I’ve been drinking tea regularly for around ten years. I can’t remember when I first started drinking it nearly daily, but I’d estimate that it’s been at least five years. I love tea and feel like it, along with its surrounding culture, is a very special thing that is often overlooked.

One thing that is unique about tea is that it is the only social consumption based activity I can think of that is actually good for you.

Coffee isn’t all that social, as it’s quick. People go get coffee together, but that tends to be a more superficial meeting. Meals are often indulgent, though sometimes healthy. Drinking and smoking are obviously bad for you.

Tea, on the other hand, is really good for you. The small amount of caffeine can bring a little bit of energy to the meeting, but the theanine and whatever else is in there creates a calm atmosphere. Tea can be quick or it can last for hours, which allows the conversation and interaction to determine the length of the meeting, not the other way around.

Many of the best conversations I’ve had with friends have been over tea, and I think it’s because sitting in a little tea room with no distractions other than some hot leafy water leaves a lot of room for good conversation.

Tea people also just tend to be warm and intelligent people. Maybe it’s because we’re all underdogs so we feel like we have to be nice to each other. It’s so incredibly common to go to a tea shop and to end up chatting and making friends with the owner and often to not be allowed to pay for your tea. I’ve never had that happen with anything else. The other people who go to tea places often engage in interesting conversation too.

Tea by yourself is pretty good too. The slow nature of it, the evolution of the tea as you go through multiple steepings, and the caffeine all seem to combine to put one in a meditative state. If I have a big idea or decision to unravel, my favorite way to do it is in silence with a pot of tea.

The best way to get into tea is to go to a great tea shop like Zhao Zhou, Samovar, Te Company, or Higashi-ya and just talk to the people and ask them to help you choose a tea. Even the most snobby of tea snobs enjoy helping beginners get into tea. No question will seem dumb.

If you aren’t a tea drinker and don’t understand the hype, try going to one of the tea shops I mentioned. If you like it you may become part of the amazing world of tea, and if you don’t like it at one of those places you can be sure you probably never will.

###

Photo is a cup of tea in front of my computer. Maybe I didn’t really need to explain that one.

Even better, it allowed me to get to work earlier and to do so while drinking tea. I’m not sure I noticed any benefits from intermittent fasting, but I really appreciated the convenience.

Last year a friend of mine who had discovered a new enthusiasm for health and getting in shape began to talk about how much he liked fasting. He would do it for 24 hours once each week. I decided to give it a try and found that it was another level-up in convenience from skipping only breakfast.

After a bunch of research I determined that doing it regularly wouldn’t just not kill me, but it could actually be good for health and longevity. I started doing it every day I was in Vegas. At first it seemed like my body fat went down a little bit, but it plateaued quickly and I don’t feel that it has significantly changed how I look.

I absolutely love the convenience of it. I wake up and make tea and then don’t think about any sort of meal until six or seven. If I’ve been traveling and have been eating two meals while away, I’ll sometimes get hungry by about 4:30. Most days I’m medium level hungry by six.

To get some extra calories to make up for the missing meals I started getting chips and queso with my Chipotle salad, but recently began making large batches of vegetable soup that I freeze in individually portioned sizes. No point in getting tons of calories from corn chips.

I’m on a cruise now and may experiment with it here as well. I intended on doing that today, but then there were lobster rolls for lunch, and there’s just no chance I’m turning down lobsters. I ate twelve tails for dinner last night.

I’ve been doing one meal a day while in Vegas (50% of my time) for about a year now and I wanted to wait for a while before writing about it to see if there were any weird side effects or downsides to it, but I haven’t found any. I absolutely love the convenience of not having to think about two or three meals per day, I’m saving money, and it just might end up being good for me. As with anything health-related you should do your own research, but one meal a day might be worth looking into.

###

Photo is a lobster dinner on a cruise.

There are still spots available for Superhuman 3.

Rather than extoll the many virtues of getting proper sleep this time, I figured I’d share how to actually do it.

By far the most important thing is to go to sleep and wake up at roughly the same time every day with no alarm clock. If you’re already doing that, you’re probably in good shape.

Under these circumstances, you will naturally sleep somewhere between 7-9 hours. For me it’s almost exactly 8 on average, though any given night varies between 6-10.

