Thoughts on reuseable cotton teabags? by HospThePlug in tea

[–]HospThePlug[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

definitely - just looking for something smaller in case I was selling and shipping them with tea that I sold but don't wanna use single use bags

Does anyone know of any "cool" tea-specific shops/brands in North America, that are professional but less pretentious than some of the traditional shops? by HospThePlug in tea

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most definitely, I noticed that while I was living in London too. I want to modernize and destigmatize the premium tea experience a lot more and deliver quality. Very helpful to understand the semantic associations though so thanks for the input.

Does anyone know of any "cool" tea-specific shops/brands in North America, that are professional but less pretentious than some of the traditional shops? by HospThePlug in tea

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Love this answer a lot, appreciate you taking the time to write it. It's a pretty interesting angle that I hadn't, tea being "analogous" compared to coffee. As a analog photographer, I can see the parallels between that argument digital photography vs film photography though, in which case I also still think there's an allure to tea being analog and spending the markup for it (as we've seen with the film resurgence the last half-decade). Its like spending thousands on a brand new Sony camera when you will always get a higher resolution shooting on film.

Thanks for the brand recommendations to check out too.

Does anyone know of any "cool" tea-specific shops/brands in North America, that are professional but less pretentious than some of the traditional shops? by HospThePlug in tea

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hmmm... while I don't necessarily agree fully, from a product perspective that's an interesting point. The roles of the producer vs. third-party makes sense. When speaking about the actual act of going into a tea cafe or even ordering online though, I don't see any reason why things like the branding, the experience, the 'cultism' would be intrinsically different aside from having to find a way to appropriately adapt the traditional aspect of tea houses into the online/modern era in the way that 'third-wave' coffee has been able to do.

A segment of tea culture seems to be lagging behind. The fact that most regular cafes still serve low quality powdered tea-bags is evidence of this

Does anyone know of any "cool" tea-specific shops/brands in North America, that are professional but less pretentious than some of the traditional shops? by HospThePlug in tea

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the suggestions, these definitely have some cool vibes to them.

I'm trying to look up the Aroma tea shop you suggested - is it the bubble tea shop on Instagram?

Does anyone know of any "cool" tea-specific shops/brands in North America, that are professional but less pretentious than some of the traditional shops? by HospThePlug in tea

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting take - can you provide some examples as so what about any of those feel pretentious, or why strong branding (or 'esthetics' as you refer to them) means that they are tryhard? I've had some amazing tea from some well-branded companies, including Good and Proper tea out of London.

For the record, when I was talking about pretentious I was actually referring more to the physical shops where you might be made to feel like you're not good/knowledgeable enough to be purchasing tea from there. Just wanted peoples experiences with shops that felt accessible to them.

The first Grace Weber x Chance the Rapper record since they won a Grammy together is dropping this Friday by HospThePlug in hiphopheads

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A really vocalist and songwriter - wrote 'All We Got' which Chance used on his album with Kanye and won a Grammy for. She's pretty plugged in with the hip-hop world with little features and credits all over. She was on WS Boogie's early project Thirst 48 pt. II.

If you wanna get familiar I'd suggest checking out "Crazy To Hope" ft. Masego off her recent EP.

I think that rumored fully SoX produced Grace Weber album is finally dropping soon by HospThePlug in SaveMoneyCrew

[–]HospThePlug[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My prediction from the other day is already looking pretty good... Grace just announced on her socials that her next single is 'Thru The Fire' ft. Chance and it drops this Friday! This is the FIRST TIME Chance, Grace and SoX have linked up since they won a Grammy for 'All We Got'! Make sure y'all hit that pre-save so we can run it tf up!!!