Where do you generally buy your tea?

> Just a little curious. Do most of you [...] purchase from online stores?

It's not really possible to take a meaningful survey ("most of you") in a
newsgroup.

> [...] purchase from online stores? Which ones?

The only online store I've used is SpecialTeas. I like their service and
their tea.

I used to buy cheap tea at the grocery store. Then, I started buying my
tea at an Indian grocery. Finally, I found this newsgroup and read the
recommendations from the regulars.

I don't buy "pricy" tea, because I really like most of the less-expensive
varieties I've tried. However, even the less-expensive teas are more than
the grocery store's no-name tea bags at $2.00 per pound.

I used to live in England and there it was a bit difficult to buy tea in
shops other than supermarkets. Now, surprisingly in Germany which is a
country of coffee drinkers, there are a number of top-quality chain-shops
for tea. They seem to prevent online stores by their sheer presence.

JB

I buy on-line from Cultured Cup, but primarily because they sell my
favourite tea (Mariage Freres Bolero) which I cannot find anywhere in
Canada, and with difficulty in the US. The service is, however, excellent,
shipment is prompt and reasonably priced, and the product is in top
condition upon receipt. What more can one ask for? Well, if you live in
Dallas, TX you can go to the store but for me, mail order from them has been
great.

rona

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Ethnic stores, not necessarily near. I enjoy the discovery and usually am
the minority of one. I'm in an authentic la-de-da tea house last weekend
and for $8 only got one cup of chai with my scone which was nothing more
than a biscuit with icing. Hey I ain't coming back and didn't buy any of
their 100's of loose teas where nothing was under $5/oz.

Jim

For the last 8 years, I've bought from a small shop in Minneapolis
with a big selection. A couple of years back, they started
carrying Marriage Freres teas and my wife and I really enjoy them.

I'm expecting/hoping to be moving in the next couple of months so
my habits will probably change. Fortunately, La Societe du The has
an online presence now, so I'll be able to order online after the
move.

<penitently>

Please, Lord. Let me get the job!

</penitently>

Derek

--

Query: How many geniuses does it take to change a light bulb?
Return: Into what?

The rest of my shopping is all online. In particular:

specialteas.com for chinese greens and black teas
funalliance.com for oolongs and tea equipment
pdalien an ebay seller that I just found selling some Menghai beencha
and other green pu-erh (really expensive shipping, though).

If I can just convince Kam Leung of FunAlliance to carry green pu-erh,
I'll have all of my bases covered.

Cameron

Have you ever tried the coffee/tea shop in Osborne Village? They have a
small selection of black teas of decent quality. I don't much care for the
owner's (I think) attitude so I rarely buy from them. It's the place that
sells Godiva chocolates.

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Ah... The Canister. There are a few major problems with that store.
Since they sell coffee and chocolate as well as tea, the air is
saturated with aromas that will work themselves into the tea. Also
the teas are stored in bulk inside of clear glass containers which
subject the tea to light degradation as well as excessive air-exchange
when customers are allowed to smell them. I had high hopes when I
went to visit them, but I don't think it's a good tea store.

Thanks though,

Cameron

I get In Pursuit of Tea from Real Foods in Manhattan.

McNulty's in Greenwich Village carries a variety of packaged teas (Taylor's
& Harrowgate and Fornum & Mason) but they have loose Assam and Darjeeling
that is really quite good as well.

I go to Ten Ren for oolongs (Manhattan chinatown or Flushing).

A co-worker whose wife is Chinese drops stuff on my desk from time to time
which has arrives from relatives in China.

This ng has turned me into a shameless junkie.

Warren Liebold

For Oolong, green, pouchong, white and pu-erh, TenRen in Manhattan and San
Francisco.

For black teas, which I buy for my wife and rarely for myself,
specialteas.com Sometimes JavaGirl in Manhattan because I work right down
th street.

-ben

I purchase mostly from online or mail-order stores, and to locate these, I rely
strongly on opinions of customers who happen to be on this list or Teamail or
are local enthusiasts.