You should not consider any sleeping time to be wasted time, as long as it’s in this range. Think of it as time you are investing to make your productive time even better.

The biggest hack to get good sleep that I’ve found is to set a no-screens time approximately 10 hours before you need to wake up in the morning, if such a time exists. That means no computer, no phone, and no TV. I think a Kindle on the lowest brightness is ok, or you can get an Aura Kobo One, which can have an orange-yellow backlight instead of blue.

I also, through home automation, adjust my lights to be very dim around the house. I use Philips Warm Glow bulbs, which turn a warmer color when they are dim.

You can read during this time, you can clean your house, you can play board games, you can just sit and stare at the wall. You don’t have to go to sleep. But without the light and stimulation of your devices, you’ll probably end up sleeping rather quickly.

Make sure that your room is extremely dark. I use room darkening curtains to block ambient light, and even put stickers on LED indicator lights in the bedroom. I don’t know if that makes a difference, but some people do think it matters, and it’s pretty easy.

If your sleeping area isn’t quiet, you can also use earplugs. I like best the pink and yellow ones that Laser-Lite makes.

If you can’t fall asleep, realize that it doesn’t actually matter. Friends and I have tracked this, and it turns out that just lying down in a dark room is almost as restorative as sleep, at least when it comes to productivity. Knowing this, ironically, also makes it easier to fall asleep.

When you wake up, try to expose yourself to bright light, especially sunlight. This helps you wake up and also helps set your circadian rhythm. If you drink tea or coffee, have it as early as possible for the same reasons. Also make sure to drink water, as being under-hydrated can make you tired.

Don’t change your schedule on weekends. If you choose to, you are making sleep much harder for the other five days. Circadian clocks don’t take weekends off, even if you do.

Don’t take sleep drugs. Some people seem to think melatonin is okay, but I’m very skeptical of being reliant on something for such a basic human activity as sleeping, and would personally never take it.

Having a good sleep schedule is a massive advantage in just about every area of life, is very enjoyable, and really isn’t that hard. Try the guidelines in this post for a month and I’d be very surprised if you didn’t notice a maked difference if you previously had an erratic schedule.

###

Photo is a lava tube hole in Hilo Hawaii. I was tempted to post an unflattering picture of my friend Todd, since I used to take a picture every time he randomly fell asleep while traveling.

Whenever I’m not feeling my best, whether it’s a lack of motivation, a lack of energy, not being able to focus, on anything else, I go through a standard set of diagnostics. Usually they fix the problem and I don’t need to go overboard.

1. Sleep. I talk about sleep all the time because so many people are chronically underslept and it has massive effects on health, focus, productivity, and well-being. I think it’s very likely that as a society we will look back and think it’s crazy that we didn’t prioritize sleep.

If I’m not well slept, I don’t trust anything I feel because I know that I’m not at my best. Do I really not want to do this project, or am I just too tired? Is this task really too hard, or am I just exhausted? No way to know.

Prioritize your sleep. Take a nap. Make sure you sleep at least 8 hours. If you’re underslept, you might need more than that. If I haven’t gotten 8 hours for a few nights in a row, I’ll tend to assume that’s the culprit and fix the problem.

2. Hydration. Another boring one, but it’s very easy to not drink enough water. If I feel tired or sluggish but have been sleeping enough, I can be almost certain that I’m not drinking enough water.

This happens to me mostly when I’m in a new environment, or when I’m traveling. In a new environment I don’t have the habit of walking to my kitchen to drink more water, and airplanes really dehydrate us badly. If I’m not sure that I’ve had enough water to drink, I’ll just drink a few tall glasses and wait. Usually I’ll feel better in 30-60 minutes.

3. Social time. Despite mostly being an introvert, not having any social time for a week or so makes me feel less engaged sometimes. This isn’t always true, especially if I’m working on an exciting project, but if I’m not motivated or feel really distracted, sometimes I just need to spend some good time with friends.

4. Nature/Sun. I have a tendency to spend too much time indoors and to not get out in the sun. Sometimes I’ll have to leave to go get mail or lunch and just walking to my car in the sun feels so good that I remember how important it is. So if I’m not feeling great, sometimes all I need is a nice walk outside, preferably through the woods.

