11 years, 5 months ago-
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I’ve been a fan of the Long Now Foundation for several years now. I discovered it after reading Neal Stephenson’s epic novel Anathem. Long Now is about long term thinking. The foundation inspires debate and conversation to get as much long term thinking as we can into manufacturing, government, business, art, literature and pretty much every other human endeavor. One of their key projects is to design, build and install a large clock inside of a mountain using materials and design that will last 10,000 years (yes, this is a real project that is currently under way). The design of the clock is so that it should outlast current civilization and when rediscovered thousands of years from now, the principles to rebuild, maintain, and understand the clock can be worked out intelligently by the discoverers. The Anathem novel fictionalizes one such installation in a way that only Neal Stephenson can do.
Needless to say, I was thrilled when I received an email from someone in the foundation to report that they are getting into tea!
Long Now is in the process of building out a salon in San Fransisco (think the intelligentsi salons of Paris and Europe from 100 years ago). In order to fund the salon, they are selling club memberships for the salon itself. To Long Now members, the salon will be open 24 hours a day and by donating to the build-out of the salon you can reserve yourself a selection of special Pu-erh tea from 1989 hand-selected by Jesse Jacobs from Samovar Tea. Long Now will store your tea on-site and the salon staff will serve it to you whenever you visit – even if the next time you visit San Fransisco is next year, or ten years from now.
The Tea Club costs $1,500 – there is also a whiskey club following the same principles which will set you back $25,000.
Here is a short video about the salon itself:
And here is a video with Jesse Jacobs talking about the Pu-erh tea he selected for them.
The Long Now Foundation is a fantastic organization that brings together some of the most intelligent people of our time and gets them thinking and talking about the future in a way that is more than just fantasy and involves practical and durable thought and action.
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@Very interesting concept of keeping member’s Pu-erh on site. Pu-erh is indeed the only kind that will last and it is served as a bond to the members across space and time.
The concept echoes with what Long Now stands for 🙂
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@chbenchen – yes, I agree – it is certainly a wonderful compliment to the whole system and pulls it all together in a rather unconventional way. I’ve read the Neal Stephenson, who is one of the founding visionaries for Long Now, is something of a tea fan himself. In fact, some of his novels have detailed descriptions of the characters enjoying tea either ceremonially or even casually, but there is always a well-researched element to it since Stephenson often uses specific descriptions and names of teas that are meaningful to devoted tea lovers.
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@@Peter – no wonder they always say that tea is one of those that has a special way of connecting one another, from the production to the enjoyment of tea itself
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