Well, it's Monday morning and I have a stressful day ahead of me... so
I figured I'd start a light topic (plus I'm new so I figured it would
help me know where people are coming from). How did you get your start
in tea?

My start came from an odd place: Karate Kid. More specifically Part 2
and 3. Part 2 was a terrible film, but it featured the Tea Ceremony.
The bamboo utensils, the whisk, the Matcha tea powder. And part 3
featured Bonsai trees. Even being about 6 years old I was intrigued by
both and that began it all. I studied Bonsai and have now been growing
them for over 10 years. I researched tea to figure out that ceremony
and all that goes with it. I began to draw away from standard organized
American religion and follow a more Eastern path. I read "The Book of
Tea" by Okakura and then the "Tao Te Ching." I then started my first
semester of college over 8 hours away from home and by luck befriended
a middle-aged Thai woman who owned a Asian market a block from my room.
An unlikely friendship but I learned a great deal about Asian culture,
food, lore, mindset, and tea. I then began to really get into tea and
it all changed to another level when I was at Penn State University and
my father (my father had been in Korea on the DMZ back in the day and
that also had me interested in stories of Korea and asian culture.) and
me stepped into a small Korean Grocery. The owner offered us a Jasmine
Iced Tea which he made by hand with some amazing technique brewing the
tea in a Yixing pot, using pure sugar cane syrup he had made, and all
this for $2.00 for two iced teas. I was mesmerized by it all. That
started my collection of Yixing teapots as well. I started by drinking
Jasmine green tea loose from his store and that started it all.

What's your story?