5. Good diet. I used to be 100% regimented about my diet, but now I give myself some grey area and let myself autoregulate. However, sometimes I lower my guard and start eating too much crappy food, especially if I’m traveling to a new city. So if I feel like I’m not at my best, I use that as a prompt to tighten the diet back to perfect for a while.

These are all things that we should or could just be doing anyway, but between the five of them, I’d say that 80% of the time when I’m not at my best, the culprit is one of these things. I just quickly go down the list, identify anything that hasn’t been really good recently, and make the necessary adjustments.

Because these are all such common habits, they’re very easy to fix and get back on track. Plus they affect so many different things that focusing on them has a bigger effect than just breaking out of a slump.

One bonus one that I haven’t tested yet because I haven’t gotten sick since I heard about it: if you feel sick, try fasting until you feel better. My good friend Todd swears by it, so I’m going to add it to my personal list next time I feel sick.

###

Photo is an amazing view from the pagoda at Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. It’s worth all the flights of stairs.

I have exactly one spot left for Superhuman 2. If you’d like to come, please send a short bio and let me know what you’d like to work on. The group so far is excellent and I’m really excited about the event.

I don’t drink. I’ve had five sips total in my life, three of them accidental. I’ll admit that this does give me a certain lack of perspective. I have no idea what it’s like to drink, but I’m happy to concede the point that it’s probably a whole lot of fun.

Most people drink because… most other people drink. It’s a rite of passage in our society, is universally seen as cool (probably because it’s in the best interest of beer company execs for it to be seen as cool), so most people don’t think all that much about it.

Due to my stubbornness and general disinterest in doing anything the way society wants me to do it, I never wanted to drink. I was never tempted and it never seemed cool to me. Most of my friends didn’t drink in high school (and many didn’t in college). Even now only a minority of my friends drink, and I can’t think of any who drink regularly.

Several of my friends used to drink, and they all sort of laugh at how ridiculous it was. As in, “Yeah, that’s hilarious that I used to think that drinking was worthwhile”.

One of my friends who quit drinking asked me if I felt like people who had never been drinkers and were our age seemed sharper than those who did drink. I’d never thought about it before, I don’t know if it’s causation or correlation, but I realized he was right.

The benefits of moderate drinking appear to be overrated if they exist at all. I don’t really put much stock in the studies on either side of the issue, but I think it’s pretty clear that it’s not the elixir of life certain people might wish it to be.

Heavy drinking is unambiguously bad. We all know it. It’s bad for health, it’s very bad for relationships, it’s bad financially, it’s bad for sleep, and it’s basically bad for everything else. It is a social lubricant, but that seems to be true only for very light drinking, or in cases where both people are drinking equally.

The problem is that moderate drinking, which may not be that bad, but probably isn’t actually good, often leads to heavy drinking. Somewhere around 6% of Americans are alcoholics. That is a huge percentage of people. Twenty-seven percent binge drank last month. That’s an even huger percentage.

When you drink, you open the door to really negative outcomes. Far worse outcomes than pot, lsd, mushrooms, or maybe even MDMA. I don’t think any of those drugs are great, but I’d say they’re all better than alcohol. And yet everyone drinks alcohol because it’s okay to do it.

Alcohol tends to be used for specific purposes, and those purposes could all be amalgamated into a general umbrella of “not facing reality”. Whether it’s in dating, work, self improvement, or even travel, I believe that facing reality and dealing with it head on is important. Alcohol is an easy and cheap way to avoid doing so.

Depressed about something? Why fix it when you can drink? Nervous? Why learn social skills when you can drink? Stressed out? Why manage stress when you can drink? Lonely? Why make friends when you can drink?

I get that there are connoiseurs who appreciate the subtleties of fine wines and liquors in the same way I appreciate tea. I think that’s interesting and probably a pretty cool hobby. But it comes with a wide open door towards excessive drinking and alcoholism. That’s way too big of a price to pay, at least in my opinion.

I’m sure that a glass of wine with a friend or loved one can be a really great experience. But so can a bar of 99% chocolate, water, or a walk. Like any activity, the company is more important than the activity.

I don’t have much hope that our society will become less interested in drinking. It’s been entrenched in our culture for too long, it’s addictive, and we encourage our children to do it once they turn the arbitrary age of 21. But maybe I can convince a couple people to try life without alcohol, or make some people who drink rethink the pros and cons.

