I have a confession.
I don’t think every tea lover needs to love every tea.
That sounds obvious when written down, but spend enough time around tea enthusiasts and you may start to think otherwise.
Someone discovers that you enjoy tea.
The questions begin.
Do you drink green tea?
What about pu-erh?
Have you tried aged white tea?
Sometimes it feels as though tea appreciation comes with an invisible checklist. The more teas you enjoy, the more qualified you become to call yourself a tea lover.
But I’ve never been convinced that’s how it works.
After all, we don’t apply this logic to most other things. Nobody expects a music lover to enjoy every genre of music. Nobody questions whether someone loves books because they dislike a particular author.
Yet tea seems different.
For some reason, people feel strangely guilty admitting they dislike certain teas.
Matcha might be the best example.
Its popularity has exploded in recent years. Walk into almost any café and you’ll find matcha somewhere on the menu. Social media treats it as the unofficial symbol of modern tea culture.
And yet plenty of tea drinkers simply don’t enjoy it.
The earthy flavour can be intense. The texture can feel unusual. Some people never develop a taste for it no matter how many times they try.
And that’s perfectly reasonable.
The same is true for pu-erh. Or heavily roasted oolongs. Or delicate white teas.
Liking tea and liking every tea are not the same thing.
In fact, personal preference is probably what makes tea culture interesting in the first place.
Ask ten tea drinkers about their favourite tea and you’ll likely receive ten different answers. Those differences are not evidence that someone understands tea less than another person.
They are evidence that taste is personal.
Perhaps tea culture would feel more welcoming if we talked about preferences more openly.
Not every tea needs to become your favourite.
Not every famous tea needs to impress you.
And not every tea trend needs to win you over.
Sometimes being a tea lover simply means continuing to search for the teas that feel right to you.
Even if everyone else seems to prefer something different.
— Maria Tan
On tea, culture, and everyday rituals.
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Milk Tea Isn’t “Ruining” Tea—But Some Milk Tea Is Ruining Milk Tea
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Silk Tea Bar Review: A Quiet Climb Worth Making on Sago Street
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“Artisan” Doesn’t Mean Ethical: The Supply Chain Questions We Avoid
I have always been drawn to the word “artisan.” Maybe because it creates a certain image in my mind. Someone carefully working with their hands. Someone who knows their craft deeply. Someone preserving a tradition that has existed long before the rest of us discovered it. When I see “artisan tea” on a label, I…
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A Quiet Afternoon at A Beautiful Day Café
The rain had just started when I stepped in off Paya Lebar Road. Not heavy. Just enough to soften the light and slow everyone down. Inside, someone was pouring tea, and the sound of it carried further than it should have. A small room can do that. It can make a pour feel like a…
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The Problem With “Single-Origin” Tea Obsession
There was a time when knowing where a tea came from was enough. Now, it sometimes feels as though we need to know everything. The mountain. The village. The garden. The harvest date. The particular plot where the leaves were grown. Single-origin tea has become a mark of quality in modern tea culture. The idea…
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Where Singapore’s Tea Traditions Still Steep: Pek Sin Choon
The first thing I noticed was the smell. Not perfume, not incense. Something warmer and older than both. Roasted tea leaves, drifting out onto Mosque Street before I even reached the door. It’s the kind of smell that makes you slow your steps without knowing why. Pek Sin Choon has been on this corner of…
