Beverage mixed with tapioca pearls / TUE 1-24-23 / Distilled coal product used to preserve wood / Cataclysm in the lore of many world cultures / San Francisco neighborhood with the GLBT Historical Society Museum / Electronic device for a person with voice impairment, maybe / Journalist political analyst Nate

Constructor: Aaron M. Rosenberg and Jeff Chen

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium ("Medium" solely because of Nate COHN, whoever that is)

THEME: BUBBLE TEA (39D: Beverage mixed with tapioca pearls ... or a description of this puzzle's circled pearls?) — different kinds of "teas" appear in "bubbles" (i.e. circled squares) in a handful of long Down themers:

Theme answers:

• SPEECH AID (3D: Electronic device for a person with voice impairment, maybe)
• PASS A MILESTONE (18D: Go through one of life's significant moments)
• "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ" (7D: Response from someone who merely glanced at an online post, maybe)
• WEATHER BALLOON (9D: What a U.F.O. might turn out to be)

Word of the Day: Nate COHN (22D: Journalist/political analyst) —

Nathan David Cohn (born August 16, 1988) is an American journalist and chief political analyst for "The Upshot" at The New York Times. His reporting focuses on elections, public opinion, and demographics in the United States. (wikipedia)

• • •

Well I got to put my tea knowledge, which heavily overlaps with "crossword knowledge," to good use today. The biggest crossword assist I got was with ASSAM, an extremely crosswordesey tea back in the tea. One of those teas (and tea regions) you just knew, even if you never drank tea. You see CHAI a lot in crosswords too, although at this point CHAI is ubiquitous and requires no special insider crossword knowledge. OOLONG is better known as a tea than as a crossword answer (though I've seen it ... and maybe even used it in a puzzle ...) and HERBAL ... well, that's not a "tea" at all. It's also not nearly specific enough. The others are specific tea varieties, but HERBAL is a giant catch-all category of actually not-tea tea, i.e. tisane, made out of typically non-caffeinated plants. Speaking of TISANE, seems like it would make good crossword fodder, though I don't recall ever seeing it. Anyway, I'm fine with HERBAL being categorically different from the others, but less fine with its being so much more generic than the others. But back to the theme—the revealer makes it good. Working those damn circles right into the core thematic concept: great. Feels fresh, clever, original. 

I have just two complaints about the theme (beyond HERBAL being ... not like the others), and both complaints relate to "TOO LONG, DIDN'T READ." First, it's the only themer where the bubbles don't touch every word element in the answer (which is the elegant way to do it). CHAI touches SPEECH and AID, ASSAM (impressively) touches PASS and A *and* MILESTONE, HERBAL touches WEATHER and BALLOON, but OOLONG touches only words on the front end of "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," leaving the entirety of "DIDN'T READ" out to dry (and leaving the bottom half of the grid bubble-free, which is odd, since that's usually where the bubbles are in BUBBLE TEA) (see picture, above). Second, no one but no one writes out "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ." If someone "merely glanced" at an online post, then there's no way they're typing all that out. Instead, they're going to write the super dickish / now-ye-olde-feeling "tl;dr." The expression *means* "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," but the whole point is abbreviation. tl;dr is just tl;dr. I'm pretty sure it's been in crosswords as such. Nobody Writes Out TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," and the clue should acknowledge that fact (i.e. that it's the full meaning of something that exists exclusively as an abbr. irl) ("in real life," btw) ("by the way"...)

The grid is 16 rows tall in order to accommodate "TOO LONG; DIDN'T READ," so if your time seemed a little slow or the grid looked a little unusual (beyond the "bubbles"), that's why. I doubt your time was very far north of your usual Tuesday, as this puzzle played Very Easy (as so many puzzles seem to do these days).  The first themers were a little tough to parse, maybe, but once I got the "tea" concept, CHAI and ASSAM helped me make quick work of those first two themers, and beyond that, there's nothing tough, except (for me) COHN, which ... I don't know who that is. Tuesday-famous? Or just NYT self-hype. Whatever, the clue made me struggle to remember the one political analyst "NATE" I know, and that NATE ended up being NATE Silver, so ... that answer was marginal (fame-wise) and made me think of things I'd rather not think of. 0 for 2. I had ARYA for ANYA because "GOT," WTF (as in "who the f— cares not me"). But those "GOT" names (so ... many ...) are slowly becoming second nature, and anyway, the crosses are all fair. The rest of the grid is pretty good. IN INK and TAR OIL are ugly, and SODOI (like its equally evil twin SOAMI) is as always unwelcome, but it's hard not to like SLEAZY and GUMSUP and "I'M HERE!" and "OH, SURE..." I gotta run. "Unhappy tabbies" are mewing hungrily (if not yet CLAWing AT my door) and that coffee (not tea) is not gonna make itself. See you tomorrow.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld 

P.S. ESP isn't real and it's always jarring when the clue doesn't say as much (35D: Mind reader's ability). I wanted the answer to be NIL.

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