Brewing in Steeped Tea's Initiative to Change The World of Tea (Review)

Hello hello!

Steeped Tea is an online app that can guide you on how to make your tea — a project that’s spearheaded by a few fellow-tea addicts in Germany. Along with the app, you’ll also get invited to their online community on Discord, and also offer tea subscription boxes that can be drunk with fellow users of the app.

To learn more about Steeped Tea, they sent me one of their subscription boxes!

When opening the box, I was greeted with three teas that included a Japanese Oolong, a Nepalese Black Tea, and a Long Jin Green Tea! The subscription box also included a QR code to download the app as well as a sticker.

One of the things I noticed was the fact that the teas included in the box were from companies that I have heard of before, but never ordered from.

When joining Steeped’s Discord channel, I was warmly greeted by a few of the app’s users, including Tristan — one of the head developers and owners of Steeped Tea. I poked my head around the channel for a bit, and also introduced myself to everyone there. Afterward, I downloaded their app and browsed around for a bit.

Upon opening the app, I saw a large comprehensive list of different tea types. From there, you can pick the tea you’re drinking and select the parameters of how you’re brewing it. Once finish customizing the tea selection, the bottom of the page will have a ‘start instruction’ button that will guide you through how to brew the best possible version of that tea.

After making a session of tea using the app, I realized that this app did two things — it held your hand and guided you through making a cup of tea, as well as taking the guesswork away. It was simple and easy to use.

I was blown away.

When I finished playing with the app, I went back to the discord to say hello to everyone, but due to mild anxiety and my ability to procrastinate every single thing I do, I just read the current day’s thread before going on reddit to bitch about other people's political views…

Overview:

My initial reaction to the idea of Steeped-Tea was, “Oh look, another tea app.”

However, when using it, I regretted putting it off as long as I had. To add, you could tell when using the app (as well as the discord channel) that accompanied the subscription box, that this was created by somebody who was really passionate about tea. All of my expectations for the app were quickly defied after exploring it.

As far as the subscription box goes (which sits at around $38.00 USD at the current rate of Euro-to-USD conversion), I was pleasantly surprised by the high quality that these teas were. As a tea drinker, it’s easy to stay comfortable within my own bubble. It was great to be pushed outside of my bubble, and be met with amazing teas. As far as the Discord channel goes, I can’t imagine myself using it much. It’s not due to a flaw of the channel itself, it’s more or less because I like to drink tea in my underwear on my couch and browse instagram while being needy to my cats… I don't like change.

As far as the app goes, I couldn’t see myself using it for gong-fu brewing tea… Let’s face it, I’m perfect (haha).

However, as I try to keep expanding on my tastes in tea, especially with how I brew tea, this app will come in handy to help me find a comfortable starting point with teas that I have little-to-no knowledge of. I believe others will find this aspect to be incredibly helpful, and in my opinion, this is where this app strikes gold.

I know that this app was in development for quite a long time, and the passion and hard work really paid off. I think this app is incredible, as well as the work Tristan and the Steeped Team is currently doing. We’re all lucky that we have them to help drive tea forward, and to help the tea community grow.

~The Oolong Drunk

“Blissfully Tea Drunk”