Wednesday, Jul. 02, 2008 - 7:16 a.m.

Ugh. At least I've been doing this long enough now not to take it personally, but...worst sales day ever. The stay-at-home-mom candles and tote bags crowd does not go for my stuff. Not that you could call it a crowd-- the fact that there were about 25 people there all day and they were all friends and family of other vendors didn't help.

The whole thing was organized by a tea seller-- I was looking forward to chatting about tea with her, but a)she turned out to be a bit of a Jesus freak, and b) when I said "tell me about your Assam" she said, "it's top quality", I said, "single estate?" and she didn't know what that meant. Asked her husband. He said, yes, it's single estate. "Which one?" I asked. Confusion, to which two replies were ultimately given: She thought it was from Sri Lanka, and that it was first flush.

Um.

Demonstrative of someone who has a few tea terms floating around in their head but doesn't actually know what any of them mean. Assam, Sri Lanka,and Darjeeling all all different growing regions. Saying that your Assam is from Sri Lanka is like saying your Tanzanian Peaberry coffee is from Costa Rica. Huh?

And only Darjeeling teas have first/second flushes. Again, huh?

I left her table without buying anything, or really even saying anything else, because I couldn't think of a clarifying question that wouldn't make me sound like an asshole.

Anyway, they were so not my people. I seldom if ever feel like I'm really among my people, but whatever my people may turn out to be, these were not them.

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