👩🏻‍💻 About tanjennts

tanjennts is the creative outlet of writer & photographer Jenn Chen

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In 2024, I'm trying out seasonal topics: The first season covered the idea of "community." Read the season's posts here. Season 2 is all about "new directions."

Links: Paid plans | Favorite pieces | Testimonials

As a newsletter powered by chips and inspired by coffee, you can expect the unexpected. I'm told that I need a special one-liner and a niche for people to subscribe to this, but to be quite honest, I don't do well with advice meant for the masses.

But if you need one, here's the one-liner:

Exploring the tangents that coffee creates: essays and stories in culture, freelancing, food, and more.

tanjennts is not [only] about coffee. Coffee is the catalyst and thread that underpins the stories I explore. I don't like being pigeonholed, so I've purposefully made tanjennts to be all-encompassing of my interests, whether in words, photos form, or both.

Be warned: This is a personal newsletter. I get into cultural identity, mental health, politics, the -isms, and more. I'll sometimes drop a well-placed f-bomb.

Even more about tanjennts

The general tanjennts homepage is a compilation of articles in all the sections, plus any that didn't fit within the categories.

Season 2: New directions. Beginning in July!
Season 1: Community
In Focus: Conversations and interviews with creatives in or adjacent to the coffee industry.
Photo Essays: Photography essays that are sometimes accompanied by words. 🔏 For now, it's paid subscribers only, but this one about new year dumplings is unlocked for everyone to read.

Free & paid plans — "Why should I pay?"

Paid members sustain the work that goes into my free newsletter. It is just me—I'm the creative director, writer, editor, admin, and everything else. Creative work takes time, energy, and mind space. If you have the monetary means to do so and you’ve benefitted from my work, please consider the paid plan.

If you cannot afford a subscription and/or you’re a student and would benefit from my paid articles, fill out this form for a one-year comp. I also accept tips and "name your price" annual subscriptions.

Free: 2x a month on Wednesdays

The tanjennt: An essay or feature, including articles, personal reflections, interviews, and short-form journalism. In 2024, this section is underpinned by the seasonal topic. This article will always be free for anyone to read online. Everything after this section is for logged-in subscribers (free or paid).
Interesting reads: Articles I’ve read recently that I’ve enjoyed. These run the gamut of topics.
Notes from Jenn: A short list of things that have happened recently.
Plant update: A plant feature from my container garden!
Subscribing also gives you commenting privileges on the free articles.

Paid: 2x a month on the other Wednesdays

$5/month or $50/year
sliding scale: $3/month or $30/year

Everything in the free plan plus—
Two additional posts a month (at least four total per month). Each is a singular piece, such as bonus content to an existing interview or photo essay. For some of these, I may unlock them after 60 days for free subscribers to peruse.
A behind-the-scenes look at the freelance life, mental health ruminations, and sneak peeks at what I'm working on.

As someone who has been humbly enjoying your paid version as a comp subscription, I just wanted to say that seeing the two versions side by side each month has just been really lovely. They're so continuous and equal in value to each other. It's a powerful demonstration of equity in creativity, actually. That yes, you can do both – you can serve lower income folks who adore your work, AND you can also offer meaningful value worth paying for, to an audience with means to support that work. And neither is greater or lesser to the other. I wish more people would take an approach like yours. 🙏

Favorite pieces

To get a sense of what I like to write about and photograph, here are some of my favorites:

What others say

Here are some snippets of what others have to say about my newsletter:

Enjoy the newsletter. Always surprised and delighted to find something I really want to click on.

I always forward your emails to people. Your content is rich, educational, relevant and inspiring. Thank you.

Yours is one of the very few newsletters that I want to receive in my primary gmail inbox. I’m always learning and intrigued about the topics you choose. Thank you for raising the important issues and thank you for consistently sharing high quality information!

The tanjennts reader:

is a specialty coffee professional, writer, freelancer, or creative person
enjoys coffee and/or the stories it inspires
trusts me to explore the various tangents that my interests take me

Grammarly for copyedits
Canva for designs and photos
Temi for AI transcription
ClickUp to organize all my projects and thoughts
Bear for notetaking
Dreamhost for hosting my website and this subdomain