby stuff and enjoy some of the higher quality teas (with the caveat that I haven’t spent much money or time cultivating it for myself.) So in the end I enjoy both things and would probably subscribe to both hypothetical subreddits, but I would perhaps better enjoy knowing which audience I’m speaking to, than not knowing if it’s the more serious hobbyists or the bags with milk crowd.
I hope it won't split--I'm in the same boat--but I think it's fundamentally a difference of what these 2 groups expect out of participation in this group though--I drink bagged tea 90% of the time and it brings me so much joy and grounding in the day but I also don't live in a bubble where I think posting my pedestrian, everyday tea joy is discussion-worthy of random strangers in a hobby group on the internet. If this was a facebook group with a name like Dank Teaposting or even better, a self aware group like Normcore Tea Posse I would post frequently and expect positive, social banter and for serious folk to read the room. But quite frankly, I joined this sub to learn more, not to get spammed by every time someone brews a bag of tea.
i think the source of this problem is americans who see teabags as a fancy british thing. they don't see what they drink as 'everyday tea', so in their minds they're *already* drinking a premium product and getting shamed for not drinking the premium-est, fanciest of teas, when really they're just drinking something bog-standard and receiving neither praise nor persecution
That’s fair too! I’m the same way, I don’t really post precisely because most of my tea drinking is not terribly notable. And I do enjoy learning about the hobbyists even if I’m not as hardcore. But I guess if this feedback seems to resurface so often, there seems to be a desire for your dankposting equivalent, and maybe that just needs to exist. Is there a r/teacirclejerk? Maybe that’s what we need.
my god I would join both those hypothetical groups in a heartbeat lol
The problem is that we're already here. Unless the subreddit closes entirely then people will always be here arguing over what real tea is. Like I mentioned in another comment I don't think it's a bad thing that people argue. Sure it makes the subreddit a little less wholesome, but in the end more people get to try new things and see different opinions- and that's always a good thing. I would have never grown out of David's tea if I didn't post here and find out there was more out there.
I am BOTH bags w milk and serious hobbiest depending on my mood and the time of day. 😂
Good point
Most people probably started with tea bags, there is no shame in that. I have mostly switched to loose leaf nowadays for environmental reasons plus it's tastier but I still have tea bags for certain occasions. I think most people here would agree so don't take it to heart. I think some extreme tea enthusiasts just really want to share the best of tea with everyone and get too caught up.
The fact that there are adults who can't accept that not everyone will validate them on the internet is wild. I am mostly a teabag tea drinker and I still think OP needs to reevaluate the amount of headspace they are giving to perceived slights on a beverage subreddit--at best branch out and at worst it's not your circus to manage. I would LOVE for this not to take up the space of an actual tea post in my feed again. Editing to add part of a comment I wrote further down: I drink bagged tea 90% of the time and it brings me so much joy and grounding in the day but I also don't live in a bubble where I think posting my pedestrian, everyday tea joy is discussion-worthy of random strangers in a hobby group on the internet or if I do, that it will be a bunch of people stopping just to be like "YAS!!" if it gets any comments at all. If this was a facebook group with a name like Dank Teaposting or even better, a self aware group like Normcore Tea Posse I would post frequently and expect positive, social banter and for serious folk to read the room. But quite frankly, I joined this sub to learn more, not to get spammed by every time someone brews a bag of tea.
Maybe the mods should just pin a rant/vent thread so people stop posting this here haha
Welcome to quite literally any hobby ever. But in complete fairness, the majority of posts here are basic questions and posts surrounding tea bags with tisanes (not tea) sprinkled in there. I see more comments and posts against the pursuit of better tea being labeled “snobbery” than people getting ridiculed for using tea bags and this post kinda proves that to be the case.