###

Photo is from a tea tasting at my favorite place in Shanghai. Tea is basically the opposite of alcohol because it’s almost impossible to find bad things about drinking it.

I’d like to share a few of my favorite types of teas and how to brew them to make them delicious.

#1 — Gyokuro

Gyokuro is a Japanese green tea that’s shaded for the last three months of its life, which causes it to struggle and produce more theanine and caffeiene, which gives it an incredibly intense sweet and umami-rich flavor. Amongst my friends who like it, most of us consider it to be the best flavor on earth!

Gyokuro is best brewed in a flat side-handled Japanese pot called a kyusu, but a regular gaiwan will work fine, especially if you have a mesh strainer to pour it through.

Buy the best Gyokuro you can find. Its quality tracks very directly with price, so expect to pay a decent amount of money for it. A great deal on good Gyokuro would be around fifty cents a gram, and a fair price would be about one dollar per gram. Several people can share one serving.

Put the 7-8 grams of leaf in your brewing vessel and add just barely enough room-temperature water to cover the leaves. This will be a very small amount of water. Some of the leaves will float, but they will eventually become soaked and fall in, so don’t worry about covering every single one.

Wait seven minutes. During that time the leaves will absorb most of the water. After the time is up, drip the remaining liquid into tiny cups. You can forcefully shake the pot downwards to extract a little more liquid from the leaves.

You will be left with just a few sips of room-temperature tea, but they will have more flavor than a whole cup of most other teas. Take tiny sips and enjoy.

You can then resteep the leaves several more times. Use around 100ml of water at 70°C and for only a few seconds, increasing as you go. For the first warm steeping I pour the tea out as soon as I’m finished pouring the water in. Some people don’t like the cold steeping, but will enjoy the warm steepings. I also have friends who do two cold steepings up front, and some who skip the cold ones.

#2 — Mi Lan Xiang Dancong (Honey Orchid Phoenix Oolong)

There are probably hundreds or thousands of types of Oolong tea out there, but a good Phoenix is a real classic. More than any other tea, it’s what I find myself reaching for for a daily drink. I’ve had some very cheap Phoenixes that were good, but also some that were either flavorless or bitter. Expensive ones from good tea shops tend to be worth it.

Brew your Phoenix in a gaiwan. Use 6 grams of leaf with 100-150ml of water and brew at 85°C. The leaves are twisted and need time to unfurl, so let the first steeping go for 30-45 seconds. The second steeping should be much quicker, maybe only 15 seconds. A good Phoenix can often be steeped 10-15 times and still be delicious. By the end you might steep for a good 5 minutes.

Like many rolled or twisted oolongs, the second and third steepings are usually the best, as the leaves have maximum surface area in contact with the water.

#3 — Matcha

Lots of people have had matcha, but very few have had good matcha. That’s because it’s extremely expensive. My number one favorite matcha is Kinrin, sold by Sazen Tea (you can have it shipped). Samovar’s best matcha is excellent, as is just about everything from Breakaway Matcha. If you are paying less than $1 per gram, you are almost certainly not buying good matcha (Kinrin is an exception, but it ends up being $1/gram with shipping).

The most important part in making matcha is sifting the matcha first. Otherwise it will be clumpy and gross. You can use a very clean cooking sifter or any sort of small fine screen.

Measure out 2-4g of matcha. If you are new to matcha, 2 is plenty. Heat 80ml of water up to 80°C and pour it into the sifted matcha in a cup or matcha bowl. If you don’t want to whisk it manually, a milk frother works fantastically. Drink while it’s still hot and frothy.

#4 — Li Shan Oolong

Taiwanese oolongs are considered to be the champagnes of the oolong world. They are truly excellent. Their best known ones are very light rolled oolongs from high mountains like Li Shan and Ali Shan. No one mountain is always the best — different ones edge out the others on different years. Generally speaking, though, oolongs from higher up on the mountain are better than lower ones.

Té Company in New York has some of my favorite Taiwanese oolongs (it’s the only kind of tea they stock!), but Samovar and Zhao Zhou also have great ones.

Use a Gaiwan and heat water to 85°. Pour 100-150ml over 6g of tea and wait for 2-3 minutes (until the balls are mostly expanded). If you don’t have a way to weigh the tea, cover the bottom of the gaiwan in a single solid layer of the rolled tea balls, with maybe a few on a second layer.

