Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of December 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Monica Griesbaum：苏格兰的茶泥和希望”.
As the owner of Windy Hollow tea farm in Scotland, Monica Griesbaum explored and learned how to grow and make tea on 24 acres of broad-leaved forest land in Perthshire, in order to further understand tea planting, production and processing, new tea planting methods facing climate change, organic ecological tea industry and biodiversity of tea industry. Monica started the podcast “Tea, Mud and Hope” in 2019, hoping to inspire and encourage more people to pay attention to relevant topics through her podcast.
Podcasts are usually conducted during the leisure time of the tea farm, and the frequency is updated once or twice a month. In each issue, invited guests will choose what the audience is interested in or recommend mysterious tea people. When consumers drink tea, they only see the finished tea, but they don’t know the efforts of tea people behind it. Monica hopes to make tea guests curious through her podcast, learn more about tea people’s lives, teahouses, tea tours and other topics, the status of women in tea industry activities, the tea industry in the face of climate change, tea circle socializing and tea drinking of embracing nature, healthy tea drinking in a fast-paced life. For example, I was quite impressed by the chat with George van driem, the author of <The Tale of Tea>, the discussion with Jeff Fuchs, a documentary who visited the ancient tea horse road, the new tea magazine <Eighty Degrees>, which is popular in Europe, and the stories of several tea growers from different countries. I also participated in a recording and chatted about the history of Chinese tea and my tea garden in Germany.
Tea lovers also like to chat. Several tea lovers get together and share a pot of tea, so they open the conversation box. Communication can start with simple tea knowledge. The relatively relaxed podcast form is not as serious as courses, Monica will talk with humor and ease, and naturally go deep into professional discussion.
A 45 minute podcast is a luxury for the audience. The audience may already be familiar with the interviewed tea man. Active tea men on social media always attract traffic, and many listeners are attracted by it. Or mysterious guests who are completely unfamiliar to the audience. Most of them focus on their areas of expertise and are not well known. Their stories are fascinating. In the dialogue, people can better understand them, pay attention to their research and focus on their career. In fact, not all people of insight in the tea industry of various countries can express themselves fluently and accurately in English. How to solve this language barrier may require podcast technology innovation.
Tea lovers also love to be alone. Have a cup of tea and listen to podcasts alone. Of course, visual media is good, but podcasting has its unique advantages. It focuses on specific discussion contents, and the in-depth knowledge is more clear and thought-provoking. Monica hopes that during the slack season in winter, after working as the president of the European tea growing Association, she will keep the podcast updated. There are many new topics about tea to talk about. Tea farmers in various countries have developed a lot of new tea.
According to the manufacturing process of Korean cake tea Tteokcha, Monica developed mini aged tea cake with the fresh leaves of her own tea farm. Monica has many questions about why these complicated steps are needed in the processing process. I estimate that the guests Monica needs to interview should not only understand the history of the introduction of cake tea into Korea since the China’s Tang Dynasty, but also understand the evolution process and production process of tea cake in Korea. I am also curious about the taste of tea cakes. Monica welcomes tea lovers to visit her tea farm and taste her newly processed black tea Black Gold and green tea Green Wander.
Good news for Chinese readers: related article has been published in Wenzhuo‘s column Tea Perspectives of December 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览> tea magazine in Chinese, 观茶者专栏-“Monica Griesbaum：苏格兰的茶泥和希望”.
Tea Perspectives of December 2021 <Tea Times 茶博览>