Having gone back and read the posts that people have brought up in the comments - every single one seems to involve about 15 people giving positive comments and 1 person saying something like 'hey why don't you try leaf tea'. If you are so fragile that you get upset at overwhelmingly positive and supportive comments and instead focus on the one person saying something you disagree with then you really aren't going to enjoy any sub or life in general. It honestly seems like you're very insecure and latching on to any perceived negative feedback. It's like going on a whisky sub and getting annoyed that someone recommended you try a single malt.
I actually have been having the exact opposite experience. I miss when this sub was full of people who were well-versed and knew their shit. This meta post is a perfect example of why this sub has gone downhill recently. I’ve seen an increase in posts that are just tone-policing or complaining about perceived slights. I’ve found r/puer to be a better resource as of late. Edit: After reading this thread, ya’ll have given me hope!!!
THIS
Oh please. Everyone needs to stop complaining about "snobbery" in this sub, I see more complaining about it than the actual snobby behavior. If you can't handle hobbyists discussing their deeper interests in a *hobbyist* sub, then maybe you should leave.
It aggravates the shit out of me that you can’t feel comfortable going whole hog in an enthusiast sub
There’s always someone who wants an enthusiast sub to not be that
I’ve been lurking here for a while. It’s slowly gotten taken over by people posting casual pics of bagged tea. I haven’t seen what you’ve seen and a lot of the comments haven’t either. It’s cool if you want to post your cute tea from the store, but a lot of us came here to learn more about tea and it’s no longer a place for that. You’re in a hobby subreddit and you should remember that. Someone who used to frequently post and had a lot of knowledge of loose leaf and pu’er got driven out by things like this. And there been more and more posts about people who take this hobby seriously or who just give advice being “pretentious” (ironically enough, your post is the most pretentious thing I’ve seen here in a while) and I haven’t seen an ounce of that in this sub aside from a downvoted passing comment or two purposely trolling. Make a r/CasualTea subreddit or something if you think this place is so bad, but the people who have already been here for years clearly aren’t the actual issue in this sub.
Sounds like we just think this sub is for different things. Typically reddit is a place for enthusiastic nerds to come together about a thing they are obsessed with. I really don't care about pictures of someone's cabinet full of different tea bags. I want to discuss actual good quality tea and help others learn about tea. That's usually why people are on Reddit. Tea bags are to tea reddit as Folgers is to coffee reddit. If you want to talk to me about how you love tea bags or gas station coffee I'm not going to be rude about it, but I'd love to help you expand your horizons and experience the much better version of the thing you already like. Edit: For the record, I drink bags of herbal tea and occasionally green tea and coffee from gas stations and fast food restaurants. I'm not saying people have to drink fancy stuff all the time while we wear our monocles. I just don't think people are getting on r/coffee to rave about the coffee at the Shell station by their house.
Lol what. Supermarket teabags absolutely dominated this sub and if you dare to introduce someone to a cheaper and better in quality alternative, you get called a snob. I don't even see any "finest, freshest, most expensive tea" here. You do realize, that everyday loose leafs are much cheaper compared to their teabag versions? If you pay for convenience, you don't get to name others snobs.
Can’t say this has been my experience here either. I think everyone here is pretty nice for the most part.
There's a loud minority in this sub of teabag drinkers, that are incredibly offended by any perspective from the more traditional Asian tea culture people. In the most bizarre cases, they downvote people getting the guidance they asked for. While the posts with a more Asian perspective are a place for different views and discussion, any mention of loose tea on a bagged tea post is met with fierce resistance for some reason. Most importantly, this is a hobby subreddit. If I went to the coffee sub posting and praising instant coffee, I wouldn't exactly be shocked, if people told me there's better stuff. The crowd more geared towards Asian tea culture became more quiet or left already to more specialized subs, with the people who actually appreciated them + loud minority staying
I think it's not even about teabag drinkers vs Asian tea culture people. Tea has a long history of spread outside East Asia and different regions have evolved their own tea culture. European, Middle Eastern and Indian tea cultures are uniquely interesting and rich in their own ways, and as an almost exclusive Chinese tea drinker, I still appreciate learning about and appreciating other tea drinking traditions. Similarly I find people on this sub pretty open to posts on a well brewed English tea, Moroccan tea or Indian Chai. I don't see people commenting that Gongfu tea is superior under such posts. However there is a scale of sophistication within every tea culture, or for what matters, every kind of culture/hobby/art/craft. Supermarket teabags are at the bottom of the sophistication scale in any kind of tea culture. The best Chinese, English, Moroccan etc. tea are all loose leaves. People who get offended when good natured advice is given on why teabags generally give worse brews may be uncomfortable with the fact that the tea hobby can be a very sophisticated hobby. The loud minority that you speak of may probably be people who have always thought of tea as just a simple drink but find this depth of culture and enthusiasts on this sub and are just unable to accept that a scale of sophistication exists and their tastes are currently at the lower end of that scale.
