Why I Blog About Tea

I began my tea career back in 2001 and ever since 2005 I have aspired to be a well respected tea educator and tea seller. Over the last nine years I have watched as North America's tea culture rapidly evolved alongside the Internet and I wanted to stay connected and relevant. Because of this I proudly admit that my original motivation behind tea blogging was self promotion.

I don't think I have a print tea book in me (although never say never, right?) but I do have a strong urge to share my thoughts and opinions about tea. So, back in 2007 I dipped my toes in the water by blogging on MySpace. I soon realized that MySpace was an extremely limiting format and began to consider other free blogging platforms.

Like many online tea fanatics at that time, I was already a huge fan of Chadao, Half-Dipper, Gongfugirl and Tea Masters blogs. I think those blogs (and probably several others) inspired me to take my blogging to the next level and so in 2008 I graduated from MySpace to Blogger.

As I wrote last year in my post entitled "Regarding This Blog" - "my blog has grown to include tea education, tea reviews, occasional silliness and many personal stories. I have learned a lot about myself and tea by blogging and find it to be a very rewarding hobby." To this I must include a heartfelt digital hug to all the wonderful people I have met, both in person and online, over these last few years writing about tea.

This post is my contribution to the November 2010 Tea Blog Carnival as presented by the Association of Tea Bloggers. Our theme for this carnival was "Why do I write about tea?" This month's carnival was hosted by Walker Tea Review and links to all other participating posts can be found here.