Wednesday, April 5, 2017

MattCha: Can A Modest Ol' Tea Blog Make A Comeback?

I think so... I mean. I am still am passionate about tea!

Or is blogging a dying art?  Maybe not the best way to communicate to the tea world, maybe not as relevant as the powerful tea blog once was?

I think all of us tea bloggers out there discovered something about blogging, it is actually very time consuming!  I think that's why it is such a nice platform to communicate about tea- it's (relatively speaking) slower than other online methods.  It's a process. It takes time.

So is a good gong fu session...

I think us old school tea bloggers that once had lots of time in our 20s/early 30s to passionately pour our time into teaism, have lost that time to significant others, kids of our own, and demanding careers. There is only a certain amount of time in a day and surely those mentioned above are worthy of it!

It doesn't mean that we are still not passionate about drinking tea, I think we still are.... but we may have less time to really bask in a good tea session.  No matter what's in a day, my tea session is a moment of peace, a pause, some space in my day.  No matter how short it is, or cramped in between patients, or with my daughter tugging at my pant legs, it still brings me back into the moment.

I think others, too will come back to tea blogging as well.  It's like a middle age tea blogging crisis!

I read BearsBears blog a few months back and it kind of sums it up this feeling.

Peace

14 comments:

TeaMasters said...

Welcome back! You were missed!

Matt said...

Thanks Stephane! You are one of the hardcores that just kept on blogging. I respect that.

Anonymous said...

I would be glad to read.your articles again

Nim said...

I'm still following your blog. Tea blogs are like tea: you can never get enough of the good stuff ;-)

Nicole Wilson said...

Welcome back! The wonderful thing about blogging is that it can be on your terms. When I first started I was gung-ho, posting seven days a week. Eight years later I'm down to two days a week, one of which is really more link curation than writing. My readers are still with me and I'm sure that yours will be too.

Matt said...

Anonymous,

I think there are many anonymous readers out there... I am an anonymous reader.

Nim,
You are correct about that... I still have my favorite teas and tea blogs.

Nicole Martin,

Wow! I always considered you more of a "new school" or "evolved" tea blogger. The way the young kids use a borage of social media platforms and, as you said above, mainly link curation and less actual original writing. Very smart but I don't think it's authentic to me or this blog.

Thanks for the encouragement!

A Student Of Tea said...

During the time of dormancy of your blog I often thought of it, and sometimes re-read articles I found important.
As much as I understand and resonate with what you are saying about less time ... (I am certainly one who has a hard time with this theme) ... - I still would appreciate so much your continuing. Your voice and what you had to say were always unique to me in the online tea world.
It is probably about blogging at a lesser frequency and setting priorities (in terms of what to say). I personally appreciated most what you wrote about things like tea and harmonizing with the seasons etc. I do not see a lot of people online who are adept in tea knowledge AND Traditional Cininese Medicine. What I have read from TCM people about tea seemed mostly very crude to me, and tea people rarely have a deeper understanding of TCM.
However you wish to continue or not continue - thanks for all time and effort you have put into blogging!
- Martin

Matt said...

Martin,

Thanks Martin. I also appreciate the commentary that you have enriched this blog with over the years.

Very kind words.

It is because I am a practitioner of Classical Chinese Medicine (not just Traditional Chinese Medicine). TCM is standardized in China but Classic is from a lineage outside the mainstream education. I think you must have picked up on this through the blog even though I never mentioned it.

Maybe I should include more posts about this?

Peace

Rebekah said...

It's very good to see you back; this will be an excuse to re-read your old posts, too. Ongoing thanks!

Matt said...

Rebekah!

Oh it brings me great happiness that you are back reading and commenting again. Many thanks for all you have added to the discussion over the years.

Peace

miig said...

Welcome back! When I got into tea, your blog was dormant, but I read a lot of your articles. I'm looking forward a lot to your new ones, which I can now read in real time :)

Best wishes

LTPR said...

Great to read your notes again, Mattcha! Funny -- I recently started up my old blog again, as well, even before I knew you (and some others) were back. Middle-aged blogging - haha! I can relate :)

Matt said...

LTPR,

Just like good friends used to do back when we were children on land line phones- I think we just posted on each others sites at the exact same time! Good thing there wasn't a busy signal- haha.

Looking forward to reading your blog again- it was one of my favorites before my absence.

Peace

Matt said...

miig,

Thanks for appreciating the content of the blog and for coming by. I hope you can also contribute to the energy of MattCha's Blog.

Peace