After the first steeping you will, like the Phoenix, do quick steepings and gradually increase the brewing time.

I wanted to add a black tea to this list as well, but I find it hard to consistently find black teas that I find excellent. The best ones I’ve had were black teas grown around Sun Moon Lake in Taiwan. So if you get through these four teas, maybe go out searching. You’ll be shocked at how fruity and smooth a black tea can be.

And if you try all of these four teas and don’t like any of them, I’ll concede that tea maybe isn’t for everyone!

###

Photo is my little tea room in my house in Vegas. Once I can waterproof my cabin on the island I’ll build a bigger one there.

This isn’t because I’m clairvoyant or because I invented any of these things, it’s just because I’m very comfortable with risk and am willing to try new things and see what happens.

I thought that it would be fun to talk about some things that I think will happen in the future. Maybe I’ll be right and maybe we’ll laugh at how far off I am, but maybe some will resonate with you and you’ll get into them earlier than you would have otherwise.

1. Shared Assets

I think I’m one of the first on this, and that it’s going to be big. I’ve bought the island, a place in Budapest, and part of a neighborhood in Vegas with my friends. I’ve actually been doing this for a long time– in 2000 I organized my friends to buy a school bus together.

I think that the sharing economy has made us very comfortable with the idea of using other people’s things, and that as it continues to flourish, it will also happen more privately.

The rise of the internet, travel, and communication also contribute to this. It’s much easier to do these things now, and I don’t think people have quite realized it yet.

2. Travel

I don’t think most people understand how cheap and easy travel can be. Many people are mentally stuck in the age of expensive hotels and travel agents. As people dip their toes and realize how frictionless travel can be, I think it will become much more normal for people to travel a lot.

Right now all airlines are devaluing frequent flyer programs, which is going to make flying even cheaper. People like me are getting 20%-100% back in future flights every time we pay for a flight. As this loophole closes, cash prices for flights will continue to drop.

3. Solar/Electric Will Take Over

The environment is really important to me (when I took a test on which candidate I was most aligned with, Jill Stein was second), but I’m actually pretty optimistic on global warming and our future.

I think that we will hit a tipping point in the next few years where it actually makes financial sense to use alternative energy. We are so close. No one uses oil because they like it, they use it because it it’s cheap and powerful. Battery technology and solar are almost at the point where they will be cheaper and more convenient.

Elon Musk has had a lot to do with this (his new Powerwall is actually a good value for stored energy), and I think it’s possible that he had a significant permanent impact on our environment.

I think that this will happen even in developing countries, similar to how cell phone technology became widespread even when things like basic hygiene didn’t.

4. We will become more compassionate

I wasn’t around back then, but it seems like in the past there was much more rivalry and animosity between citizens of different countries. Now there is mostly rivalry between the politicians. I’ve been through the middle east and Russia and found all of the people to be very friendly and welcoming.

So I think we’re already making a lot of progress. The internet has had a huge place in that, as we’ve gotten used to communicating with people all over the world. As we start to travel more and meet these people face to face, I think barriers will drop further.

5. We Will Eat Better

I’ve been into healthy eating for a really long time now, and so I’m really attuned to it. We’re not where we could be, but it feels to me like we’ve passed “peak bad food”. We’re now much more aware of what’s actually bad for us (factory farming, sugar, etc), and are starting to respond. It’s so much easier now for me to find healthy food anywhere I travel than it was when I first started.

6. Jobs Will Become More Independent

Fifteen years ago there were approximately zero platforms for people to make money of their own initiative. Now you can write books, make audio books, sell music, drive people around, rent out your place, do odd jobs, or just about anything else.

As job security continues to fall and people become more aware of these opportunities, they will take them. This is a big win because it’s essentially cutting out the middleman (the employer). I love buying things on Etsy from people who make them just for me.

And as more of the workforce takes these opportunities, more will pop up. This is maybe one of my favorite trends.

7. Tea

Hard to say I’m calling this one early, as it’s the most popular beverage in the world, but I personally believe that tea is going to become a more popular beverage in the US in the same way coffee did with Starbucks.

8. Frugality

Excess has become much less fashionable, and we’ve gotten some harsh reminders of what happens when people overextend themselves. Younger generations are using credit less and are interested in things like tiny houses.