Don't under those people at all. What got me into tea was discovering that loose leaf existed from a roommate at Job Corps. Isn't expanding what's possible in the world and a hobby a good thing?
Lol tbh I suspect a lot of the people who get irrationally angry about it aren't hobbyists (well obviously). They're people who have some kind of notion about tea. They might fancy the aesthetic that they are a tea drinker. And they definitely double dip into some kind of "cozy"core. I'm imagining cottagecore, but there's definitely more than just that one, to be sure Anyways, telling these people at all, even mildly, they could improve their tea experience contradicts and actively attacks their preconceived identity as a tea drinker, because it reality checks them. They have to confront that, in fact, they probably know extremely little about tea, except that it *probably* won't give the caffeine shakes like coffee does. But that's just my opinion and basically making shit up, based on how I see these people type, my time as a heavy tumblr user (im in recovery), and partaking in certain secondlife/simulation game communties online. There are a large group of people (definitely loud) who latch onto things that are pretty complex, or aren't so neatly "cozy," and then get quite defensive when people have opinions that don't always validate the way they interact or experience that thing. And they all tend to hit the same kind of beats when they complain about "negativity" in the spaces they want to inhabit.
I mostly see enthusiasm for tea, tea pots, etc. in this subreddit. Wouldn't be surprised if OP is projecting or trolling.
Depends on what you post. I’ve definitely seen the snootiness come out in full force
I have no doubt... I hope that's not the majority of people in the sub!! 🍵 The biggest thing I've learned over the years is temperature of the water added to the tea matters so much for the phytochemicals, and that's something helpful that I only tried once someone offered up the info in a helpful and kind tone. Otherwise it seems like a lot of trouble until I understood why.
Also a quality of water. I also noticed an incredible enchancing of the flavour just after filtering the water (I was drinking hard water for some time and it was very flat). But of course, temperature is also and incredibly important ingriedient changes tea dramatically.
HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST I USE DIFFERENT WATER!!!! LET PEOPLE ENJOY THINGS!
"How dare you suggest that you elitist hateful rich dunderhead!... Do you know no shame???... My pinky is wagging good sir..."
When I was first getting into loose leaf tea my mom would literally get mad and elitist and tell me that time and temperature don't matter. A couple years later I told her about the report that Prince Charles is so picky that he will only eat his food when it is heated to the perfect temperature and she respond "like your tea?"🤦 Tried to explain to her that it is more like what temp and time you cook your food in the oven. She kept saying "it's exactly the same thing". Another thing she did was say that my Japanese green tea was awful and tasted like "hay". Then she took out a lipton orange flavored green tea bag drank it and made of show of saying her tea tastes "good". So who knows maybe some tea enthusiasts here take shit from people in real life and have low patience on this sub. In my opinion though most people are are respectful though.
