Lian Ashworth
Lian has drunk tea attentively for fourteen years and has repeatedly declined to open a shop, on the grounds that it would compromise the only useful thing about this project.
The project
About Amusement Gratuit
An independent tea publication with nothing for sale. We recommend no sellers, take no commission, and test brewing claims by tasting them side by side.
Why nothing for sale
Almost all tea writing is produced by people who sell tea. That does not make it dishonest, and it inevitably shapes which teas get written about enthusiastically and which categories get emphasised.
Amusement Gratuit was started specifically to avoid that. There is no shop, no affiliate arrangement and no seller recommendation, which limits what we can offer and is the entire point.
Free improvements first
Most tea writing points toward buying better leaf. A great deal of the improvement available to most drinkers comes from adjusting water temperature, weighing the leaf and filtering the water, all of which are free or nearly so.
The brewing section is deliberately first on this site for that reason. Someone who brews their existing tea properly will get more from it than someone who brews expensive tea badly.
Our position
Four commitments
These determine what appears here and what does not.
Nothing for sale
No shop, no affiliate links, no sponsored content, no seller recommendations.
Tested by tasting
Brewing claims are checked by preparing the same leaf with one variable changed and tasting side by side, blind where practical.
Process over marketing
Categories are explained by how the leaf was made rather than by the vocabulary on the packet.
Uncertainty stated
Where a claim is traditional but unestablished, or disputed among more experienced people, we say so.
Who writes it
Three drinkers
Fourteen, nine and eleven years of attentive drinking, and one excessive storage cupboard.
Rasheeda Kamau
Rasheeda writes about green tea, black tea and harvest seasons, and has an unusually detailed memory for what a particular garden produced in a particular year.
Osric Delaine
Osric covers water chemistry, puerh and tasting method, and maintains a storage cupboard that his household finds excessive.
How a guide is made
From question to publication
Slowly, because comparative tasting takes time and a fresh palate.
1. A recurring question
Something asked repeatedly, where the available answers are contradictory or come from someone with tea to sell.
2. Set up the comparison
The same leaf, brewed with one variable changed, tasted side by side with everything else held constant.
3. Taste blind where possible
Expectation shapes perception considerably, and blind comparison has overturned several of our own assumptions.
4. Repeat with different teas
An effect demonstrated on one tea may not generalise. We check across categories before publishing a general claim.
5. Correct in public
Readers with production or trade experience have corrected us more than once, and those corrections appear at the foot of the relevant guide.
The steeping letter
Fortnightly: one new guide, one tea worth knowing about, and one reader question answered properly.
Used only for the letter. One click unsubscribes.