Suggestions wanted! Tea Cupboard restocking

Long story short, we went through a house fire in September and I lost my massive tea collection. I’ve been buying the bare minimum since from local stores like David’s Tea, but now that life is finally settled I’m looking to re stock my entire cupboard(albeit on a budget!) and I can’t wait to have a cupboard full of tea again! I’ve been out of the loop in terms of online tea stores with good deals so I’m looking for suggestions.

I love pretty much everything except rooibos. I’d love to know what your favorite teas are right now so I can add them to my shopping list.

Thanks in advance for the great suggestions!

19 Replies
Dexter said

Sorry to hear about your fire :(( Glad that your life has settled. :))

My NEW favorite is A Quarter to Tea on Etsy. Awesome small batch hand blended flavored teas.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/AQuarterToTea
My favorite is Chocolate Cherry Latte – but I wouldn’t be scared to try any of them. They do pick 3 and pick 7 samplers (and theme samplers)

The issue is that it’s not cheap re the crappy state of the CAD/USD right now.
I too am having issues finding awesome flavored tea in Canadian dollars…
I like Capital Tea Ltd and Tealux (or whatever it is they are calling themselves these days Tealyra ?) for straight teas
https://www.capitaltea.com/shop/home.php
https://www.tealyra.ca/

Thanks! Tealish is based out of Toronto and has some nice stuff too

Dexter said

I was looking at this – but I have never tried any of them so don’t know if it’s any good….
http://www.lemonlily.ca/

Sil select said

lemonlily had a lot of sugar in the one tea that i tried from them, but others have enjoyed them.

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AllanK said

Sorry to hear about the fire. Been through that myself although at the time I didn’t have a tea collection. One of my favorite ripe puerhs is the 2008 Song of Chi Tse available from Berylleb King Tea on EBay. Even though it is only a 2008 tea it has cleared. It has in my estimate no fermentation taste left to it, very rare in a ripe puerh.

If I could suggest one of my favorite domestic vendors of non puerhs it would be Simpson and Vail at www.svtea.com. They are good quality and generally reasonably priced.

Dexter said

S&V Shipping is 28.25 for a small order – that’s ridiculous and their default shipper is UPSUPS quite often charges us brokerage fees on receipt.
S&V is not Canadian friendly….

AllanK said

Their domestic shipping is quite reasonable. I never said their international shipping was cheap.

Dexter said

The OP is Canadian I was just stating that while S&V may be a good option for you that it’s not Canadian friendly.

AllanK said

Many Canadian companies have similar bad shipping to the USA. Smaller companies especially. I think David’s Tea has decent shipping to the USA if I remember right and I recently ordered from Mox Tea and their shipping was good. I did not know where the op was from so I simply suggested my favorite place to get tea. Perhaps one day they will improve their shipping to Canada.

yyz said

As a Canadian you can get S&V with cheaper shipping through Amazon and in the past they have been willing to charge reduced rates for sipping if you contact them directly.

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Tamarindel said

Zen Tea’s Coconut oolong is amazing!

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JakeB said

I’m a fan of Liquid Proust teas. A new batch of the French Toast Dian Hong was made too! I also like the Mate Nectar and Puerh Candy Bar. Davidson’s on Amazon is really a bargain. I’ve bought a couple good ones from them.

& I’m working on lowering Canadian postage or free shipping to Canada :)

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My personal preferences are towards the light and sweet spectrum, but I’d suggest:
Beautiful Taiwan Tea (Taiwan oolong)
Crimson Lotus Tea (raw pu’erh)
White2Tea monthly (it’s a worthy cult to be part of :p )

However, I see that it’s been said that you are from Canada so I would recommend
http://camellia-sinensis.com/ errrthang
http://www.thechineseteashop.com/ oolongowl sent me a fantastic aged oolong from here
https://www.tealyra.ca/ some teas they have exclusively which makes one awesome to own; like Japanese white tea

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I’m so sorry about the fire. That must be terrible to go through. zentealife.com is in Canada – they are great.
Otherwise, I love teavivre.com and svtea.com!

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Rasseru said

sorry to hear about the fire. Hope things are brightening up for you!v:)

Got no advice as from the UK, people seem to be giving much better suggestions. :)

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Uniquity said

If you’ve got a preference for unflavoured teas, Teavivre is great. You can order in CAD which is crucial given the state of the dollar. Other than that, I haven’t many recommendations! It’s a terrible time to buy things in USD, and shipping just keeps going up. If you can get a big enough order to reach free shipping each time that can help leave more money for tea.

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Teaave said

Sorry to hear about the fire…

if you are interested in trying our oolongs, we are offering 10% Off on our samplers now with code: “10offsampler”
MountainTop Sampler: http://teaave.com/collections/all/products/mountaintop-sampler
Rolling Fog Sampler: http://teaave.com/collections/all/products/rolling-fog-sampler

Our TOTM is Ginger Lily Oolong, and it is 15% Off till the end of Feb: http://teaave.com/collections/all/products/ginger-lily-oolong?variant=1152572599

Have fun restocking your tea cupboard.

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AllanK said

Isn’t Tao Tea Leaf Canadian? They are excellent from what I remember.

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