
Tea with strangers - j2kun
http://www.teawithstrangers.com/
======
ankitshah
Wow. Didn't realize this was on HN. Hi guys. Ankit here. I started TWS. Happy
to answer any q's here or by email (Ankit at teawithstrangers.com). Actually
in the middle of a gathering of the SF host community right now so will be a
tiny bit delayed on responses but will get to everything!

Lots of gratitude for all the good words and valuable critiques.

~~~
green7ea
I really like the idea but unfortunately you guys aren't in Montréal yet and
I'm not comfortable hosting. I'm afraid that when you do get here that I won't
remember to check it out. Would it be possible to sign up and get notified
when your service expands?

~~~
nickbarnwell
Building this this evening! Will reply back once the feature exists

~~~
ankitshah
Nick you're awesome. Thanks for being so on the ball brother!

------
krick
Every time I find something like this and click on "Select Your City" dropdown
it keeps reminding me all life _happens somewhere else_. Ah, so depressing.

Really great idea, I mean. Good luck with that.

~~~
justizin
It sounds like you might want to host:

    
    
      http://www.teawithstrangers.com/hosting

~~~
krick
I'm not sure if I would be good enough host. And even if someday I'm brave
enough to assume I am, I'm afraid I would be hosting meetup with myself in
Riga, Latvia.

~~~
mashmac2
Nah, there are lots of people in the Baltics who would be happy to have a cup
of tea and talk about life - I was just thinking about hosting in Klaipeda

------
brookside
A simple, and great idea. The post-social media world can be a lonely place
and it's nice to see this effort to connect divergent people in a genuine way
AFK, and outside of a capitalist or mystical/religious/occult context.

~~~
pidg
Agreed, I've been attending mystical/religious/occult events for a while now
and I just end up meeting weirdos.

~~~
brookside
More than a third of people in my country (US) do attend those events, and
they are teh de-facto social outlets in many communities. Great to have
alternatives.

------
jdross
A few weeks ago around 100 people spontaneously met in Alamo Square park in
SF. Someone brought hundreds of roses to give out to everyone else in the
park. Super cool.

TWS is a great crew of people, and Ankit's a great community leader. Both the
normal small group events, and the rare big community ones have only been
positive.

You should go to one and if it seems like your... cup of tea... consider
becoming a host

~~~
ankitshah
It was pretty beautiful. Thanks for the love JD. And the pun. Because that
wasn't at all predictable ;)

Oh, and if you want to see what he's talking about, here are some pictures
[https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.785821618171086.10...](https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.785821618171086.1073741837.542640869155830&type=3)

------
nickbarnwell
If you love the idea and want to contribute, we're totally open source and
transparent with regard to roadmap. On GitHub as @teawithstrangers, and more
background and info is at
[http://making.teawithstrangers.com](http://making.teawithstrangers.com)

~~~
krick
[http://making.teawithstrangers.com/github](http://making.teawithstrangers.com/github)

404 Not Found

~~~
nickbarnwell
My bad. Forgot to fix that to 301 when moving stuff to S3/Cloudfront. The
straight GH link someone linked down thread should work.

~~~
nickbarnwell
Fixed now, thanks again for pointing it out!

------
apandhi
Last weekend, I went to an event hosted by Tea With Strangers called "Sunshine
with Strangers"

One of my favorite experiences ever. I've lived in NY my whole life, and that
was the first time it truly felt like a community. It was over 100 people, and
everyone was just open to meeting new people.

10/10 would go again.

