Category: Tea Rambles

Networking (and the Vancouver Tea Festival)

Or as I’m going to call it, “networking” fingerquote end fingerquote.

To start, the industry I’m in (or rather, the industry I’m trying to break in to) requires networking. Most industries do, really, and on a scale of dependence out of ten, geology’s more like a four. In Canada, your end goal is to become a P.Geo, or Professional Geologist, a registration designated by APEG, or APG, or a variation of that sort of which depends on the province you’re practicing in. It’s (usually) the same association that deals with registering engineers (they like to lump us together, and that’s the case on the west coast), though geoscience isn’t treated as strictly (you can’t get paid as a “geologist” but you can still technically ‘do geology’ unregistered). So you need a degree in geology, and that degree needs to adhere to APEG’s syllabus, and on top of that, the syllabus requires additional courses, and then you need four years of work experience. Continue reading

Christmas Joy

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I’d just gotten off an eight hour shift, and I still had to drop off an item at the library. After that, it was either wait twenty minutes in the dark in November for another bus, or take the ten-ish minute trek up the hill, home. I decided to stop off at Starbucks to get something to warm my hands. Not caffeinated, I had class in the morning. I figured a hot chocolate would do.

It was busy, but I did a double-take when I spotted a familiar name and colour, but unfamiliar package on the display of Christmas goodies. Continue reading

Ode to a Mystery Tea

You were a mystery, given to me by a transient gamer friend who, chances are, I will never see again. I never knew your season, year, or even factory, but you were smooth and sweet, free of pile smell, almost a little caramelized and earthy. Easy-brewing and comfortable, even sweeter and thicker in a mug or a pot than a gaiwan.

But you’re gone now, and I can only hope I one-day find a tea half as comforting.

What Would We Do

SpontaneiTea’s recent (well, not-so-recent by the time I actually post this) post on the oversights of Bigelow’s new website got me thinking. And it only got worse (the thinking) when I clicked through to his guide to the Best Practices for Tea Company Websites. I live in an area blessed by a thriving (well, maybe less so now as we usher in the era of DavidsTea) industry of independent tea shops. Not as dense as some places, I’m sure, but there’s a lot within the radius of public transit that I have access to. At any rate, my question, followed by my experiences.

What would we do for our favourite tea companies?

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This Just In: More Tea

Two posts? From me? Huh, that’s… something, I suppose.

After spending a day cramming for midterms, I returned home to find that I’d received two envelopes. One of tea, one containing my PAL (That’s the Canadian equivalent to a firearms license, for the yanks). I’ve been collecting licenses as of late. Well, all relevant to my field, of course. On top of my PAL, I received my level 1 portable XRF operator’s license, and so with the ability to legally handle any non-prohibited firearm in Canada, as well as shoot a gun that literally fires xrays at things, I think I’m well on my way to a life of crime and super villainy.

At any rate, on to the tea. Continue reading

No Second Annual Vancouver Tea Festival

I’ve got half a post typed up in another window, and am penning another post on paper as I read the 1960’s handbook, “Tea Growing” by C.R. Harler. But instead of working on either of those, here’s a general post of updates instead.

Green Terrace Teas made a post on Steepster about offering free samples for review; I haven’t received mine yet, but we’ll see how that goes. I’ve noticed that someone (most likely from the country) has gone through and rated all their teas at 100 without posting a review. Usually Steepster is quick to jump on this and point it out, but it doesn’t look like anyone has noticed it yet; I’m not upset, as most new companies posting on Steepster don’t realize this is considered ‘taboo’ until users speak up. We’ll see.

Otherwise, I made a trip down to the Chinese Tea Shop and then O5, where at the latter I ended up staying way longer than I meant to talking with one of the employees. But that’s one way to spend an afternoon. I like the comradery of the Independent Tea Shop Industry (TM?) of Vancouver; my CTS bag was recognized the moment I stepped into O5, and we ended up discussing puers and dan cong oolongs (as those were what I’d purchased). From there we talked a bit about other tea shops and the tea events around Vancouver, as well as the prominent “tea folk” (he was surprised at how few I’ve met from the Vancouver Tea Society, but I tend to avoid large gatherings; me and conventions don’t mix–in fact, I took the UBC bus to get to O5, knowing full well that I could ride it to UBC where my friends were currently helping host Northwest Fanfest). Continue reading

Murchies: A Follow-Up

Thought I’d just make a quick post to bring to attention this comment, from “David” at Murchies, which clears up a few of the discrepancies I mentioned in my ramble about Murchies. Amusingly, this comment was made about a month ago, but I never got a notification for it, so I only just came across it.

DAVID wrote:

Amazingly thurough post which I enjoyed reading, thanks. To help explain the name confusion regarding John Raith/Raitt Murchie. Raith and Raitt are the same name and are both pronounced the same. Raith is how you spell it for a scottish reader and Raitt is how you spell it for an english reader. If my memory serves John spelt his name “Raith” on his wedding certificate, but his name on the death certificate is “Raitt”. I suspect the Susan which gave you information about a ‘Douglas’ may have gotten confused with a maternal branch of the family in which Douglas was a common name.

Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 11:19 pm

Shadowrun Brings Tealovers Together

I game. This should not be surprising, as I follow most of the trends associated with “geeks”, especially the old fashion type. Recently, my DM (of many years) has started into Shadowrun. This is my first brush with it, and to fill out our group he turned to the internet to gather some players. After many misses, he managed one new player (bringing our party total up to three), since most of our old regulars have since moved away.

During our last gaming session, I learned that our new member is big into tea. We managed to derail the whole game for half an hour discussing it–pausing every so often in an attempt to return to the game, but ultimately failing each time.

Continue reading

Chinatown

Invaded Chinatown yesterday to pick up teas. I went in for unflavoured tuocha and “honey” phoenix dan cong, came out with a bit more.

And also books. But I got those at Chapters downtown, after I’d left Chinatown. Photos under the cut.

Continue reading