on value

File:“Heavy Metal” Andrzej Karpiński 1994.jpg
Andrzej Karpiński 1994


 

i generally don't recommend going cheap on the hobby. you loose more than just your money. you get bad tea, you might risk your health, you waste your time and you don't really gain any valuable experience nor do you learn anything about what makes tea good.  

the sooner you accept that you have to pay real money for the good stuff, the sooner you will start making progress in my opinion. good tea is never cheap. but beware! that does not mean in reverse that everything that is expensive is also good. western faced vendors do mark up their tea at very high rates sometimes. sometimes you are the end of a long chain of resellers and might not realise it. i've seen markups as high as 1000%. definately do your research!

what helps you accept the fate of an empty wallet is to calculate the price per session. if you are frugal - 4g in an adequate gaiwan can be more than enough for a good time. let's say the tea costs 0,75€/g - and you get good tea at that price already - that is 3€ you did not waste but rather drank slowly and enjoyed for maybe even as long as 2 hours.

and here i mean tea as an activity, not just a drink. if you are just looking for a drink you can find something far below that price that will do the job. 

back to the 3€ however. that is an amount you quite easily spend on a cup of coffee - in some places a good cappucino will definately cost more than that. think about what else you often thoughtlessly spend 3€ on. something which will give you much less than good quality tea.

sure - for some 3€/day is still too expensive. it's okay. drink cheap acceptable stuff during the week and enjoy some good tea on the weekends. it's the good sessions that count and are remembered. 

the alternative is to spend a lot of money for a lot of bad tea. you buy 400g for 10€ at this shop and 200g for 5€ on the other shop - before you know it you have a lot of tea that is just not drunk. you might even enjoy it in the beginning - but you never learn what tea actually has to offer. you get bored with your own collection very soon and start looking for something new and different - just something that catches your attention, something you'd rather have than your own cheap and boring teas. good tea is never cheap. there are cheap teas however that are not total failures. secure a reasonable amount of those to be able to afford the really good sessions.

another tip: sometimes you can learn more from 1x100g quality tea than from 10x10g. to really get to know and understand a tea you need more than just a first impression. quality over quantity also should be applied to that aspect. tea can fluctuate and vary quite a bit. observing those changes can be quite educating.

there can be a lot of value gained from good tea. you just need to loose a bit of money for it.



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Image: Fotoart2014, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

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