What Brought You To Steepster?

When Teavana bought Teaopia I was upset to loose so many teas I loved. Then Teavana stopped carrying Creamy Nut Oolong and I was devastated. I was google searching for something similar and found the review for Creamy Nut here – the rest as they say is history….but I still haven’t found a replacement for my beloved lost teas… :((

I’ve always had an interest in tea, but never really pursued it outside of the grocery store aisle. I finally wanted to try other teas and wanted a place to manage/research and discuss teas, so I wound up here.

Kind of like Khaleesical. Except I was looking for bagged tea reviews. I knew loose leaf existed but thought it was too much trouble and too expensive (wrong on both). I almost didn’t stay as almost no one was reviewing grocery store tea. Then I received some samples that made me take notice. (Can you say Teavivre? I knew that you could) Now I have a 4’ tall cabinet full of tea and even that doesn’t hold it all. Only maybe a half dozen are bagged teas. You people are a bad influence :) thanks!

I originally stumbled upon steepster when I was first getting into teas because I noticed Teavana and DAVIDs had all these cake flavors and I wondered if they were actually true to their names. I searched for reviews and kept finding steepster links. So for a while I resorted to steepster reviews to help me decide whether or not to buy teas.

However, it was not until a couple months after finding the site that I decided to join. The reason behind finally joining was swaps. When I bought tea, I always bought at least 50 g and when there was a bunch I did not like, my mom told me to just give it away. I remembered seeing mentions of swaps in reviews I read so I figured if I was giving it away anyways, why not try trading it and trying something new.

I actually laugh when I think about first joining because a lot of my friends were quite wary on my behalf and kept asking what happens if I send tea to someone and don’t get anything in return or what happens if I get sent drugs. I responded by saying I was giving the tea away anyways so at least this was an opportunity to get something in return and as for the drugs, those are more expensive than tea so I could sell the drugs and buy more tea. haha. It is funny that they were so worried because since the day I joined, everyone has been so amazingly kind and generous. So many of you wonderful steepsters (steepsterites? steepsterers?) have opened my eyes to many new companies and teas. You have all shared so much with me and have made it a pleasure to sign on each day and see what is happening!

Once upon a time, Harney’s website actually had links to the Steepster pages for their teas. Harney was the tea company that really got me into tea, and I was looking at teas on their site and decided to read some reviews. Then my desire to keep track of how I felt about certain teas, as well as steeping times/temps that worked and those that didn’t, led me to join and start logging and rating. The rest is history!

Found it by idly surfing; stayed here because of the kind, creative, eclectic personalities that share a love of all teas great and common. These days, I’m discovering more tea-ists in my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances, but at the time—what, four years ago already? Five? nobody else got it.

As a postscript, I appreciate my fellow Steepies because the conversations are consistently courteous, frequently humorous, and rarely degenerate into ugliness, snipy-ness, or inappropriateness.

I was never particularly exploratory about teas before I joined Steepster. I started with bagged greens, usually lipton (even after all the fancy greens I’ve tried since, I don’t think it’s bad for a bagged green tea!). Once I purchased a silk-sachet green, I was so ecstatic about the tiny, but unbroken leaves in the bag, my family probably thought I was crazy. I got my mom to start drinking the green sachets too. I wanted to share my new love with the world! But besides my mother, my immediate surroundings were not receptive to my joy.

With my new love for whole leaves, I decided to step into the world of loose tea, still thinking I’d buy one or two greens and be a happy camper. I can’t remember exactly how I found Steepster, but I’m pretty sure it was while searching for info on tea-wares (not tea). Once I got here, the damage was almost immediate. I was trying out new flavors left and right. (^.^)

I wanted to try some David’s Tea and, because I live in a remote community, all my shopping for stuff like that has to be done online. Being so new to tea I was really overwhelmed by all my options and looking for a way to narrow down my options. I used Steepster initially to try and identify teas I might like. I still run most teas through here before I purchase them online, just to see what people have said about them!

Thanks for sharing all your stories (so far)! I love that we all found this site through so many different ways. :)

I have been reviewing teas for a few years now, first with another tea review blog and now with SororiTea Sisters, and I found this site through the previous reviewing blog that I reviewed for. Someone had gone to the forums there and suggested visiting Steepster so I did. It took me a few months to finally really get in to it, though … I’m kind of like that, I guess.

Anyway, I love Steepster! If it wasn’t for Steepster, there probably wouldn’t be a SororiTea Sisters because it was through Steepster that I started chatting with TeaEqualsBliss and we decided to start up our own blog because of our discontent with the inactivity at the other review blog that we were writing for.

I enjoy being in touch with so many other tea lovers! I call Steepster the facebook for tea drinkers!