Comments on: Fancy Fresh Online Tea Store: The Simple Leaf

By: Malgwyn

Malgwyn — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:39:29 +0000

Don’t buy tea online, or in a fancy mallshop, you will get raped. Tea is an inexpensive agricultural product. Freshness and quality control are mostly the difference between great, mediocre and really bad. I drink five pounds of tea a month, have tried many very expensive varieties, I can find comparable teas that are far less expensive.

Darjeeling is probably one of the best for my money, problem is that there is a lot of things called darjeeling being sold that isn’t very good at all.

Bancha is an inexexpensive Green, but they vacuum pack it so it stays fresh, costs around $3 dollars a pound. Quality can vary from passible to delightful.

Bad Pekoe is easily found in mall tea stores. Lipton is Pekoe and cut black, and has excellent quality control, passible, $10 a pound.

Twinnings English Breakfast Tea is preferable to lipton’s standard fair. Around $16 a pound if you shop around.

If I want a quality cup, I find the nearest Japanese grocery, and they usually have at least three varieties of decent green, but the oolongs and blacks are usually mediocre.

Restaurant teas, like Foojoy are lower grade.

By: Sandy

Sandy — Wed, 02 May 2007 12:45:34 +0000

Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is a HUGE difference in quality amongst the different types of whole leaf teas and it is reflected in price. Justin, I don’t know who your local coffee distributor is, or where he gets his tea, but if he buys his tea from a large broker, quality certainly could be an issue. A lot of tea bought in bulk through large distributors, could be stored in warehouses for indefinite periods of time (and without proper attention to good storage practices to reduce exposure to air, light and moisture) before it ever gets to the consumers. In addition, you never know what quality you are getting, unless you specifically know who you are getting your teas from (and trust them), where they get it from and how fresh it is.

Those shops (online or local) that sell higher quality and higher priced teas do so because they often have direct relationships with the small family farms that grow the tea (or at least a direct contact or personal agent who does) and knows the quality of the tea they are buying. In addition, they know the importance of freshness and some will even use air delivery (as we do) right after harvest to make certain the tea does not sit long while being improperly stored as is often the case in large distribution warehouses. This way, our customers get the freshest and best quality teas available.

If you really enjoy tea, they are well worth the price. Good quality tea can be steeped 4 - 6 times. You can buy $300 a pound tea and still have your per cup cost be less than 50 cents. You can’t even get teabag tea at a diner for that.

By: Julie

Julie — Tue, 01 May 2007 05:12:09 +0000

I never had been lucky to get good tea from stores. But few online stores like http://www.imperialtea.com and http://www.teacuppa.com seem to have good quality tea.

Maybe i should try the one you mentioned. Or alternatively you could try some expensive teas from different vendor and see if there’s different. My taste tells me that different pricing does has different quality.

By: Justin Sherrill

Justin Sherrill — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:48:27 +0000

It is worthwhile, if you like tea, to find a local coffee distributor and buy it in bulk. Most tea places - _especially_ including online, sell tea at a huge markup.

The tea I saw on that site was $2-4 per ounce, which is the typical markup I’ve seen. I pick up tea in 2 pound bags, for what works out to about 50 or 60 cents per ounce. A local coffee retailer will order it for me from their coffee supplier - White Coffee, near NYC.

Ignore the fancy terms and names - if it’s a loose leaf tea, and you prepare it with some caution (mostly not overcooking it), it will be good on its own.