(P.S., The creator, Ankit, is awesome.)

~~~
ankitshah
Wow. This is amazing. Thanks so much for being so receptive to what we're
trying to do. This is exactly what we're going for. Except for 8mn people in
NYC, not just 100.

In time.

------
jqm
Meeting people is nice, but only if they are quality people. Otherwise, I'd
rather not. There aren't many of these in the town I live in, but I know they
are here, at least some of them. How to meet these people?

"Quality" might sound snobby or something so let me qualify... people who are
intelligent, people who are motivated, people who have a sense of humor,
people who aren't dishonest with intent to take unfair advantage of others,
people who take basic care of their personal hygiene and fitness, people who
are open minded (i.e. not racist etc), people who don't have chronic hard drug
habits, people who are not religious fundamentalists or involved with some
fringe political ideology, people who are interested and interesting....

All of these (or lack thereof) are deal breakers in my book. Call me
uncharitable, but I'd rather be by myself than associate with them. I've met
too many people in life who have simply wasted my time or taken from me
without giving back. Where are the quality people? Make an app for that and
I'm on board!

~~~
barry-cotter
You are an elitist. You are snobby. Own it.

~~~
jqm
eh, you are probably right. does that make me a bad person?

------
robertnealan
I haven't personally been to one of their events but met the founder (Ankit)
by chance a few months back through a mutual friend who has been to a few.
Definitely seems like a genuine guy who's passionate about the idea and being
rightfully cautious about expanding at a pace that ensures all their events
are of high enough quality with good hosts to guide good conversation.

If they're in your area definitely be sure to try an attend an event, I know I
will be assuming I ever beat the waitlist in San Francisco.

~~~
austinjp
Do it, then do it again. Riga is on my long list of places to visit. If you're
making coffee too, I'm interested :)

~~~
corin_
FYI you've replied to the wrong comment (presume aimed at
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400544](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9400544))

------
youshaei
The only thing more amazing that going to a TWS meetup is the thoughtfulness
and care the founder, Ankit, puts into growing this community. Highly
recommend checking out a tea time or letting a friend know who's in one of the
host areas to join.

~~~
ankitshah
Making me blush. So unnecessary. But we're doing our best. Long road ahead if
we want to create a real dent while staying mindful.

------
rza
Great concept, my main grip with meeting people on say a site like Meetup is
that every event has like 100 attendees and smaller ones are too niche when
all I really want is to have a conversation with a few people.

~~~
ankitshah
I think 100 attendees isn't a horrible thing if they actually feel a sense of
common ground. The real difficulty is eliminating the friction that exists
between people in those large gatherings. Something we try really hard to
accomplish, in between all the tea times we host, is create larger gatherings
for the community and cities at large that welcome people in a way that gets
rid of all notions that any attendee would need formalities to treat the
others like the most amazing person in the room.

------
tomjen3
An interesting idea, but why limiting it to select cities, rather than
allowing whomever wants to host a tea session in their city?

~~~
nickbarnwell
Hey Tom. We have big plans to scale out, but we're still working on ensuring
we have a plan for consistent quality of hosts and experiences before we open
it up to all comers. If you want to get it up and running in your city sooner,
drop me an email (in profile) or shoot Ankit, the founder, a message at
ankit@teawithstrangers.com.

------
calvins
This sounded interesting to me when I first loaded the page and imagined it
was talking about virtual tea: me sipping tea at home while typing/conversing
live with a random person halfway around the world.

Is there such a thing? Turns out there are quite a few, as I just discovered
with a quick search. Any HN readers have good experiences with any of them?

I just tried one briefly, and had a string of disconnects after just 'hello',
and then one that didn't want to reveal the country they currently live in,
after which I gave up.

~~~
ankitshah
We're all about high fives, hugs, eye contact, and being in person. Attention
and trust are really important variable in our f(human connection).

------
petercooper
At the risk of a derail, I'm in SF for a few days (to host O'Reilly Fluent)
and "doing" breakfasts at Mel's on Mission downtown - first one tomorrow
9amish :-)

~~~
DanielKehoe
IMO, if you haven't met Peter Cooper, you've missed one of this life's joys.

------
edward
Feedback: "Cambridge" is ambiguous.

~~~
Paul_S
I was thinking the same but there's a photo. I suspect the author isn't
American.

------
j2kun
I hosted a tea this afternoon and it was really relaxed. We talked about
everything from our dream jobs to improv shakespeare to what makes math
beautiful. We swapped some stories, drank tea, and after two hours just said
goodbye and left.

Can't wait to do it again!

