Brewing a Cup of AI Tea

You know how some people quit their job to start a vineyard or a coffee roasting business?

Well, I decided to get a tea estate.

I have no money to buy one yet, nor do I have the knowledge to run one.

I’m not sure if that makes me wildly delulu or mildly unhinged, but either way, this blog is my lab journal. Welcome.

So, What Am I Doing Here?

After a few years of jumping around careers in tech and creative fields, at the age of 31, I’ve had an epiphany. I want to study tea! So I quit my jobs and enrolled in a 6-month-long tea management crash course.

After two lessons, I realised there’s a lot I need to study to understand Tea! There’s food science and technology, soil nutrition, agricultural sciences, biotechnology, and honestly, even the basics of chemistry and biology! Subjects I had long forgotten.

I went down a rabbit hole, figuring out the gaps I needed to fill if I wanted to apply for a PhD in tea sciences.

Wait, There’s a PhD for Tea Sciences?

There’s a PhD for everything, really. I didn’t know you could get a doctorate in tea until a year ago, and since then, I’ve been obsessing over it. But obviously, since I have no background in agriculture, biology, or food sciences, I’m going to use my comp sci knowledge to brew AI and tea in a cup.

Why?

In a hope that it may lead me towards my doctorate in tea.

Now, What’s the Plan?

Good question.

I don’t know. I’m winging this as I go. I have 4 - 8 classes in tea management a month. Along with that, I’m going to invest time studying food science and technology, biotechnology, and ML in agriculture. I will upload updates on my lessons and how I wish to turn that into an ML project.

Over time, I will work on those projects; hopefully there will be datasets available to get something substantial out of this.

Why AI + Tea?

Tea is oddly under-represented in the tech world. There’s so much science behind the perfect cup—climate, plucking technique, enzymatic activity, fermentation, drying, you name it—and yet, AI hasn’t been properly invited to the tea party.

Meanwhile, I’m just sitting here thinking:

“What if we taught machines to identify leaf stages? Or predict quality outcomes? Or assist with nutrient management?”

Then I did a quick Google search and found out I was wrong. There’s tonnes of research out there and people combining the two. But that’s not what I was told in class, so I’m thinking that may not be the case in India!

Sure, we have a lot of AI engineers, but clearly, not enough in the tea industry.

What Will You Find on This Blog?

The Tea Lab Journal is my semi-chaotic, dopamine-driven attempt at learning everything about tea—while occasionally forcing AI to join the ride.

Here, I’ll be:

• Figuring out how tea actually works, from soil nutrients to oxidation quirks

• Running small, often overambitious AI experiments on tea-related problems

• Documenting everything—code, chaos, composting mistakes—in plain English

There will be models.
There will be charts I don’t fully understand.
There will probably be a post titled “How I Accidentally Invented TeaGPT and Now It Thinks It's My Boss.”

If nothing else, this blog will serve as proof that I tried.

What’s First on the Agenda?

I'm starting with something simple(ish): a machine learning model to classify tea leaves by plucking standard.
Young bud, one leaf and a bud, two leaves and a bud—each stage affects quality, taste, and price. But it’s hard to standardise, especially on small estates with new pickers.

If I can train a model that helps verify or sort leaves, maybe that’s a small step toward something useful.
Worst case scenario? I get better at TensorFlow and learn more tea trivia than anyone asked for.

Come Along for the Brew

This blog is for tea nerds, tech folks, PhD committee stalkers, and anyone else who finds joy in chaotic learning arcs.

Follow along as I make sense of the leaf, the lab, and the logic behind it all.
Expect journal entries, mini AI projects, thoughts on terroir, and probably a lot of tea-induced existential dread.

Welcome to The Tea Lab Journal.
We may not have a tea estate (yet), but we do have a blog—and a dream.

Disclaimer: Will I Update Often?

Maybe not.

Here’s why.

I have a book to finish writing, a book series I’m working on, 2 podcasts to upload every month, and a personal Android app I’m building, without an iota of Kotlin knowledge, btw.

If you haven’t guessed by now, I am dysfunctionally neurodiverse, and I go where the stimulation takes me.

But!

This blog is going to keep me accountable; even if it takes me a few years, I’m going to have enough on my resume to get that doctorate!