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this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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Tea! Loose leaf only and I have a kettle that I've preprogrammed for 5 optimal temps for different styles of tea and one for tisanes.
Journals! Paper quality is super important to me, I'm a daily journaler and I have preferred sizes for different types of journaling. One of the reasons I'm so picky on paper is...
Pens! I am very particular about pens. Different types for work and for personal writing.
Textiles! I have a natural fiber obsession that drives a lot of my thrifting habits.
Canon is just too mainstream. Everyone who knows anything about photography uses Nikon, like I do. Obviously.
(I'm not rich enough to use Leica - and if I were, again, I'd buy Nikon instead)
Yarn. I started out like most knitters and crocheters, grabbing stuff on sale from Joann (RIP) and using affordable tools. Then I discovered boutique yarns and had a hard time going back to anything acrylic.
Of course, fancy yarn is expensive, so I rationalized learning to spin my own on a spindle, then acquiring an electric spinning wheel, and it’s like I woke up one day surrounded by hand-dyed fiber braids and raw fleece to wash and comb myself. I’m not an expert at it, but I am past the lumpy yarnfails I started out with.
Have I saved money? Hell no. But I do like spinning yarn, and I have made peace with the craft clutter… mostly. I also have been making forays into weaving after a long hiatus.
Yarn: not even once. 🙈
Yay! I'm happy to see another spinner on Lemmy!
That's a great snobbery to have! It's a lost art that you're making live, and it's really creative. Well done 👏
I'm well on my way down the path of this kind of growth with signature chops. I used to find cute or interesting ones and buy them. Then I found some tools for making them, and saw that entry-level kits aren't that expensive, so I got a set to see if this is a hobby I could get into.
Now I'm eyeing better clamps and possibly some premium chisels.
I figure within about five years I'll see a chop I like and just make my own version of it instead of buying it.
I'm a bit of a snob about coffee, but not obnoxiously I think. I won't force it on others but I will rarely drink coffee that wasn't fresh ground just before brewing. I also find it absurd that people still use methods that burn the coffee constantly, and all my family members know me as the girl who will show up to the annual reunion weekend with a coffee grinder and a pound or two of my own to share with anyone who wants some. Sometimes an aeropress.
My wife occasionally drinks Folgers brewed in a Mr Coffee and I will forever make fun of her for it, because it's at the same little coffee bar area in our kitchen as my espresso machine, beans, and grinder.
... But any coffee is better than none coffee, so I won't complain too hard when someone offers me some garbage pre ground dirt water lol.
Growing up I was snubbish about a LOT. Now a days, I don't give a fuck about most of that anymore. Only things I can think of is I won't let and algorithm decide what I hear o what I watch. So no spotify or similar, no tiktok or instagram, I gotta be the one that presses play or scrolls by, thank you very much. Also no AI for me, fuck that. And won't toleratr ads online, ever.
I missed that whole thing with streaming, fortunately. I've never seen Spotify. I've seen Tiktok (because it's EVERYWHERE) but never bothered to check out an account and never clicked past the first link when someone shared a video. I've never looked at Instagram. And I'm 100% with you on ads: I'm ad-blocked to the hilt to the point that the very few times I'm forced to use an unprotected Internet (like, say, at a colleague's desk) I'm amazed anybody can find anything behind all those damnable intrusive ads.
I'm also glad I never adopted streaming and a lot of that stuff, i did have ig for a while but the thing's trash. I agree I can't see how some people just accept ads, algorithms and honestly what amounts to visual and auditory contamination thrown at them all the time.
I went back to my old MP3 player, and I love collecting CDs, along with a handful of other ways I've turned back the clock. I live like it's 2006 and I'm so much better off for it.
I know this, is the way. It makes discovering new music an involved activity on its own as well. Like treasure hunting, so to speak.
I use my phone or my computer, but only with a non-"connected" player (VLC). No recommendations. No ads. Just my music played my way when I want to play it.
And of course given where I am, I have to hoist the Jolly Roger to get the music I want.
Chocolate, food, tea, all have been mentioned so I'm going to say clothing.
I don't judge other people or what they wear, we all are living our own lives, but when I'm combing the racks at a thrift store there is a drastic range of quality available. I will turn my nose up derisively at the millionth thin poly/cotton blend long t-shirt that calls itself a dress. An otherwise nice looking jacket that cheats on lining and has barely a strip of serged facing to complete a seam is disappointing. Completely unfinished hems on pants or straight up raw edges on bras is shameful. I see weird, inappropriate material choices, bad patterning, cheap construction, and that's not even going into the potential issues with the labor and environmental practices that originally created the item.