I think that financial security will become increasingly “cool” as high spending becomes seen as foolish and try-hard.

9. The Education Bubble Will Pop

For a great many people, I think that school is now a terrible investment. In the same way that houses were being sold to people for whom they made no sense (“It’s the American Dream!”), I think people for whom college doesn’t make sense are being forced to attend (“It’s the American Dream!”).

With this inelastic demand, prices have skyrocketed as the value of the product has gone down. At some point, coupled with the rise of independent jobs where performance is the only thing that matters, people will start to realize that school doesn’t make sense for a lot of people.

It’s now very easy to learn online or through experience. It is possible to learn a ton at school as well, but many people don’t. Most go for a credential that has become a rapidly depreciating asset.

I hope that this correction causes schools to become more accessible and more about learning than credentials. That’s how they started out and what sparked their success as an institution.

###

Photo is the Budapest parliament building from the water. I just got back from Budapest and loved it. Now I’m in Vegas, but will be heading to Tokyo next month.

I have been thinking about making videos again and maybe doing Patreon.

I drink tea just about every day. The only days I don’t drink it are when it’s too inconvenient, or when I start getting paranoid that I might become dependent on it because I drink it so much. But then I take a few days off and nothing seems to change, so I start again.

The first step to good tea is having good quality water. The best thing to do is to get a reverse osmosis filter like this one. I have one like this in Las Vegas and I really like the water that comes out of it. You can also get something like this, which I have in my RV, or just go the cheap route and get a brita filter.

If you’re drinking anything in the range of white tea to medium oolong, you really want filtered water. Once you get dark oolongs, blacks, and puerhs, it matters a lot less unless your water is really bad.

Bad water can really ruin good tea, though, so it’s worth it to make sure you have good water.

I mostly drink oolong tea. If you were to go in order of oxidation (how dark a tea is, in practical terms), you’d go white, green, oolong, puerh and black. All white teas are essentially unoxidized, all greens are about the same oxidation, blacks and puerh are both generally very dark, but oolongs have a huge range. Some oolongs are light and floral, others are nearly black.

Oolongs can generally be steeped many times in a row. That coupled with the complex flavors they have make them my go-to. I might like good Japanese green teas even more, but they don’t steep as many times.

If you want to sip a day in my shoes, get yourself a good Phoenix oolong from somewhere like Samovar or Tap Twice Tea. Phoenix Oolong is medium-oxidation and is really easy to like, in my opinion. You can steep it about a dozen times, it’s pretty easy to brew well, and it has a decent amount of caffeine. It’s a great daily tea.

The easiest way to consistently brew tea is the “gong fu” method, using a gaiwan. Gong fu is actually the same word as Kung Fu, just Americanized differently. It means great skill, but even without great skill you can make great tea.

All you need is a gaiwan, which is a special lidded cup, and some cups to drink out of. It’s also good to have a “fairness pitcher”, but not totally essential. Here’s a cheap set on Amazon.

Now you need to heat your water. In the RV I use a cast iron pot over the stove. It takes about eight minutes to heat up. In Vegas I have a Bona Vita Variable Gooseneck tea kettle. This is sort of the gold standard of tea kettles. It’s easy to pour, can do any temperature, and can keep the water at that temperature.

Side note: never put anything besides plain filtered water in your kettle. If you start brewing things directly in the kettle it will take on the taste after a while and get weird.

I also have a three liter Zojirushi water boiler at my desk. It makes it convenient to slowly drink tea over a few hours while working. If I’m having tea by myself I just use this, but if I have guests I go to my tearoom and use the bona vita.

I also travel with this cheap immersion boiler. If I can just get a paper cup to fill with water, I can use it to warm it up. At home I have a really nice hand-engraved gaiwan set, but when I travel, which is most of the time, I use a cheap travel tea set like this.

If you’re making Phoenix oolong, go with 185 degrees. You could probably make a case for anything from 175-190, but it’s not going to matter too much. If you’re using your stove, put a thermometer in the kettle. Even after a ton of practice, I still can’t guess within 10 degrees.

While the water is heating, I fill the gaiwan 1/3 full of leaves. It doesn’t have to be exact. Then I pour the 185 degree water in and cover it with the lid. If I’m making tea for others, I immediately pour out the tea. Special gong-fu trays have reservoirs so that you can just dump tea out, but you can also just dump it in the sink or in a spare bowl.

