About this site
I'm Marit, a backend developer living in Delft. I write about tea — mostly the kind you brew carefully and drink slowly, though I'm not above a hasty mug before a morning standup.
I started keeping notes on tea in late 2023 after a colleague brought a small bag of Taiwanese High Mountain oolong to the office. It was absurdly good. I asked where she got it, went down a brief research spiral, and a few weeks later had a gaiwan and three varieties of Taiwanese oolong arriving from a small importer in Utrecht. It escalated from there.
This site is the public version of those notes. I write about brewing technique, tea types I'm exploring, the odd bit of history or culture, and the occasional failure (there have been quite a few failures).
What I'm actually drinking
Mostly oolong, mostly Taiwanese, though I've been spending more time with Chinese teas over the past year — specifically Wuyi rock oolongs and aged white teas. I go through phases. Right now I'm in a Shu Puerh phase that I didn't see coming.
I also drink Japanese greens: gyokuro when I have the patience, sencha most mornings. Matcha occasionally, usually on weekends.
On the Dutch angle
The Netherlands has a complicated relationship with tea. We're a coffee-first culture — the koffietijd ritual is non-negotiable — but tea is always there too, in a quieter way. My grandmother kept a ceramic teapot on the counter and brewed black tea all day. That memory is part of why I care about this stuff.
Delft specifically: famous for blue pottery, a canal city, a university town. Living here feels like an accident that turned out well. The Saturday market has a spice and herb stall that carries some interesting loose teas. I'll write more about that sometime.
About the site
Hand-written HTML and CSS, served over nginx. No tracking, no comments, no JavaScript for anything except the occasional code block highlight. I try to keep pages small and fast.
If something here is wrong or you want to share something tea-related, email hello [at] delfttea.fun.