So there's this like middle-aged Chinese dude who owns a tea shop near my house, and he only sells like four types of, fairly expensive, tea. And I never really thought of myself as a tea snob before until I bought some and now all other teas taste freakin' nasty.
Except you can't go in an just buy tea; as soon as you walk in your get roped into like a half-hour tea-tasting and gossip session at this special table thing that involves a lot of pouring boiling water all over everything (the table is basically a series of tiered shallow pans with a drain in it, so obviously designed for this).
Anyway the dude laughs at me now, because I come in and buy what he sells as "rock tea", which AFAICT is some kind of Wuyi oolong. It starts out quite strong and very tannic, and the dude tells me he considers it "man's tea" ("white tea" is "ladies' tea") so he finds it funny that I like it.
Dude loves his tea. And has strong opinions about it. And apparently his wife doesn't drink it at all, which... go figure.
@herdivineshadow Having done it a few times now, I can definitely see the appeal!
@alis My cousin does this - hang out at the tea shop with the dude having the traditional tea ceremony and eventually buying expensive tea. Although they do this at home after work too for a family chinwag