Week 4

 To close out Hannah’s Tea Corner, I want to revisit the goals I set at the beginning of this project:

• Becoming more efficient

I’ve improved greatly since I first started training at Tea Chai Te (TCT) almost two months ago. It took me until approximately the third week of Senior Projects to really internalize all the steps needed for different drinks, which was the greatest help in allowing me to be more efficient (granted, the blender still scares me a little bit, but I can still use it to make good drinks!). I can now comfortably handle three to four drinks at once, which is a huge improvement over how stressed I would get over managing even two drinks near the beginning of the project. All the while, I’ve been incorporating tips from my mentor and coworkers into my drinkmaking, which has also boosted my productivity and speed. Overall, I would consider myself successful on this goal, and the process of developing my drink making routine gave me valuable insight into how I can develop an efficient process to apply in the future.

• Learning to open/close shop:

In hindsight, this goal should probably have been called “Learn to be a barista.” Alongside learning to make drinks, I also wanted to learn all the ins-and-outs of working in food service during this project. I’d consider myself quite successful. I may not be the most experienced employee, but I often found myself asking “Is there anything I can help with?” or “Could you teach me that?” during the days I worked at TCT. I’ve learned to open and close shop, but beyond that I’ve also made myself busy helping out wherever I can at work - doing dishes, restocking tea tins, learning how to account for the register, and in general initiating opportunities to take on more responsibility to expand my beginner skillset.

• Learning about tea:

Gosh golly did I learn a whole lot about tea during this project. The hours I’ve put in at the shop have given me the technical skills of making a good cup of tea. I’ve also spent a whole day at the Burnside TCT during the second week of the project to speak  with Dakota, TCT’s resident tea expert. We talked about everything from the tea making process to tea culture in different countries; I’d say this was where my greatest learning occurred. On the side, I’ve also supplemented my work at the shops with some research into the biochemistry of tea and what makes it so good for us, which has also furthered my learning.

I’d also argue that this project gave me another skill not named above: how to hold conversations. I’m not really the type to initiate conversations and often have trouble figuring out how to adequately respond to other people’s stories in order to keep a conversation going. This has led to some awkward situations in the past, although I’ve gotten better at speaking in recent years. However, this project really accelerated the process of learning to socialize. With little else to do when business is slow, I’ve had a lot of time to get to know my coworkers - and it’s so fun! I spent one day talking about pretty apartments around downtown with my manager, and another day discussing Junji Ito, a horror mangaka whose works my coworkers and I both enjoy reading. Getting to know people with such diverse life experiences has helped me open up more, and will be an invaluable skill in the future.

I would absolutely recommend this senior project to another student looking to learn more about tea or hoping to gain experience in food service/retail in a fun and low-pressure environment. I owe a great deal to my mentor for how much I enjoyed completing this project, due to her generous support and openness to teaching me. My other coworkers have also shown me the same care, and as a non-corporate company, TCT is much more flexible about their rules than most businesses. All the kindness shown by TCT towards me contributed to a very positive Senior Project. I don’t have many other experiences to compare to, but I’m very grateful for the way I was able to break into food service while learning about tea along the way. 

Although my project would be considered more of a “traditional” Senior Project, there’s an element of it being a passion project as well since I’ve always really, really wanted to learn to be a barista. Based on my experience, I would absolutely encourage the Senior Project committee to continue allowing passion project proposals. I found my project so fulfilling that I will be continuing to work at TCT over the summer, and I’d enthusiastically advocate for future students to take advantage of the opportunities provided by Senior Projects to make similar strides towards their own passions.

Tea of the week: #116 Blue People

Honorable mentions: #100 Guayusa, #2 Yunnan Hongcha, #27 Osmanthus Oolong