279 Tasting Notes
This is actually a comment, not a review. I can’t comment anymore as things seem to crash due to Steepster bugs. I am essentially leaving Steepster at this point. I will probably check back once in a blue moon, but it has gotten too frustrating not being able to chime in on discussions. I will miss you all!
:/ Sorry
We’ll miss you! I hate that the state of the website is turning people away – such an awful feeling. <3
I am unliking this post, I hope you stay around, we have a lot of history from here.
I hope when you check in again, Rich, all will be working and you will stick around! I understand your frustration. Some things that had NOT been working for me just started working again.
I feel that…I hope the admins take notice and fix this site soon.
Rich, I’m getting to this late, and I kind of doubt that you will see this comment, but I understand how you feel. I’m at about the same point myself. While I love the community here and honestly feel that one will not find a group of people as kind, caring, welcoming, approachable, and knowledgeable on any other site, the site’s issues and my own busy schedule have made it virtually impossible for me to contribute. I often can’t even log into my account due to 503 errors. Even when I can log in to my account, I have issues posting tasting notes, responding to comments, adding and updating teas, responding to messages, and posting on the discussion forums. The site is often unusable for me, and even when it is working, using it is a pain. It’s not fun anymore. Furthermore, I have done a huge amount of work behind the scenes, mostly removing spammers, adding teas, and updating teas. I got to a point where I was spending more time replacing broken images, correcting listings, and removing spammers and their content than I was writing goofy tea reviews and interacting with other users. Until recently, Steepster had become more of a job (an entirely thankless one at that!) than a hobby. I realized that my efforts to maintain the site in some small way were causing me tremendous stress and interfering with my real world life and that these efforts were very much for nothing. By the time I removed 3 or 4 spammers, 20 more would appear. I would update tea listings with new photos, new information, and the like, and something would go awry with 20 others. I couldn’t get ahead and was clearly wasting my time. This place seems to have been abandoned by its admins. If anyone is left, they don’t seem to care as they won’t address the site’s issues and the concerns brought up by its users. I also realized that the content generated by the users is a powerful tool in keeping this site afloat and in providing promotion for tea vendors. While I am fine with the notion that vendors may benefit in some small way from the content I generate and appreciate the feedback and opportunities to try new things they have provided me, I am no longer comfortable providing regular content for a site whose admins are no longer present and/or willing to maintain it. I feel that if I were to keep generating content on a regular basis, I would essentially be providing a tremendous amount of free promotion for a largely dysfunctional site that does not care about its devoted, awesome users. It breaks my heart that the owners/admins do not seem to notice/care how wonderful this community is and how lucky they are to have what they have.
All of the above being said, I do not intend to give up on Steepster immediately. I am looking into some other platforms as my time allows and will still maintain my account here. I will still be reading and liking tasting notes, commenting on and responding to postings, and occasionally posting tasting notes of mine when possible. I just won’t be as active as I have been in the past. Right now, the idea is to periodically generate content until New Year’s Day. I have some tasting notes I still want to post. I had hoped to make it a full 4 years as an active, regular contributor and get to 1000 tasting notes, but I do not think reaching either goal is likely. If I don’t see any improvements by the above date, I will only be sticking around to check in occasionally.
You pretty much summed up how many of us are feeling these days, eastkyteaguy. And I understand if the admins have life things happening, or have moved on from tea in general, but to not pass the site on to new admins would be a real shame.
Agree. The log-in error can only be bypassed by logging onto a desktop and clearing the cache/cookies. There are many other bugs and questionable design idiosyncrasies. On the other hand, I’ve yet to locate anything that’s like Steepster but more functional yet.
This is one of the most unique teas I’ve ever tried. It’s got a weird wild zippy burnt type bitterness that goes off the charts if brewed for more than even 30 seconds. This tea requires very short steeps. Nice caffeine kick, and boy was it durable. It went as long as a pu erh. I don’t love it but it is really interesting. Some good descriptions on the YS China site by other reviewers.
This is an excellent tea, organic or not. It is really mellow and strong, somewhat sweet, and very tasty. I love that it is certified organic, which I believe is not hype given that I trust the vendor. This is my favorite of the second bunch of 2018 ripes released from Yunnan Sourcing in recent months, and much better than the other organic ripes I’ve tried from YS. I like to support organic efforts in China, so I’m going to buy a lot of cakes.
Trying this again for the first time in a few years. It has lost most of the chocolate notes and the bitter is upfront. Most fermentation flavor is gone, but of course that includes the chocolate as in my experience that is a fermentation flavor. This has aged fine, but I don’t find it all that great. The Year of the Goat ripe from YS has aged much better.
Good to see your back to steepster with a review.