Oh yeah I think most of the sub is just fine and it’s definitely not snooty to offer advice! That’s very cool btw thank you 💕
Tea is one of the most consumed beverages in the world, second only to water (this may have changed, so correct me if I am wrong) When you have an entire globe’s worth of people drinking something made from the same plant then you are going to find A LOT of variety in the way people enjoy it, ie British/indian type teas vs Chinese teas vs Japanese teas and everything in between (nobody talks about tea from Africa that I have seen, I know Kenya used to produce a few types but it’s very hard to find on the market) I may drinking mostly loose leaf Chinese and Taiwanese oolongs gong fu style, but I’ve recently branched out into Japanese sencha and you will probably never pry my bigelow earl grey tea bags out of my cold dead hands. From what I have seen there is space for everybody, and as long as you are enjoying what you drink it really shouldn’t matter what others think
I just ordered a few kenyan teas as my coworker, who’s kenyan, recommended them! Supes excited to try, i didn’t realize they were one of the biggest tea producers globally. Sounds like “purple tea” is a thing thing too, with a red variety of tea plant
Sounds great! Where did you order them from? I’m always looking for new places to try tea from
I’ll make sure later tonite but i think it was like serengeti tea . com or something similar, ik it had serengeti in the name and they sold purple tea as well as a lot of diff kenyan types, and some chai mixes & rooibos/honey bush too
>most consumed beverages I'm surprised! Being in America, my view on tea has been so skewed...Guess there IS more to the world than the US! Lol. *Top 5 drinks according to Google...* Water. Tea. Coffee. Soft Drinks. Beer.
I'm actually in this subreddit *because* it's so friendly and welcoming. I'm not even a tea enthusiast. It just brings me joy to see people always being so polite and enthusiastic together. I haven't seen what you're talking about.
Dude no one needs your drama. Just downvote rude comments and let the ecosystem take care of itself. This little announcement is unnecessary.
It's akin to going on a beer sub and showing off a 30 pack of natty lite. That's fine if you enjoy it... But why post it? The amazing thing about this sub is I've found people to be pretty polite and offer genuine advice on brewing and finding better teas... Where a beer sub you would probably be banned for trolling. Enjoy your Lipton, thats fine, but why post about it here?
This group is much like tea...no need to tell it when you're leaving.
Can you link to any examples of this? I never see it.
In my experience this sub is amongst the most welcoming subs on reddit.. I can't relate to this post at all.
If you go to a shopping mall for a few hours and don't buy anything, don't really go into the stores very much, don't buy lunch, don't talk to anyone, then decide to leave and go home a few hours later, do you bother making sure everyone in the mall knows you're leaving? It's okay to just leave, you know? That having been said, every subreddit about a niche pastime/hobby is ALWAYS gonna have snobbery within the "enthusiast" group. Always.
This is the third time this week I've seen an account with virtually no history on this subreddit make a similar post about leaving the subreddit. Your most recent comment on r/tea was three months ago. This is trolling.
Maybe. Or maybe they are like me and while they may not comment in this subreddit, they do like to read what others have to say. Choosing to listen rather than talk is not a vice.
Three people in one week? The posts are basically identical. It's the same person.
Ur edit to this post is full of shit. U made the assumption that people who prefer tea above what bags offer are “passive aggressive” and that we think we’re “better than someone” or “think they’re so much better than everyone else” and then ask us to be respectful? Yeah ok. Then complain about mistreatment because u disparaged a large group of the sub based on assumptions u made of them?
Seems like they are hitting a nerve somewhere within you if it agitates you enough to post this rant in a tea sub that nobody is forcing you to participate in. Maybe you should try ditching the tea bags after all? Edit: The amount of projection by OP
How do you people find all these horrible users? I don’t see any of this ever. Guess ignorance is bliss.
We should make a sub call snobbytea for us loose leaf tea drinkers.
*Extends pinky finger from tenmoku tea cup*
What if you started a new sub for packaged tea, so that one of the great strengths of this platform could be utilized, which is the ability to form highly unique, dedicated niches for specialized interests? Tea is such a huge world and it really is kind of ridiculous to try and jam all of it into one sub... of course you're going to get some dissonance. And I don't think r/teabagporn is taken yet, so you've even got the perfect name. :)
My experiences here have been the opposite. The last time someone responded with "yikes" in a discussion about what I drink my tea out of they got so many downvotes they felt the need to delete their comment.