I've been making an effort to no longer buy plastic clothing and it's EVERYWHERE. Anything that is acrylic, polyester, microfiber, acetate, nylon, spandex, elastane, lycra etc, is made of plastic or with plastic. There are a lot of materials used for textiles and they all have their own strengths and weaknesses, and there are plenty that don't shed microplastics everywhere. I've become a lot more snobby about what materials I have against my body and in what contexts.
Natural fibers are so important to me, and I wish companies these days would make them more. Polyester doesn't breathe at all in the summer heat. And while I can mend my clothes, I want a good five years out of them first. Some clothes just aren't worth repairing if they're going to fall apart in under a year.
I'm also snobbish about boots. Thursday Boot Company is a diamond in the rough for selling Goodyear welt resoleable boots for women, when a lot of companies see it as a men-only or unisex thing. More of that, please!
Years ago, due to a combination of wanting to save money, learn a new hobby, and come to terms with a beloved coffee/sandwich shop going out of buiness, I decided, "Why spend all this money if I can just become the barista myself?"
So I gradually invested in a really lovely home kitchen setup. I shamelessly downloaded a PDF of the shop's menu before it went under, and I got pretty good at recreating the same breakfast sandwiches and lunch combos. I also grind beans that I buy locally, do french presses and pour-overs, and when time allows, make lattes. I learned a lot of valuable skills along the way. It also retroactively made a lot of diners and brunch spots worse for me. There's been a number of bad, kind of overpriced omelets I order at restaurants that I think I can do better at home.
Chai lattes, my favorite drink, has been my latest obsession to recreate after having a proper cup at a tea bar. Now I know if it's not spicy, something's wrong. I really didn't realize how many coffee shops were just using powdered chai too, instead of making it from scratch. I can never go back. 🙃
Flour! For baking. I prefer King Arthur brand flour, but basically just not the store brands. Those vary so wildly with protein contents or whatever that for baking is not fun.
Store brand is fine for not baking though!
Same! I use Caputo 00 flour, but King Arthur is my back up. Both are fantastic. I would rather not use any other flour
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Cheap chocolate is an abomination and I refuse to have it in my home.
Chocolate is an indulgence. A little of the good stuff is so much more satisfying than handfuls of the cheap stuff. If you're not having the good stuff, what is even the point in eating it?
I passionately support this comment
I dont have a sophisticated palate and am not snobby about most foods. But Hershey is straight up gross and I'm not even tempted by it.
What could possibly be wrong with chocolate that tastes like vomit?! 😱🤮
Yep hershey is horrible I was so disappointed when I first had it
Cheap Aldi chocolate is fine, though.
I love aldi but 75% of their candy "may contain peanuts." I have to watch out for a lot of their products with that.
for real what's with that label. gee just what i love, gambling with my food. and i just hate peanuts, i can't imagine what my hatred for the label would be if that could actually fucking kill me
Some of it us tolerable
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Balsamic vinegar. Once I tried a real Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale on vanilla ice cream I was hooked. Tastes like nothing else in the world.
A top-end 山西老陈醋 (Shanxi Aged Vinegar) rivals balsamic for breadth, depth, and complexity of flavour. If you can find the good stuff, give it a try. (Don't bother with the branded stuff in Asian groceries. That's the low-end stuff. It's not bad as vinegar goes but it's not the near-miracle of the traditionally-made, properly-aged stuff.)
oooh nice, never heard of that but will definitely try it, thanks!
If you get the stuff that's traditionally made, you get a vinegar made from a sorghum base (like most Chinese liquor is) that uses a very convoluted "koji"-like starter (qu) made of barley, peas and bran. It's about 3000 years old, the technique, and the best stuff comes from Qingxu or Taiyuan. The terroir around these are unmistakable.
Key things that differentiate it from western traditions of vinegar production include:
- Solid state fermentation where the fermentation happens in large ceramic jars as a solid mass, not as a liquid.
- Manual turning. Several times per day the mash is mixed up by hand to control temperature and aerate it. (This is back-breaking labour, so traditional Shanxi vinegar is EXPENSIVE yo! The commercial stuff I mentioned automates this.)
- Smoking. About half the mash is smoked over a fire after fermentation to give it its characteristic smoky (duh!) flavour and black colour.
- The vinegar is then extracted and put into enormous clay jars for aging.
The aging process involves putting the jars outside into the elements. In the summer the water evaporates away, concentrating the vinegar and flavour elements. In the winter the water freezes at the top and is scooped out, further concentrating the product. After as little as 3 years, but as many as 12, the vinegar is filtered, bottled and sold. The longer the better, generally.
If this were a commercial vinegar it would then be pasteurized to kill any ongoing growth, but the real stuff, again, is not pasteurized (though it is filtered). This means if you get a bottle of the real stuff, you have a living vinegar whose character will change as your store it. The aging doesn't stop when you get the bottle. Store it properly and it will grow ever more complex and flavourful over time. I've tasted some ten year stuff that was later stored in a friend's home for a further five years. It ... yeah. It was not something I'd ever tasted before.
