Ask The Oolong Drunk - Starting a Tea Blog
Hello hello!
Welcome to the first edition of ‘Ask The Oolong Drunk’ where I’ve been taking your questions that will be answered on here. Thank you for the positive response to this idea, and thank you for all of those who submitted questions. Although I’m only answering a few this time, this series will be continual so keep the questions coming!
Do you have any advice on starting a tea blog? - Ryan
Long story short, I started ‘theoolongdrunk.com' as a passion project which I used to help expand my knowledge of tea. Over a year later, there’s still so much to lean. Even after all of this time, it still feels like I’ve only scratched the surface when it comes to the world of tea. With that being said, there’s a lot of small things here and there thats best learned by personal experience (mainly because your experience with blogging will be different compared to mine). However, there’s one thing that no one really tells you when you get into tea blogging, but seems to be universally known by veteran bloggers.
When starting a blog about a very distinct sector of the food/beverage industry, the more specific the topic, the smaller of an audience you’ll reach. Tea is a very specific drink, and even with that, not all tea drinkers are passionate about the drink to want to read about it, much less make a hobby out of it (same goes to chocolate blogs, wine blogs, bread blogs, etc.). So when starting out on your blog, you’re not going to see too much turnover on readership right off the bat. Because of this, I’ve seen many people start tea blogs and stop them after around six months, because they’re not seeing the amount of traffic that they originally expected.
There are veteran tea bloggers who have been around for nearly a decade, and they have larger followings than people who are just starting out (or tea drunks who are barely a year and a half). However, compared to other bloggers that have a wider range of content to cover, they’re still not raking in thousands and thousands of page visitors a day. I don't think this is an issue or anything, but my advice to you is to start out having fun with your blog and make sure you’re the one benefiting from it. Even one new page visitor could fall in love with your blog, and just knowing that there’s at least one person who connected to you through your work makes it all worth while. Plus, the bitches man.
What is your favorite tea? - Tea Drinker
My unofficial official mantra is, “Oolong is my passion while puer is my obsession.” I started drinking tea with a immense love for oolong (Taiwanese oolongs and green oolongs to be specific), but later fell in love with puer. With puer tea, I’m more of a fan of sheng than shou, but both find their way into my system several times a day. Beyond oolong and puer, I don’t have a specific favorites for each, mainly because my favorites change quicker than a ten year old boy with ADHD who just drowned an energy drink.
-The Oolong Drunk
“Blissfully Tea Drunk"
