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In January, the wheels move forward and the clock passes twelve again. This is another great opportunity to renew our efforts to create the best tea magazine in the world, as well as a great community surrounding it! There is a lot of work left to do, but 2015 was still a monumental year. We achieved much of what we intended to, introducing you to many of the tea teachers that are important to us, publishing the entire Cha Jing, and translating more modern Chinese articles, as we hoped to do. We also reached more countries and tea lovers around the world, increasing membership quite a bit.
One of the most amazing aspects of this project is that all the proceeds return to you, our tea brothers and sisters, in one form or another. There really is no other media like this. Of course, most of the support generated through this magazine goes to support our free tea center in Taiwan, hosting more than five hundred guests from around the world last year! Those of you who have visited Tea Sage Hut will be excited about that, but there are many people here who have never been to our center in Taiwan and may never get the opportunity to visit. And that is why we also strive to invest energy into improving the content of these magazines. We hope that the tea and magazine are great enough for tea lovers to sign up regardless of the fact that the proceeds support the center. In that way, our beloved Global Tea Hut will have a greater impact on the tea world, now and into the future.
Each January, we try to set some goals in writing, committing to a better magazine and experience for this community in the months to come. The first issue of each year is a great time to clean house, make improvements and do our best to more formally declare some of our goals for the coming year. We always feel like Global Tea Hut is transcending itself, getting better as we go. It's a good sign that we continue to be inspired and enthusiastic about the future changes!
The largest difference you will notice for this New Year, starting with this issue, is that Global Tea Hut will now be much more of a multi-media experience. Several key places in the magazine now have QR-codes that link to our brand new video page! We have always tried to include some video content that supports our magazine. Recently, we have been studying and improving our film-making, even investing in some good video equipment to start making short, poignant films. These films will enhance the experience of reading the magazine. We hope to use the movies to further your tea education and inspire a greater appreciation of each month's tea, as well as the feature of each issue. We are, of course, open to your criticism, comments and support in this new endeavor.
We have included a contribution link on the video page, should any of you wish to support this new video project. We still have some video equipment that can help us improve this endeavor. Our other main goals for 2016 are to travel more and continue translating. Being in Taiwan offers us the chance to travel to tea-growing regions in Asia and offer more journalism to you, exposing you to the history, heritage and culture of different tea areas. We can also explore new and interesting organic teas. We hope to take at least three trips this year and cover each one in the coming issues, finding rare, organic teas along the way. Being in Taiwan also affords us the chance to learn from many amazing tea experts and masters in many different fields, which is why we are committed to continue translating their articles to English. These translations won't just be modern authors; we will also continue translating the sages of the past, bringing nostalgia for the tea of lost eras. In that way, we will all be exposed to a greater variety of perspectives and information. We hope that everyone can find something to learn and be inspired by in Global Tea Hut, from tea history to production, to the spirit and cultivation of Cha Dao.
This is going to be an amazing year for Global Tea Hut! As we grow and expand, we will also improve the experience of reading this magazine, the photography inside, as well as the new videos. May we all have a blessed New Year, full of a thousand bowls of the Elixir!
Watch the first intro video for this issue now! http://www.globalteahut.org/videos