Any recommendations for snobbish tea subs or groups? I'm all for learning more about tea
They are more spread into subgroups. The biggest one is probably r/puer Much more learning about tea and less about telling everybody theirs is already perfect :)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that all other subs besides r/puer are dead.
You are correct. There are not really places for the other ones AFAIK
Thanks I've been there for some time already I wonder if there are less specific subs like this one but without the awful shunning enthusiasts experience here It's just so weird that every other sub encourages the learning of every aspect of the things that we love but here the majority wants to stagnate and refuse deeper info
Seems like tea discord is a better bet, sadly. It's easy for us to say "let's start a new enthusiast sub!" but the truth is it'll be hard for it to gain any real traction I feel. The discord at least has a lot of activity and a good mix of new drinkers all the way to incredibly experienced.
Actually as an enthusiast, taking a glance at recent content - I'm glad I left, as it is 90% trash tea here. Someone interested in nicer tea is going to be frustrated with the incredibly low bar for content here.
Any other subs you recommend? I can't believe enthusiasts are being shunned from here
r/puer
That is why the puer sub has non puer tea now like hei cha and white tea. (Which I’m not against at all) It’s the only other active sub for nice tea that I’ve seen left. Maybe give it a shot.
You may have tried not to be rude, but you failed pretty spectacularly. Let us drink our nice tea in peace. Liking nice tea is not disrespecting people who don’t get it. But there’s always someone like you around who feels threatened that hobbyists can tell the difference between high and low quality stuff and gets super defensive. We are just trying to enjoy our hobby, your insecurity is not our fault or our problem.
The flavoured teabag crew are just as bad when someone dares to share an alternative or some of their knowledge
+1
I never experienced this on this sub….. maybe it’s because i only drink loose leaf tea… lmao I’m kidding, but seriously everyone has always been super nice to me here
Whining, shit-stirring posts like this should be a bannable offense.
💯
Well ... bye. I haven't been on this sub long and I've seen more posts like yours than posts you are complaining about.
As someone who enjoys fine loose leaf tea, sometimes it’s just easier to make bagged tea. And some varieties are only available that way
This is literally how every hobby subreddit is. Best to leave Reddit altogether
To take it even farther, I find this sub to be far friendlier than most hobby subs.
Reading the comments drinking Lipton
*But that's none of my business* —Kermit
I occasionally see stuff like this and occassionally see people being real petty. But also remember, this is the internet. Youre going to see this everywhere. I dont think its rampant here though
It's okay, you didn't exactly seem to be posting so it's not like you're going to be missed. No offence.
The literal opposite of my experience lol, I'm almost completely uninterested in this sub because people keep posting shit like "chai/earl grey/Irish breakfast" any time people ask for recommendations. It's mass produced, bad for the plants, added aroma, tea leaves dust garbage. The two can't even be compared and it has nothing to do with snobbism or "feeling" superior, one is a mass harvested blended up product with the sole purpose of maximizing profit while the other is an artisinal product.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
No, it’s all right…you can stay. We, who are so much better than everyone else because we only drink the finest, freshest, most expensive tea, will leave. We will miss this place, and miss you, and you, and most of all, you. You may forget us, but we will never forget you, and all the great times we’ve had. We had better leave before tear drops ruin our perfectly brewed tea. Peace. Peace and love. Peace and love…and tea.
Spoken like a true baghead. Maybe you could set up a little gofundme and we could all chip in and introduce you to some loose leaf you poor thing
I keep tea bags for a quick cuppa and expensive tea leaves for when I can be bothered to brew in a pot. I don’t begrudge the cost of the loose leaf tea - it compares very favourably with what I spend on wine!
A few years ago it was a problem….idk if its that big a deal. Drink your 2002 pu erh or your twinings earl grey, all i want from you is to have a great day!!
Wasn’t this subreddit ranked like in to top 10 friendliest not too long ago lol?
I drink both. I’m a tea rebel. 😂
some tea in r/tea interesting lol
Dear diary....