The point of doing this is to open up the leaves and to wash them a little bit. It’s mostly ceremony, though, so if I’m making tea for myself I usually don’t do it.

Then I give the tea a short steeping. Maybe thirty seconds without a rinse or fifteen with. I pour it into the fairness pitcher to help the top and the bottom of the tea mix, and then I decant it into small cups.

People sometimes laugh at how small gong-fu cups are, but they are small for a reason. The idea is that you get many tastes of a tea as it progresses, rather than one taste of a big steep. They’re also perfect for sharing.

Unlike green teas, the best steeping of oolong teas is the second or third. That’s because by then the leaves are fully untwisted or unrolled and are maximally exposed. If you oversteep the first steeping, you can damage the second and third. So I err on the side of a light steeping for the first one. It tastes good, but its biggest function is to untwist the leaves.

The next few steepings are fast– five to ten seconds max. The tea should be a golden color. If it’s really watery I know I didn’t steep it long enough, and if it’s bitter I know I oversteeped it. I’ll adjust the next steeping.

One indicator of how good an oolong is is how many times you can steep it. A good one can go a dozen times and still be very flavorful. A bad one will taste bland or weird after just a few.

1000Teas in Budapest has an excellent Phoenix at a really low price, so whenever I am in Budapest I buy more bags of it. Even the fifteenth or twentieth steeping is still pretty good.

Drinking tea usually takes at least an hour, sometimes two. If I’m having tea with a friend we generally put our phones away and have a good conversation. If I’m having it by myself I reflect, think about the upcoming day, and browse the web. By the time I finish I am usually pretty excited to get to work and I know what I’m going to do first.

I’m not a foodie or a connoisseur of anything besides tea. But I’ve really come to enjoy making and drinking tea. It’s really one of my favorite parts of every day. I love when I’m on a plane and I make tea with my little travel set. It makes the flight go by very quickly.

At the same time, I have to admit that I think it’s a little bit ridiculous that I go through such lengths to essentially put some leaves in water. I don’t think how much I like it is totally defensible.

Then again, it’s probably the healthiest thing you can develop some snobbery around. Tea is very healthy for you and also hydrates you in the morning when you’re at your least hydrated. Better that than food, alcohol, drugs, or tobacco.

It’s a real shame that most people are exposed to such poor quality tea. The tea I drink bears zero resemblance to the tiny tea bags that we’ve all experienced. I think that if more people had access to good tea they would choose it over other beverages and be better off for it.

###

Photo is my tea room in Vegas. It’s a work in progress, but it’s a nice place to have tea.

First some highlights:

Dating

As expected, dating was a big theme this year. I started out with a new relationship and ended the year with a failed attempt at another. I definitely had a fantasy that I would fall in love with the first person I met and settle down with her, but that’s not how it happened. Still, it feels good to be dating again and I do feel like I’m moving towards finding someone to settle down with.

The downside of dating is that I do find it incredibly distracting. I’m not sure if it’s like that for everyone, but I frequently have the impulse to take months/years off from dating again just for productivity’s sake.

Last year I asked my readers to introduce me to women they thought I might be a good match for. My first relationship of the year was due to one of those introductions. The bounty is still there: introduce me to someone I date for 2+ years and I will cross off one of your bucket list items with you. Please make sure the woman knows she is being introduced.

Travel

Wow, lots of travel. Too much, honestly, but I wouldn’t take any individual trip back. I fell in love with Budapest, went to Japan a bunch of times, went on two cruises, and visited around twenty countries including ten new ones. I’m up to seventy or so now.

I barely took any trips alone this year, which has been a big improvement. Some time last year I realized that I don’t get much out of traveling alone anymore, so I always book trips with friends.

I have WAY fewer trips booked this year than I did a year ago. Just one trip to Bangkok that I’ll probably bail on, a trip to Cambodia and Japan that begins today, and one epic cruise. I have no trips booked for all of February and March, which is pretty crazy for me.

Vegas

I’ve owned my place in Vegas for approximately one year now. In that time I’ve done a lot to it, including completely ripping out and replacing the kitchen, furnishing it, building a tearoom, automating everything from the lights to the curtains, and half of the bathroom renovation. I have really loved doing all of this.