If you decide to try this out, be very careful with your purchase. Make sure you know the provenance of what you're getting back to the individual farm.
tysm! ❤️
Anything food related. I'm very snobby about where I shop, what brands I buy. And the list is too long to.. list.
I love saving money, but I also try and keep from purchasing national brands. If I am undecided on what product to buy, I'll narrow it down and read where the product is manufactured. Whichever is closer to home I'll pick.
But I've a thousand rules and exceptions that influence my decisions. I'm very picky about quality.
For example, I've researched nearly every olive oil brand available to me. Olive oil is the first place I'm willing to spluge, and the last place I'm willing to cut on quality. I'll eat dirt foraged from the forest before I buy shitty olive oil. Bertolli is garbage and if I see it in your kitchen, I just may silently judge you with an inferior palate and lack of care for your meals. You mine as well buy canola oil at that point. I'm working on being less judgemental, but lord. I guess olive oil is the most important to me.
Most olive oil (75-80%) sold in the Americas is adulterated or outright fake. And for "extra virgin" almost all of it is adulterated, often by a large amount, and is absolutely not EVOO-grade. (This may sound shocking, but even in Italy and Spain over half the "extra virgin" olive oil is adulterated or a lower grade. This is a massive problem with organized crime.)
The problem is that EVOO is a very small fraction of olive oil production and sells at a premium (like 10-14 Euros per litre). And honestly most people can't tell the difference anyway, so criminal gangs are adulterating EVOO with lampante (which isn't even considered fit for human consumption, and is thus sold for next to nothing) or even worse replacing it with cheap grain oils like canola or safflower with a few added chemicals to make it kinda/sorta look and vaguely taste like olive oil. This is then sold as the premium stuff which most people can't distinguish. (Needless to say this irritates the HELL out of those of us who can taste the difference!)
I gave up on olive oil when I returned to Canada in the '80s because I realized the odds of my ever getting what I was paying for on the sticker was basically zero.
This is exactly what I'm talking about!
There are certs you can look for in the bottle. I only vaugly trust the certifications, but I do not trust it at all if its not got the certification.
Finding good olive oil is work!
TEA! I got really into tea over covid. I have loads of paraphernalia, a monthly tea subscription and strong opinions on what is good tea.
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I think I'm unfortunately a bit of a snob about everything (food, drink, books, TV, movies, etc.) - but it's more that I am sensitive and discerning, and I have big feelings (but I'm not usually picky, though I can be stubborn and it might come across that way).
But hey, slumming it also allows me to enjoy the finer things, so it's all good!
Music. You can hear my eyes rolling when there's pop music being played anywhere near me or when the children / teenagers in my class ask me for the x-th time to teach them fucking Taylor Swith. 🙄
I fucking wrote my grocery store recently because they started playing that pop country garbage. I said, We're in New England could you not?
Im normally not this petty, but it ruins my shopping trip.
Oof, been there. I live way up north. We're very much flannel and hiking boots and folk music kind of people. There's definitely an archetype of Midwesterners who wear cowboy boots and blast country music out of their pickup trucks that fly the confederate flag, and it's weird. Like, are you lost, pal? Texas is that way.
I have very broad tastes in music, yet I'm also completely and utterly snobbish about what I listen to. It's weird. When people ask me which genre I like, I say "Music that doesn't suck". I can't get narrower than that.
Coffee
I buy SOE beans only (currently Yunnan Red Wine sun-dried), roasted on the estate and couriered to me so that when it arrives the CO2 has escaped the beans. I then hand grind in a burr grinder, and use filtered water in a french press or a Vietnamese coffee maker only. I don't use paper filters, percolators, or even drip makers. I also don't add sugar or milk or any other such additive. I want to taste my coffee, not have the flavours concealed by sugars and oils that make the flavourful agents slip over my tongue without leaving much flavour in their wake.
I'm very fussy about my coffee, I'm trying to say. When I lived in Canada I didn't even buy roasted beans. I had my own roaster.
Tea
As fussy as I am about my coffee, I am far fussier about tea. I try to buy straight from the producers without middlemen involved. And in tea, given the bewildering variety of it available, I keep a pool of standard teas (Lushan Yunwu, Yunnan Dianhong, Biluochun, and Leishan Hong Mei) for daily use, and I hunt down odd and interesting teas from all over China like the "Gold Flowers" black tea from Anhua, or the myriad of radically different teas under the "pu'er" umbrella, or things like Liubao black (probably the most out there tea available under the heading of camelia sinensis). I don't use tea bags. I don't use blends. I don't do brand names. For coffees I reach SOE. For teas it's SOE or even SOF.
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