teaspoon wrote:Jing Cha, while I generally agree with your objective insights, in this case I must respectfully disagree. I went back and read the thread that started the whole Suzanne episode (Flavor Help in the Oolong forum for those who don't know or like me can't remember and would have to go searching), because it's been a while and I may have been remembering it wrongly. What I found was somewhat different from your account. Originally, she got appropriate responses from teachatters, and only one that ranged into the realm of being rude. From that first batch of replies, she paid attention only to the rude one and painted the entire board and the company with the same brush, accusing us of being not at all helpful and accusing Adagio of being inferior; all of this she did quite rudely and insultingly. Even after that, some teachatters still tried to be helpful despite those of us who retaliated in kind, but it was too late. The damage was done and the flame war started.
Perhaps we are seeing it differently because we are looking at it from different vantage points, but in summary what I see in that original thread is not an innocent woman being attacked but a group reacting to being universally insulted for the sins of one member. I do agree though that it wasn't pretty.
~tsp
Thank you for respectfully disagreeing, Teaspoon; I appreciate the kind and gracious expression of your view. Of course you do realize that you now have put me in the position where I must respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement!
Really, I don't want to make a big deal about who said what to whom or dredge up any past grievances. I will say my piece as kindly as I can (which is hard because I unfortunately inherited the smart-ass gene) and let it rest.
I do not think Suzanne is the right kind of customer for Adagio. She clearly had a preconceived bias against Adagio teas; I do not think they were "exclusive" enough for her. You know, the kind of person who would rather buy a Hermes handbag than be caught "slumming" with Cole Haan. No matter how good Adagio may be, any tea with the label Adagio would not be up to par for her because she read some mysterious "reviews" about them.
There are people like this in the world. In the past, we called them Tsars and Kings and Queens and Emperors. Today we call them high-maintenance customers. Unfortunately, most customers do not have nor are they willing to spend the small fortunes needed to command the necessary court of experts, advisers, trainers, explorers and traders needed to fully satisfy such lofty yet poorly-defined desires. Sometimes all a customer can afford are Chris and Ilya! (just kidding, guys!)
These positional-good seekers are not the people to whom Adagio intends to cater. Not to say that Adagio would not like and appreciate and cherish their business, only that Adagio seeks out a broad and varied customer base from beginner to expert level. They offer a wide range of teas to indulge a great spectrum of tastes. They allow for you to sample any of their teas at an affordable cost to help you find your favorite without second-mortgaging the manor. They do not claim to offer only the finest, highest grades of tea picked by only the most talented monkeys from the world's most well-known secret forbidden gardens. So far as I can tell, their only claim is for fresh, well-packed, carefully chosen quality tea sold with honor and integrity at a fair and affordable price and delivered to your door in an efficient, dependable manner. On that mark, almost every review out there heralds them a success.
I admire Adagio because one of their top priorities is to introduce people, all kinds of people, to better tea, taking on the immense challenge of wrestling the image of tea in America away from the stale dust-packed teabag (which, even at such a compromised level of convenience, is rarely properly prepared!) Cornering the market on boutique sales will neither accomplish this goal nor provide adequate revenue to truly face the real challenge.
Suzanne claims she wanted recommendations that she might select only the "best of the best" of Adagio's offering since, though she knows nothing of tea and cannot describe what she likes about those previous select teas she had which were so spoilingly enjoyable, though she could not articulate what her definition of "best" or "good" was, though she had no indication of hope of being helped but only of being inevitably disappointed, she could only tolerate the supernacular. There was only challenge and difficulty ahead in "helping" her.
Clearly, Adagio markets well and does something right to make such a picky customer even interested in their brand! These are the kind of people who want to know exactly what bedtime story was read to their veal before slaughter. I mean, imagine Suzanne at Wal-Mart flagging down a blue-vested employee to ask, "Excuse me, is this Woolmark Merino Wool? I hear that's the best! It says 30% wool on the label. What kind of animal does Polyester come from? Is that a goat or rabbit?"
Okay, now I'm being too harsh on Suzanne. You know, I like Suzanne. I'd love to talk to her about tea, develop some better idea of what she's looking for, identify the old and recommend some new points of departure for exploration, encourage her to develop a vocabulary to help her communicate what she likes and wants to others. I'd like to teach her what to pay attention to, how to control variables for comparison, how appreciating tea can be a humbling, sublime pursuit that is not about better, best, bestest but experiencing the nuance of what's here and now.
Anyway, Suzanne was attacked by many after her first post. People immediately demanded to know the source of the reviews she read. People sought to discredit these reviews, even when there was no proof that they existed. Abacuses came out. As a former mathematics major with professional experience in epidemiology and cliometrics, I cringed to read the logic employed on both sides concerning the reviews. (As my idol John Tukey said, "The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.")
Then the dictionaries came out. Oh my! The only people who truly "behaved" in any sense of the word were you, teaspoon, Lady Arden and klemtor. Well, Ilya behaved too, but Ilya always behaves and I think he's actually some advanced form of artificial intelligence designed to take the ultimate Turing test. No human is that on-point all the time!
I really don't mean to rehash all this again. I guess I'd just like to see the teachatters a little less eager to defend, discredit and destroy and a little more eager to assist, uplift, and encourage.
What upset me were the comments about Suzanne probably making fun of bald people in the cancer ward. These are indirect insults to people who have and live with cancer and need to endure the harsh awfulness of chemotherapy and radiation treatment. Sure, these two people were not themselves making fun of bald people in the cancer ward: they were pointing out that Suzanne might do that! Yet, implicit in the notion that Suzanne would make fun of bald people in a cancer ward is an explicit agreement toward defining the terms of the potential mockery and thereby extends availability to and credence to and definition to and power to a subset of social framework which defines the issue and shapes perception.
Would it be okay to say, "I wonder if Marlene pokes fun at those unsightly number tattoos on concentration camp survivors?"
Would it be okay to say, "I wonder if librarianpirate trolls the parks late at night to laugh at the bruises on fresh forceable rape victims?"
NO! If Marlene and librarianpirate had any class, they'd apologize. Yeah, I'm being touchy. Three bouts with cancer and two rounds of hard-core chemo; one of which resulted in complete kidney failure and endless dialysis, the other in two permanently deformed blood vessels in the brain which lead to constant headaches and occasional black-out seizures (and an inclination toward verbose posting on teachat forums), will do that. Nevermind trying to deal with $100,000+ in medical bills because your "insurance" company decided to reverse payment on several claims due to their lawyers discovering an arcane legal technicality which is now illegal but wasn't at the time services were rendered.
For the record, when I was bald in the cancer ward, I sported henna tattoos on my head. When I was sick and could not eat and coughed up blood for days, I dreamed of daisies growing out of teapots. When I wanted nothing more than to die and be done with this world, I looked over my lovely stockpile of tea and would say, "Not yet. Not until I drink every last drop!"
Tea, like life, is too precious to waste on bickering or self-pity. So now I shall stop and go load up Ingenuitea #3 (yes, I own 4!)
Will Gladly,
Jing Cha
Plenty to see and hear and feel yet. Feel live warm beings near you. They aren't going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm full blooded life.