My friends Todd and Kai have also bought places in Vegas, so we have a little community going there. I’ve begun to make some new friends there as well, but my social circle there is not nearly as robust as it is in San Francisco.

My home office in Vegas is really fantastic and motivates me to work, so I’m planning on spending a lot of time there with my head down this year. A HUGE thank you to Ergo Depot for outfitting my office for me.

Work

Work has been okay this year. I wrote another book, Superhuman Social Skills, which I’m really happy with. It was equally well-received and successful as Superhuman By Habit. I had hoped to level up and write an even better book, but it appears that I did not do that. On the other hand, it was a #1 bestseller in two or three categories, so that was really good.

I also wrote another book which I haven’t gotten around to editing and publishing yet.

I’ve been working on CruiseSheet a lot, too. Despite the improvements I’ve made, though, sales haven’t really increased. I have a big todo list of stuff to try to increase sales, so I’ll be working on that this year.

Island

2015 was a really big year for the island. We got the yurt built, complete with woodstove and staircase, and all of a sudden the island is habitable and comfortable. The trips to the island with friends and family have again been a real highlight of the year. I’m chomping at the bit to get back there, maybe in March.

Poker

I came in twelfth in my event at the World Series of Poker! This was a major accomplishment for me, as I’ve only played in the World Series once before and narrowly missed getting into the money that time. As a result I’ve moved up to $20/40 Limit and have done well there. I really like poker not just because of the money I make, but because I feel like it’s some of the best brain training available.

This Next Year…

My biggest priority for 2016 is to get some focus and discipline back. Travel and dating eroded it a bit, and it’s frustrating to see things linger on my todo list.

Part of focus and discipline is going to be simplifying. I’ve been expanding a lot and now I need to consolidate and trim the fat. This includes small things like closing credit cards and bank accounts as well as large things like possibly selling my RV.

I also need to refresh some of my systems. For example, there’s no reason I shouldn’t have several blog posts queued up in advance, but I don’t. Not every event makes it onto my calendar, not every task makes it to my todo list.

I’m going to try traveling a lot less this year. Cruises are very high-productivity for me, so I won’t cut down on those. I’ll definitely go to Budapest and Tokyo at some point. But I’m going to book fewer trips just because there’s a deal there.

I’ll be dating some more this year, again hoping to find a long-term girlfriend. The hardest part for me is finding women I’m interested in dating, but I also have some to do in terms of being a good boyfriend. I’ve learned a lot on that this year and will be putting those lessons to good use.

My next cruise is 23 days long, which is a huge opportunity for writing for me. I have a pretty ambitious idea for a nonfiction book, and I also have a third of a fiction book written that I’m eager to finish. One way or another I’ll probably put out another book.

The two-year writing bet ends in approximately two months and I can’t wait. It’s done a ton for me, but there are also downsides to it of which I’m eager to be free. My ability to write well and quickly has increased significantly, but some of the joy of writing has been sapped.

###

Photo is a cool ceiling in a Dubai mall.

I’m currently in Guangzhou, on my way to Cambodia to do a biking trip. Should be interesting!

I hope you had a great year and that you make sure your next year is even better. Thank you for reading in 2015!

I decided to give it a try, mainly to get rid of one more small thing in my travel bag.

My hair revolted from the beginning. At first it just looked a little bit oily, but soon it became stiff. I could shape it in any way and it would stay there. It was tangled enough that I couldn’t run my hands through it.

A week or two in, it was looking less oily, but still stiff. No one noticed or said anything, so I figured that even if it was a little bit weird, it was still working.

Then, over the next few weeks, it returned back to normal. It’s been two or three months since I’ve used shampoo, and I don’t think anyone would be able to detect anything being different. I do wash my hair, of course, just with water. I massage my scalp and agitate my hair with my fingertips like they do in salons.

One interesting data point is when I visited the island and didn’t shower for a week. Usually my hair gets really unmanageable when I do that, but this time it was pretty much fine. Even without washing with water, my hair was okay.

If you’re a traveler, I think this is worth trying. Great hair, one less 3.4oz bottle, plus a little flexibility if your itinerary causes you to skip a shower or two.

###

Photo is a cool path in Horta, Azores