For bricks-and-mortar retailers (and who knows? perhaps even for some online)
it can be tricky. In my locale there are both a specialty coffee dealer and a
specialty tea dealer, neither of which has anything I'd want to buy. It's
quite possible to have a local retailer whose standards are not quite up to
yours! Sometimes business people forge relationships with vendors for reasons
other than quality of product: easy to deal with, good terms, consistency,
etc.

For myself, I have been trying a number of online/mail-order dealers, mostly
for greens: SpecialTeas, In Pursuit of Tea, Silk Road Tea (Calif.). I am
still sort of a novice with online/mail-order. I also buy some oolongs from
the Ten Ren store in Manhattan.

I'd say -- ideally -- try to find a dealer who really knows a lot about tea, is
excited about tea, and communicates that excitement to you. Maybe you'll enter
the shop to buy a particular tea, and they'll be excited about a different tea
that just came in and they really want to give you a sample to try. Or their
good taste in expensive tea will trickle down to their cheaper ones, so you get
more bang for your buck than you might elsewhere.

And when you find this prize person, please tell all of us who and where!

Joe.

I wouldn't buy loose tea from them. While I have nothing against
coffee, the shop is permeated by the aroma of coffee being ground.
Couple that with the way they store tea in glass jars with
loose-fitting lids and there's little assurance that what you buy will
taste right.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin / pe...@acm.org
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

"Lewis Perin" <pe...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:pc7d6di...@panix1.panix.com...

Brick & Mortar Answer:

Where I live, brick and mortar shops (generally places that sell tea as a
secondary product to coffee) generally sell sub-par tea at inflated
prices. There is an international grocer nearby that sells products from
around the world that has quite a selection of tea. When I first found
this place I was excited about the wide assortment. However, most of
what I've tried has been not to my liking except for a very affordable
Assam (at $0.01US per gram) which I drink occasionally and mid-range (in
taste) Dragonwell. I also picked up some nice Japanese greens at a
Japanese grocer in Cary, NC last year but it is a bit of drive (>1000
miles). If I ever get anywhere close to Edgewater, NJ, I'd probably go
broke. Luckily, a friend of mine, goes to Japan occasionally and always
brings back an interesting selection.

Online Answer:

Dens Tea for various Japanese Greens
Special Teas for various Oolongs, Chinese Greens & Loose-Leaf Pu-erh

I've also ordered from Capital Tea (in Toronto), Adagio, & TenRen.

J

PS If anyone knows of an online source for Kanematsu (sp?) Tea Company's
offerings, please share.

I forgot to add that there's another bricks & mortar shop in Greenwich
Village that stores tea better: Porto Rico Cofee & Tea on Bleecker
just east of Sixth.

I've ordered Ceylon Kenilworth, Golden Yunnan, and Keemun 1st Grade
(?) from Porto Rico's web site (www.portorico.com. I am very pleased
with the tea's freshness, the more than affordable price, and the
speed in which it was shipped.

Tee
http://www.geocities.com/tee_king
Remove no-spam to email me.

Porto Rico (in the Village) was one place I bought my tea before I heard the
siren call of the online tea places.

I was shopping for greens, and thought their Organic Hairpoint Green was the
best of their offerings. The last time I bought it, though, the batch seemed
tainted by an "off," smokey flavor that wasn't there before.

I have not tried their blacks, and my memory of their oolongs has faded.

Their prices are indeed quite reasonable.

The teas I bought at McNulty's always seemed subpar, but notice of late they
have a "premium" area with a few teas like whites, Darjeelings, etc. These are
still, however, stored in the familiar glass canisters. Haven't tried 'em.

Joe

Ripon.

> [...online vendors and their markups...]

Perhaps I expressed myself clumsily, but I'm perfectly happy to buy
from shops that store their stock well; I only complained about one
shop that doesn't.

We come from the city of Taiwan where is a beautful city and grow tea
everywhere.It also provites more than a half amount of taiwan teas .We
hope to provide the cheapest and hightest quality tea for everone who
likes it as us.<br>

In taiwan we also sale in
http://teafun.adsldns.org/index.htm
in Yahoo http://tw.user.bid.yahoo.com/tw/user/shan6212
in Ebay http://
If you can read chinese character, you can order in this adress or we
will translate in a few days. Many people fell our tea tasts great and
leave messages on the web. So you can refer and compare.<br>
We want to do a long time trad not a short time on ebay so we must
provite the nice products.We have many kinds of products include
OOLONG,JIN SIAN,SIJI and many competition tea(3 gread reward,2 gread
reward,etc).<br>
THE TEA FUN KING TEA(LIKE 913 AND 919) PRICE IS ""28$/300G""<br>
THE OTHER TEA PRICE IS FOR 600G
our tea price is the same in Taiwan<BR>
my cell phone call number is 0910946649-taiwan

"ws" <neut...@hotmail.com> a écrit dans le message de
news:5ffe2ea.03092...@posting.google.com...

