How snobbish is the tea community?

Recently I saw someone mention that the tea community was the most snobbish community on twitter. This post is not about who said what, but about how you feel about the comment.
Is this true? Do you agree? Have you had experiences where you’ve felt left out, and excluded by a group of tea drinkers? If so, how did you deal with this? Were you able to work things out? Do you feel things have changed for the better for you now?
Or,  no on the contrary the tea community has been a wonderful experience, where you’ve met lovely friends who you now swap stories and tea with?
I’m just curious – as always yours,
J.

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  jackieQuote

For me the tea community has been a very wonderful and welcoming place. Has it also been a not so great experience? Sure, but that’s the way the tea leaf steeps sometimes isn’t it?

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  Courtney PowersQuote

OK… maybe I’m a bit out of the loop here because I don’t spend a lot of time in the forums here.  Maybe it is more snobbish and dramatic than I realize.  I don’t know.  But, I would have to disagree that tea drinkers are snobbier than say… a religious type community or worse yet, a political community.  In the interest in playing nice and keeping some anonymity from my former trolling tendencies (it might surprise you to know that I have not always been the mild mannered tea reviewer that I am now), I shall not name names… but I will just say that I find the tea community is much nicer than the other places I’ve been.  Heck… there was more snobbery exhibited in a hard rock forum that I used to frequent than on Steepster. 

Then again, it could be that I found my snobby niche. 

 

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  liberteasQuote

Hmm, I’d be interested to know who said that. I don’t consider that the tea community I’m part of on twitter is snobbish in general, and I have made some lovely friends who I would never have had the chance to meet otherwise, which is terrific. 

That said I think in every community of ‘X’ lovers – whether it’s tea, coffee, films, books, whatever we happen to be talking about – there are always going to be snobbish people who are all about the ‘if you don’t do things THIS way then you’re not one of us’, and also people being people some are just unpleasant or rub you up the wrong way or say offensive things. Te GOOD 

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  Verity FisherQuote

Darn it! iPad keyboard stuffed up again. What I was going to say was, the good thing about twitter is it’s a ‘choose your own’, and so far as I’m concerned if someone is offensive/snobbish/not my cup of tea (ha!) then I will just unfollow them. I’ve done this a few times – it helps to keep my twitter stream more manageable anyway – and am not the least fussed if someone unfollows me… 

But back to the topic in hand, I’d be interested to hear from @jackie a bit more about the context of the remarks about how snobbish the tea community is, not necessarily who said it (although I can’t help being curious) but what sparked them to say so…

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  Verity FisherQuote

I think the comment being discussed was given a bit too much credence.  The context seemed to be more of a knee-jerk reaction to a series of bad business decisions on their part than as something the tea community should take to heart. 

Just as @verity and @liberteas have mentioned, it’s no different than any other kind of community.  There are the enthusiasts, the marketers, the people who make a living from it – all coming together at different places and each having their own expectations of how things “should” be and why they each show up.  For the most part, I think we all understand those differences and tolerate the widely-varied approaches we all bring to the kettle. 

I’ve seen it play out in other genres – a former fiance decided one day to quit his well-paid programming job and monetize his video game blog.  He manages the social media and mechanics of it well, but didn’t account for having to live at the whim of the public.  Just traded one set of stressors for a new set of stressors.

This appears to be what happened here.  Someone decided to monetize their tea hobby, didn’t do enough initial research or expected that it would all fall neatly into place, and got some bad-but-fair reviews. Is that the tea community’s fault?   I don’t think it is.  Are we all shiny, happy, inclusive, uber-knowledgable gurus?  No.  But I think the majority of us are fair-minded, tolerant, and welcoming of people who are also fair-minded and tolerant.

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  LatteTeaDahQuote

After learning a little bit more about the individual who made the comment, I would have to say that no, we (the tea community) aren’t the most snobbish community on twitter or any other social network.  I would instead say that for the most part, the tea community is comprised of human beings, just like any other community.

Some of those human beings are nice, some might be snobbish.  Some might even be bullies, and then there might be some who are willing to jump in when they are witnessing one of their own community being treated badly by those bullies.  And then… there are those who insist on not only bullying others in the community, but, also behave so abhorrently that they disgust the others in the community … and give that community a bad name as a result.

That’s all I have to say about that.

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  liberteasQuote

I have met many wonderful tea drinkers, so of course I love the community. I agree with @latteteadah‘s comment that the majority are “fair minded and tolerant” welcoming others who are fair minded and tolerant too.
The tea community in my “cup” is largely what you make it. It is a great community to be with, if you contribute to it, and  nurture it, and treat it the way you’d like to be treated too.

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  jackieQuote

Communities are always kind of selective or elitist, just because they say: here I am and I believe/promote this.
From the outside or when you don’t have the same exact mentality, this might feel like those communities are snobbish.

But what really matters is what we make out of it.

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  XavierQuote

I found this thread really interesting, and started writing a reply but it got so big that I published it as a blog post:

Tea Snobbery: At Least I’m Not Like Those Snobby Tea People

In this post I try to define or clarify what snobbery is and what it isn’t, and then I talk about how I get sucked into my own sort of snobbery, looking down on those snobby people.  The whole “thank God I’m so humble” thing…which I struggle with a lot.

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  Alex ZorachQuote