Welcome to tanJennts

Inspired by coffee, powered by chips.

tanJennts is the creative outlet of writer, photographer & marketer Jenn Chen

If you’d like to know more about me, visit the About page or my website. My writing is—not all at once—direct, emotional, very personal, and heavily researched. And my photography tends to be dark and moody, candid, or lightly staged.

Free subscribers receive an email twice a month that includes the following:

• notes from Jenn: A short list of things that have happened recently.

• the tanJennt: An essay or feature, including articles, personal reflections, interviews, how-to guides, and short-form journalism. Some example topics include:

  • Culture

  • Freelancing & writing

  • Cultural identity

  • Food

  • Coffee marketing

  • Mental health

• digital strategy: A few links on how to improve your digital strategy.

• interesting reads: Articles I’ve read recently that I’ve enjoyed. These run the gamut of topics.

• plant update: A plant feature from my container garden!

With the cost of one cup of specialty coffee ($5/month, $50/year), paid subscribers receive two extra articles or essays per month. Benefits include behind-the-scenes looks at articles, writer reflections, and photo essays.

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

• I hate video, a rant — Stop turning everything into TikTok.

• New Year dumplings, made with sadness and anger — A photo + words essay and an example of what paid subscribers receive.

• What happened when I asked ChatGPT to write about coffee — AI can only do so much.

• Listening to your gut — An essay on how I pay attention to my gut's opinion.

• Do what you love and it’ll still feel like work — An essay about the glorification of “doing what you love.”

• Nostalgia in marketing — How the psychology of nostalgia is used in marketing.

• F**k email etiquette — An essay on how we should stop putting all those niceties at the beginning of every email.

Housekeeping:

• Posts before May 25, 2022: Coffee Marketing newsletter sends that were imported from Revue, my previous newsletter platform. These are a mix of original pieces published for the newsletter and for clients.

• The biggest difference between tanJennts and Coffee Marketing is that I’m committing to writing one original piece per issue. I will still link out to my bylined articles, but even in those cases, there will still be a fresh article to read.

• Intros: If you feel up for sharing, please introduce yourself in this thread.