~~~
ankitshah
Golden.

------
iheartramen
I love tea with strangers! Highly recommend everyone to try a teatime out :)

~~~
ankitshah
I love tea with strangers too!

------
icesoldier
I am very much in love with this idea. There's a chicken-and-egg problem,
though, where I live in a city that I doubt will get a host spontaneously
(Amarillo, TX) but I'd want to attend one of these to get a feel for it before
I'm willing to host one myself. I wonder if there's an opportunity there, to
have a sort of "training materials" that can better bootstrap a host in this
kind of situation.

~~~
eekelly2388
Once you sign up to host there are some informal "training materials"
available. I have never attended a TWS event but I will be hosting my first
one next weekend (!!!). It's a little nerve-wracking to go in with no prior
experience but I think that's okay since a big part of TWS is being open-
minded and having no expectations about where the conversation will go.

------
alain94040
As an ex founder of similar ideas, good luck to you. This needs to happen. I'm
just curious: doesn't tea give you a British angle?

~~~
mbrock
Tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world after water, and it
comes from China, not Britain! Obvious, perhaps, but the popular association
of tea with Britishness is a tragedy that must be stopped. That's why I also
firmly reject the ludicrous notion that the artificially scented "Earl Grey
tea" is some kind of default option; why give such credence to the habits of
19th century British aristocrats?

~~~
keenerd
Artificially scented? The bergamot orange is a real plant.

Every culture that has tea will have flavored teas. It gives you something to
do with the low-grade leaves. Just last night I tried ginseng oolong for the
first time. Is it as artificial as earl grey?

~~~
mbrock
So they say. Sorry, I'm half joking, half referring to this, from Wikipedia:

"Tea flavoured with bergamot to imitate the more expensive types of Chinese
tea has been known in England at least since the 1820s. In 1837 there is a
record of court proceedings against Brocksop & Co. who were found to have
supplied tea 'artificially scented, and, drugged with bergamot in this
country.'"

Yes, I'm quite a big fan of oolong flavored with osmanthus; haven't tried
ginger.

------
bootload
American site, Commonwealth concept of _' Tea?'_ Is that the hot beverage [0]
or dinner?

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea)

------
nudpiedo
Hey, I am missing European cities.

Any European city with more than 100k people could work! But for that there
are one million facebook groups (which usually tend to make grill and
barbecues with strangers; usually foreigners in the city).

------
wiml
Interesting to read this right after this:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9399307](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9399307)

------
TheSmoke
alright, i don't see any city from the country with the most tea consumption
[0]. add istanbul to the list please. i'm in.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consum...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tea_consumption_per_capita)

------
tzhong
Love the TWS community and the founder :)

~~~
ankitshah
IT LOVES YOU TOO T.ZHONG

------
reustle
I went to tea with a group in NY maybe a year ago, had a fantastic time. Great
work Ankit and co!

~~~
ankitshah
We're missing you Shane! Still remember seeing your facebook post. I think
that was Alex's first tea time, and she had great things to say about your
group! Bring some of your freshness back to the table brother.

(Also next time I'm in New York, come to one of my tea times. Would be cool to
exchange high fives. Maybe a hug if I'm real lucky.)

------
robobro
Oh, I wonder where other Portlanders on HN go for tea!

------
steamy
Is this something like Couchsurfing but mildly less creepy?

~~~
yrizk
far from it. TWS occurs in neutral locations (coffee shops etc) . no one's
personal space (in the literal sense) is in the picture. Which is good
actually, it lets you be comfortable both as the host and as one of the
attendees, which tends to lead to authenticity.Thinking about it, there would
be way too much already on the line if these were placed in someone's home
from the get go.

~~~
slvv
Thanks for mentioning this! I definitely thought it was held in people's homes
which was a big turnoff. Helpful clarification!

