Camiah

They have a good selection of black teas, and a small selection of tea pots and sets made for loose leaf tea. Their good selection of black teas is marred by the fact that they are all kept in clear glass containers thus allowing light in and speeding the degradation of the tea.

Also, just in case other people are bothered by this—the store smells strongly of potpourri. I always feel like I’m about to sneeze when I am in the store.

I’ve dropped quite a bit of money in Teavana since getting into tea about three months ago. They carry the full complement of what they have online. The tea selection is good, but definitely heavily skewed towards blends rather than straight tea. They have a decent amount of tea paraphanalia like cast iron pots, kettles, cups, pots, and storage tins.

The sales staff is what gets them knocked down several stars. The staff tends to be pushy unless they are all busy with other people. They also are constantly pushing the health benefits of tea, which is really annoying. The sales staff also appear incapable of actually pouring an accurate amount of tea—they constantly overfill the container and tap little tiny bits out until you finally give in and buy more than you wanted because you want to get out of there before you die of old age. Finally, the packaging of the tea is really problematic. They put the tea in coffee bean style bags, rather than in something as light and air tight as possible, in order, it seems, to sell their tins.