Peter

Given a choice I would greatly prefer to walk into a teashop, try a
few cups of something that intrigues me, and then buy the ones that
make the grade. I was able to do this when I lived in Los Angles
without any problem at all.

Unfortunately I am now about 427 miles from the nearest Chinatown and
while there are a few good tea stores within a 1-2 hour drive they all
have a very limited selection of puerh. Not wanting to let a little
thing like lack of local availability stop me I ventured out onto the
Internet and standard Snail Mail Order sources.

There is a much higher risk with Internet/Mail order vendors in that
you cannot see, touch, smell, or taste samples of the teas before you
buy them. The risk is particularly high with the finer grades as the
cost tends to be higher. This has been very frustrating to me because
my favorite tea is puerh and there is a lot of trial and error in
finding mail order/Internet vendors for this variety.

Now, there are those amongst us who shiver and curse at the mere
mention of a URL but I found that, much like neighborhood tea shops in
the bigger cities, you can find a few choice vendors who will cater to
your particular tastes and even procure specialties for you. The
process is certainly slower and you lack that feeling of instant
gratification that you get when you walk out of a brick and mortar
store with a prize selection of your favorites. But alas I find it
better to compromise than to do without. To be sure I have wasted a
lot of money as I traveled down this road but I have found some very
knowledgeable and reputable people along the way and I have gotten
pretty good at recognizing a scam before spending any money

For those who are interested in Internet sources for Puerh just go to
my website. (http://www.pu-erh.net) You will find links to every US
site that I know of, and a few international ones too, that carries 6
or more varieties of puerh. A lot of good Vendors that only had 1 or 2
puerh offerings didn't make the list. If any of you know of a site
that I missed please email me. And of course my standard disclaimer,
while I do have my favorites, I am not affiliated with any of them!

Mike Petro

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 10:59:04 -0800, "Peter" <p...@coolwarm.com> cast
caution to the wind and posted:

Jim

"Peter" <p...@coolwarm.com> wrote in message news:<104k7rs...@corp.supernews.com>...

Jim

Mike Petro <mikef...@pu-erh.net> wrote in message news:<m1lk40hlopvvgevg4...@4ax.com>...

> my website. You will find links to every US

However, just like in NY, Chinatown here seems to be growing. In NY,
Chinatown has swallowed Little Italy, which is now a tiny enclave
sequestered in a labrynth of Chinese establishments. In Vancouver, Chinese
merchants have taken over the bottom level of what was supposed to be a
Gap-Banana Republic-Foot Locker style mall on the edge of Chinatown. But
still, you don't find the best tea there. It's elsewhere.

Peter

"Space Cowboy" <nets...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
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Jim

"Peter" <p...@coolwarm.com> wrote in message news:<104mper...@corp.supernews.com>...

<snip>

Please elaborate. One day last year I combed Oakland's Chinatown area for good
tea selection. The places I found had the standard packaged stuff I see in
Chinese groceries and department stores in NYC, where I live.

Are you saying that some of that stuff is really excellent? If so, I'd love to
learn which brands and how to ID them from their packaging. Clue us in! I've
had generally poor luck with the Chinese grocery stuff.

Joe

Jim

kub...@aol.com (Joseph Kubera) wrote in message news:<20040308223426...@mb-m10.aol.com>...

Heck, I'll meet someone there if you want and show you the shops. It's only
a few blocks worth.

My next tea mission will be to a shop in a largely Asian mall called
Metrotown, where they have some choice sow-mei. Better than the best I've
found in Chinatown.

Jim

"Peter" <p...@coolwarm.com> wrote in message news:<1052llm...@corp.supernews.com>...

Peter

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