Sup at Yunnan Sourcing

Some days of the week I feel like drinking a gallon of puerh and usually my craving comes after the medications, and the Rolaids following the medications, a time when I cannot dump my favorite beverage down my gullet instantly as I prefer to do. At these times I must resort to window shopping. The other day I was browsing at Yunnan Sourcing and perhaps you are like me, struggling with the new website and interface. I do not know why I cannot view all the Menghai flavored teas in one window. Musing over this conundrum brought me to the odd feeling that something is familiar about the new website, specifically the new logo. In case you need a refresher, here it is.

A suggestive representation.

Now, it occurs to me that I have seen this before. Is it all the Dayi on the page? Well, maybe, but a bell went off in my brain suddenly and I know why the new logo looks familiar.

Ding Xing!

Back in college I took a class that was supposed to be Sociology, but instead turned into a class on the professor’s main interest of marketing and advertising. I learned why restaurant logos usually have red, orange and yellow colors. Apparently in color psychology research, these colors stimulate a person to feel hungry and thirsty. When used on food signs, these colors are more likely to get customers to feel hungry (or thirsty) out of nowhere and then buy something right away to satiate the craving

Personally, I don’t need orange, red and yellow colors to start craving puerh. I taste Menghai in a conference room without any stimulus whatsoever. Suddenly I need aged Yiwu and find my throat full of kuwei during a long commute. I can spit Xiaguan any time at my neighbor’s dogs that never, ever stop barking. I would rather drink puerh than sleep quite honestly, and the medications are the only things in my way. As soon as I have a spare dollar in my wallet I find every reason to spend $149 more at some puerh vendor without any suggestion at all. But that is not how everyone is. If you read those so-called “pragmatic” people who say that it’s possible not to spend any money on tea, well I sympathize with such puritan ideals but frankly those are not my reality.

What I really want is to drink puerh tea all day and all night, and so I finally understand what is going on with Yunnan Sourcing, and the direction they are heading to help people like me.

Ain't it just purty?

I must say, I highly approve. When I need my tea, I want it hot and fast and I want it now. Why should I wait until I get home for some special hour of the day? Who needs a tea table and special clothes and tea pets when a drive-thru is so much more convenient?

Just think of all the shuttered fast food restaurants out there waiting for a new puerh tea franchise. These places have huge, sealed and lined built-in coolers which are perfect for storing puerh pies and they don’t even need to be turned on. Plop in a box fan and you’re all set. “I misted the cooler today, boss” is what every puerh manager needs to hear to add ten cents more to that worker’s paycheck. Such a franchise is every worker’s dream when he can choose to completely anesthetize the customer who is not sure what they want. For fussy people and infants we have things like marshmallows and rice pearls or whatever those things are people put in Boba to make it taste like something.

I could use a fast food puerh place where I live. Right now the closest puerh tea shop is in Madison on E. Johnson St. where I have to find someplace to park (not easy), then walk in and sit at the puerh bar. It’s a great spot to go, but it’s an hour drive and honestly a fast puerh place is no competition because Macha Tea Company is at Norris Court and I used to leave there drunk I don’t know how many times because my friend John lived there. (You should really move back now, you left too soon.) But Macha cannot help me now when I live so far away and need my own local establishment such as Yunnan Sourcing will provide.

The World Tea Expo is likely to announce yet again this year that tea is expanded in the global market another 1000x more than the previous year, and likely to expand again. Every vendor out there is trying to think of a way to serve tea to the western market, and we have only one model that works and it’s a drive-thru.

Personally I really like the new direction that Yunnan Sourcing is going. I don’t need to burn down my house falling asleep waiting for the kettle to boil on the stove when someone else can make tea for me. I don’t need to wait six weeks for some slow boat when we have Grub Hub and Lyft Food and Uber Lunch. I can order on my cell phone and some nice looking dude or dude-ette will show up at my door with all the goodies. What could be better?