The BEST Tea Experience I've Had in the Past 10 Years

Hello hello!! 

Over the past decade, I’ve had many incredible experiences in the tea industry. While I could narrow down the ‘worst’ moment I’ve had in my career, I couldn’t really narrow down a singular moment that really defined my journey. Truth be told, the good definitely outweighed the bad so much that I struggled heavily with writing this post. However, given that I can’t be decisive, I decided to go with my first core memory in tea — the core memory that changed the course of my journey forever…

(Photo: Me, teaching my very first class at the 2018 Houston Tea Expo. Photo by Jordan, aka Tea_Tohraphy)

Back in January 2018, Houston held its second-annual tea festival! While the festival is no longer in operation (and whileI think this was the final one), a friend named Jordan and I drove down to Houston. At the time, Jordan was a rising star in tea and was also known as Tea_tography, and at the time, we both had never been to a tea festival before. However, for the festival, I was slated to give my very first presentation at a tea event. My class was about the introduction to puer tea. Although at this point in my career, I only primarily reviewed tea. I wasn’t sure where I was going, and for the first time ever, my fun hobby turned into something more. 

On the drive down, Jordan and I listened to Taylor Swift’s new album ‘Reputation’ (and the drive that made me a Taylor fan), stopped at a Buc-ee’s, and sat in Houston traffic. While the road trip wasn’t necessarily the most glamorous, Jordan and I eventually made it to Houston. 

For both of us, we had both made this trip too many times to count. Jordan’s mom lived in Houston, and for me, my parents had family/friends in Houston, and we’d drive down at least several times a year. Although Houston is another world away from Dallas, it still felt like home. So now I get to drink tea with a new tea friend, at a tea festival at my home-away-from-home? 

What more could I ask for?

We both arrived in Houston later in the day, and pulled over at Tin Yin Tea and Herbs — a Houston tea shop in Houston’s Asia Town. We both had gong-fu tea, took tea photos, then went our separate ways until the next morning at the start of the festival. 

The next morning, I woke up and headed down to the tea festival. Jordan met me at the conference hall, and we toured the entire festival in thirty minutes. It's safe to say, it was relatively small. We also went to one of the other showrooms to vote on a chai for a chai competition. I remember voting for a blue chai, and remember thinking that I could actually become a fan of chai teas due to this competition. 

After meandering around, we then stopped to see a lecture from an ex-Starbucks employee who gave a presentation on how Starbucks is slowly taking down the tea industry. This was the most-talked about and most anticipated presentation for the entire conference. So Jordan and I made our way to the classroom to find it filled to the brim, and although we were just a few minutes late, we somehow managed to find a place other than standing at the very back of the room.

Jordan and I watched as the presenter sat in a chair at the front of the room. While anticipating some sort of truth bomb about Starbucks, his rambles continued on as he said, “Starbucks just sucks. Working there was toxic, and it just sucks. Believe me, it sucks.” 

After listening to a disgruntled ex-part-time employee nonsensically vent about Starbucks, Jordan, and I realized that the big ‘truth bomb’ was never going to come. In fact, we quickly realized that this gentleman was the problem as to why his working environment was so toxic. We both cringed as we quietly got up and left the bitch-fest. 

Jordan and I did the entire expo. It was early in the morning, and I didn’t start my class until 4:00 pm that day. If I remember correctly, I was the last teacher to present my lesson. So what were we to do for 7 hours? 

The hotel where the convention was being held was actually across the street from NASA. So Jordan and I left the convention, drove across the street, and did a tour of the Houston NASA facility. 

About 6 hours later, and after getting to touch moon rocks, Jordan and I stopped at a Jimmy John's and headed back to the convention. I went to my classroom, set up my presentation, and waited. Only 4 people showed up to my presentation. Despite my lack of audience size, I was still very happy with the four who showed up. A part of me wondered if no one stuck around and ditched the classes due to being afraid of sitting through another bitch-fest. 

After breezing through my hour-long presentation in twenty minutes, I asked if there were any audience questions. I quietly and awkwardly made eye contact with all four people, who all blankly stared back at me. I faked a smile before dismissing the class. Jordan and I hugged as we parted ways for the remainder of the trip. 

The next morning, before driving back home, I decided to browse the expo hall one last time. While touring the expo hall, I stopped at several more booths to taste a few teas I had missed the day before. Then, something caught my eye. 

Yaupon tea.

Yes. 

Growing up in Texas, we grew Yaupon bushes as a hedge line between us and the neighbours. They grew beautiful cherry-red berries and stayed green all year. However, this was the very first time in my adult life that I learned that you could drink Yaupon tea, or that the leaves were safe for human consumption. 

While sipping one of the samples, a black man and his girl came up to the booth to try the tea as well. The gentleman had baggy blue jean shorts, a big tattered football jersey, a massive gold chain with silver teeth, and face tattoos. He was asking the booth vendor, who was Hispanic, questions about the tea. Then, this conversation caught the attention of a white woman who looked like she had come shopping from the Beverley Center. She had lip fillers, a handbag that was worth more than my yearly income, and talked with a Topanga Valley accent. She asked the gentleman for a sample and drank it with us. Then there I was, an overweight gay kid from Dallas. I then looked around at the four of us trying this tea, and talking about this tea with each other, and had the realization that changed my career forever:

There is nowhere else in the world where the four of us with our vastly different ethnic, minority, and financial backgrounds could ever come together to have a conversation with each other as if we were one.

It was over a cup of tea. 

That afternoon, when driving back to Fort Worth from Houston, I couldn’t stop thinking about how all of us at this convention, whether a vendor, a lecturer, or a guest, all live life very differently from each other. Somehow, we all came together to form this community over something as simple as hot-leaf water.

On that drive home, I changed my mind about what I wanted for my tea blog and where I wanted to go. 

Before this point, my tea blog was just a fun hobby. But now? Now, after seeing how it can bring people together? 

I knew from that moment on that I was to take my blog more seriously, partake in more tea events, and have tea with as many people as possible. 

That’s the day that my career in tea launched, and in that moment, I knew I had a lot to look forward to (except for world tea expo… I kid, sort of. Ok but as a gay man I can tell you that we LOVE our grudges. We collect them, polish them, and display them like nicknacks in a curio).

With much love and respect to the greater tea community,

~Cody 

aka The Oolong Drunk 

“Blissfully Tea Drunk”

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