What Brought You To Steepster?

Reading through all the posts, I found myself at steepster though Davids Tea as well! I’m fairly new to loose leaf tea, and found myself obsessed with David’s around Spring 2013, and now that I have more free time, I can finally post all my tea logs!
I’m really excited I found this website it lets me know I’m not the only person that is obsessed with tea! Also to view different companies, and different times of tea!

PS hello Steepster! :)

I never dabbled with tea much besides standard tea bags. When I moved into my apartment I bought a bunch of kitchen stuff second hand off of Craigslist. There was a glass teapot with an infuser. A few months later, I stumbled into a tea shop in SF and bought a tin of loose tea on a whim, remembering I did have a pot to make it in. I enjoyed the tea and the process and decided to learn more about tea and thought my search, I found Steepster. It has been an enjoyable place to cruise during breaks at work and has taught me a lot!

I’ve never been a tea drinker, but in looking for a no sugar/sweetener, no carbs hot chocolate substitute this fall I wandered into Teavana. I really enjoyed the sample (but was not prepared for those prices!), so I bought 2 oz. and decided to look it up online for more info/sources/recommendations. I Googled “Teavana White Chocolate Peppermint” and Steepster was #3 and #4 in the results. I lurked here for a few days before I joined, reading about all these tea companies I’d never heard of, different steeping methods, and so many varieties of tea!

I have to second gmathis’ comment — though I’m new to Steepster, from what I’ve seen and experienced it’s a community full of very kind, generous, and funny people. Glad I stumbled into this wonderful world!

Funny, I was also brought in by Davids! I was on their site, and a link brought me here. I lurked around, and then took the plunge. Couldn’t be happier than I did. I’ve discovered all sorts of new teas, and made such great friends!

I was brought to Steepster by a kindly woman in a tiny Chinese restaurant in a small town in Pennsylvania. Well, in a roundabout way.

A few months ago I stopped for dinner in a place so small it only had one table, although it did a booming takeout business. I sat down for dinner and asked for hot tea, but there was none on the menu. The owner paused for a moment then exclaimed that she had just received her personal order of tea from China. She held up the disc wrapped in paper, ran her fingers under the Chinese characters and said with a bright smile “See? Pu-Erh!” Not wanting to point out that I could not read Chinese, I simply smiled and nodded enthusiastically. I was touched that she would be so eager to share something that obviously meant a lot to her with a complete stranger.

She brought out what I later found out was a portable Gong Fu maker where you press the button to dump the tea into the outer vessel. The tea was dark, earthy and absolutely wonderful! She kept bringing out hot water and I steeped and drank it until, between the tea and dinner, I was completely stuffed.

I browsed several tea forums while researching this tea, but Steepster seemed to have the most patient, kind and giving group of people. So after only a few days of lurking I signed up. That was a whole week ago!

mrmopar has been kind enough to offer tips on whom I should follow to further my knowledge of Pu-Erh, and I look forward to sharing with more of you.

I was searching for good tea canisters at a decent price and one of the posts I was reading had a link to Steepster. That was last night. After reading a couple of discussions, I joined.

It was a happy accident. I was probably looking for tea reviews at the time.

There might have been a little Divine Intervention going on, too, for all I know.

Whatever or however, though, I’m glad I landed here. These are perhaps the kindest folks on the web I’ve ever landed amongst. I find it a great spot to unwind, and read here every day, even though I don’t post a lot.

I was searching online for Kenyan teas and found a link to this. What a great idea this is!

I started drinking loose leaf tea a few months ago. It started because I had to quit coffee for my sanity’s sake, and needed a softer source of caffeine. I started with Twinings loose leaf and a cheap steeping ball, and was dismayed at the amount of tea particulate ended up in my tea (the Twinings was practically fannings and the tea ball wasn’t great either).

I quickly branched out with a stop at the local Teavana. Decent tea, but I was disappointed in the price for a couple of teas I was interested in. Asked a tea-drinking colleague what he drank and got turned on to The Tea Spot. I’ve been drinking almost exclusively Tea Spot teas since.

While I am incredibly pleased with The Tea Spot I was getting an inkling there is more out there. In a quick google or bing search I found a tea site (can’t remember which, but it is not Davids…) that linked to Steepster. I immediately signed up for an account and rated a couple of The Tea Spot teas I’ve been sipping (gulping is a better verb at the rate I’m drinking…).

Now, only two days after joining, here I am. I have found enough online tea vendors to make my head spin. I have two orders that will be coming my way soon, one from Teavivre and one from Butiki. And it is taking an inordinate amount of will power to keep from ordering more before those shipments even get here.

I’m in the habit of beta:ing everything that looks even remotely interesting. I found steepster here in 2009: http://momb.socio-kybernetics.net/beta/steepster

The site wasn’t very useful to me back then, but I remembered it when I got into drinking vast amounts of various teas and felt a sudden urge to organize it all somehow. I couldn’t figure out my old login deets, so I started a new account and was instantly awed by how much progress the site had made since ’09.