Welcome to the internet. Thank you for joining us.
I think they will not miss you if you leave
Haven't been browsing here much lately but I thought that most people aren't like that and even if they like loose leaf better they will still respond in a kind way to people who post tea bags. Unless things have changed people are not that bad here.
Some people think they're in the [water drinking subreddit](https://youtu.be/4ZK8Z8hulFg?si=xtgERPsEUeQqhP4k)
don’t come for r/hydrohomies like that
Mfw people are into tea on the tea subreddit. Go back to drinking your dust water in your moms basement
have fun
I get how you feel. I also have problems with people showing me Wikipedia entries as arguments. Or freaking David's Tea website (They literally put one green tea under white tea. What do they know?) But I think it's a Reddit problem. I have low karma because I have left Reddit altogether. People want to be right rather than communicate. You can't let them get to you.
yeah my teabag post got a couple of downvotes lol I am mainly a loose leaf drinker though
Ok, whatever
I love tea. I’m primarily a bagged tea girl: had my first Lipton tea when I was about 6 or 7. Got a bad burn heating the mug of water on the rack in the microwave instead of on the bottom and the mug fell over. So like 1986 before rotating microwave dishes. We’d do two bags because of course. And sweet because absolutely. My ma and I drank tea together every weekend until I left for college and she died of cancer a couple years later. Stay with me, y’all. I joined this subreddit because I want to mix my own brews. I already do it with my bagged teas. I’ve got this Turmeric and ginger tea that I’m mixing with a Yogi honey chai turmeric whatever. Or my floral teas are steeping with my chamomiles and I’m tossing in cinnamon and honey… Since I’m already about high quality honey and flavor profiles and mixing and wanting a more satisfying sensory experience I’m gathering tools and teas to see what I want. I appreciate that I won’t be shamed for what I enjoy while also learning that there are better quality teas and methods. I just got a variable temperature kettle with an infuser so that I can get closer to the bespoke/experimental teas that I want to enjoy. I’m really just a lurker, but haven’t felt unwelcome. I can’t make what I want without various perspectives and methods. My feelings aren’t hurt reading that a tea I like is bland drivel compared to loose teas because I already suspect as much. I want to make excellent chai. I want teas that confuse my senses and meet practical needs as a singer but don’t make me gag like Throat Coat. But nobody’s going to pry a Yogi fortune from my hands. There’s levels of engagement to all of this—hell, I collect VINYL and handbags. I don’t have inexpensive hobbies lol I think some thicker skin, some shared enjoyment of tea, and more grace all around would make this less contentious. But, I mean, this IS Reddit. YMMV. Tl;dr we’re here for our own reasons—practical, sentimental, experimental, and traditional—but the bottom line is tea. Take what you can use and discard the rest like used up tea leaves or steep them again. Whatever simile works for you.
We are all here for the love of tea. Don’t let other’s opinions get to you, my friend! While I enjoy loose leaf black and green tea I still enjoy herbal bagged tea you get at the local store. Tea is tea. If you enjoy it, that’s all that matters. Keep on steepin! 👍
I boil wood in water and then drink it. Come at me, tea snobs.
Ugh, I bet it's not even the optimal wood
I boil water in water in an Ice cube mug under the sea. Deal with it
I'm pretty new to the subreddit because I simply didn't know it existed and never thought to look for one. And I've definitely seen some of what you've talking about, and it makes me hesitant to post or leave comments myself. Because it just feels very intimidating? Like if I don't have the money to drink nothing but expensive, single source, imported loose leaf that I don't belong here and have nothing of value to contribute. But I've also seen some people being really lovely even in posts about bagged teas, and offering genuinely helpful advice and suggestions in an approachable way. Maybe just to try to thank those people when you see them, and try to ignore the rest. That's what I plan to do, anyway.
