I posted this on another instance, so apologies if you've seen this.

Do you have other interests, passions; whatever you call it, other than Linux & computers, etc?

For me it's cooking, fly fishing, & pottery. Sometimes it feels odd, they're all so disparate, but I really like them all. My partner and I have almost 450 cookbooks (I know, it's a problem) & use them all. I've been fly fishing for 35 years. And pottery is something I've been interested in since university, which is 24 years ago.

@redandgreen14

Languages (dead and living)

Comparative religions

Tea (I blame my wife for creating this monster)

And, fountain pens

@montdor Brilliant. My first two years of university I was a linguistics major. But that's a long story...

Tea, me too. Just opened a really lovely Oolong today.

@redandgreen14
I majored and master-ed (if that's a word) in Comparative Literature, so that was an amazing experience vis-a-vis languages and different cultures

Which one was it? The wife and I went hard on our tea wishlist on Black Friday / Cyber Monday and some is expected any minute!

@montdor
Brilliant. I was obsessed with learning language and thought linguistics would be the way to do so. Realized I didn't care about the meaning, form, and description of language as much as as the context as understood through communication and culture.

I keep telling myself that I only love green tea, but coming to accept I like all types of tea. And by tea I refer specifically to Camellia sinensis. I realize there are other "teas" out there but they aren't my interest.

@redandgreen14
Yeah, I'd agree with you on that to some extent. Sometimes the passion goes away when things become descriptive like that.

I used to only like plain black (or so I thought) until looking into all the other types of tea (not tisanes, though I do like a cup of camomile when sick or about to go to bed). Oolongs have to be my favorite (Honey Orchid is divine!)

@montdor
Honey orchid was one of the ones I was debating getting. I'll have to give it a try next time. While we try to avoid Black Friday, my partner and I just ordered 1.5kg of tea. 🤦‍♂️

That will hold us for a little while.

Yes, I enjoy this raspberry tisane from Germany when I'm ill or before bed.

I agree with you and acknowledge my reasoning for moving away from linguistics oversimplified it too much. But it was easier given character limits. 😉

@redandgreen14
Wow! We didn't get that much, but we got a good stockpile!
Our philosophy has been "it's not a sale if you weren't already planning on buying it" so we just keep it in a list until sales. Though, I would expect from your profile our thoughts on this would not align about this stuff (this is why I love Mastodon though, civil discourse about whatever (TEA!) without drama, irrespective of politics!)

Despite the simplicity, I think you made a perfectly good point!

@redandgreen14
Honey Orchid was the only tea my wife and I rated 10/10 on aroma and flavor. It's a flash-steep tea (like <10 seconds) but it's so awesome I can't really describe it.
Excellent timing of this conversation though, because tea just came in the mail!
@montdor
Lovely! I hope you both enjoy.
@redandgreen14
Thank you, very kind of you.
I hope you enjoy your tea-haul as well!