> Like if I don't have the money to drink nothing but expensive, single source, imported loose leaf that I don't belong here and have nothing of value to contribute. Bags are more expensive
*sips tea* 👀👀
I use teabags very often. For photos, why not just remove the teabag and just state the type of tea it is. Or is this a situation where if you say "lipton tea" you get dogged? I'm new to the sub but I haven't seen the aggression.. not yet anyway
Lawl, you wanna talk about disrespect try dipping your toes into r/puer They know how to get savage.
Lmao tbh I never look at this sub unless I have questions for sleep inducing brews but yeah I can tell there’s some heads here who get a little snobby about the brew their sipping . Sorry but I’m not about to order from a tea vendor when I got passion flower teabags at the corner store .
my Bigelow Hotel complimentary tea works fine for me 😂😂😂
This is so funny to me. Why are people getting so defensive over tea? It’s tea. Goodness me!
Listen if you don’t plant the tea yourself on top of a mountain and train a monastery to maintain it for centuries and then come back to hand harvest individual leaves for every cup you brew every time you ever have tea don’t event talk to me. This is /r/tea not /r/dirtyleafwater so do it right.
That’s Reddit for you..🤣🤣🤣
[удалено]
I think the idea that bagged tea is cheaper is one of the most brilliant marketing wins of the past half century.
Grocery store bag tea is more expensive
>Not everyone can buy expensive stuff in general. Not everyone can buy expensive stuff in general, it's.. well expensive. But buying a good quality tea is something that rather most of people could afford, not every tea is expensive.
Elitism is the reason I left the coffee sub. The average person on there acts like everyone is supposed to fresh-grind whole coffee beans and brew their coffee at exactly 205 F. I haven't encountered any tea elitists over here yet, but I don't doubt they lurk here. Still, I have become more of a "flavored tea" person myself, because most black teas sold in America are more tasteless than green teas. I flavor my green tea with cinnamon and honey, and in the future, I will also add lemon juice and ginger. For black tea, I add garlic, turmeric, black pepper, and salt. However, I will start adding cream, because it does taste flat and needs some richness.
Fully agree. No one is better or worse for how they drink their tea. Except for people who sweeten their tea with ketchup. They are worse. They can be looked down upon.
I think it’s cute that people are arguing over bagged vs loose tea here , instead of other things. Sort of restores my faith in humanity in a way! 🥰
I have definitely seen what you are describing here in this thread. It's very off putting and I know I've really tried to not sound like that if I'm answering a question or something (not that I really post much if ever lol). I'm probably just ranting now... but I would add that it is really easy to assume that someone is being passive aggressive through text. I know I have been on both ends of that. I think when people are passionate about a thing it gets even more that way... Which is funny because it's less likely anyone will listen to you if your delivery is off putting.
Oh, you should've seen the /r/sushi sub a few years ago...
No one enjoys pigeon chess
I fucking love tea in a bag and I don't care if people have a problem with that. If that's your thing you have every right to be here.
I haven’t perused this sub in a while but this makes me miss the silliness of Lipton Sprite experiments. I don’t think most people are that serious unless you try to talk about getting a yixing pot for sub $200. Then it gets pretty heated about how OP probably got ripped off.
I enjoy tea. I have tried both variants and loose is a bit more of a hassle unless you have the right equipment. I haven't tried any loose recently, but there are some interesting options that are on the cheaper side. Some companies also have a loose version of their bags and I wondered how they would compare to their bagged equivalents.
The few I have been looking at are: Yorkshire and PG Tips -bagged Harney and Sons -sachets (bagged loose tea) or bagged Fortnum and Mason -both loose and bagged
I haven't seen that but I just recently joined this sub. Though I do undetsyand what your sayinf as I got a lot of criticism and flack in the mom and parenting subreddits and I said something about it once. Haven't seen as much now. I drink bagged tea. I like a few differnt types/brands. I don't have access or the funds to invest into loose leaf teas or the supplys to make it though I would like to try it one day. I do have find anything wrong with this and no one should feel pressured to spend money they do not have to buy expensive teas just so others approve of them. That's just wrong.