The New Tea Website - Looking for Feedback and Support

Aloha, thank you so much for the note. We realize that we need to lower some of the image sizes and it should load faster.

Yes, and we are working to make the evaluation form much more user-friendly. If you have any specific recommendations of how we can improve the form. We have been going back and forth Tony Gebely, who established the cupping standards we use, and he thinks that color may not that important for us to capture now. We thought maybe have a photo upload to get color but it brings up the issue of light, water, and preparation method. As far as scoring the teas the color inputs are not considered, but we thought it was fun feature so people could feel like they can professionally cup teas.

I love the cupping standard flavor terms used in the review. The thing I found tricky was colour of tea leaf, which tea leaves have many colours.
With pu’er I also found it hard to restrict to only 3 infusions, though I imagine not many casual reviewers would remember each infusion past 3. But crazy bloggers like me wrote the whole experience down and often pu’er goes on for quite a number of infusions, so the option of reviewing more would be cool, or knowing how many infusions the reviewer got.

Cost is something that we have to deal with, and we are working our hardest to bring them down. First off, for our retail products we only purchase the highest grade teas. In addition to the tea we offer a heightened experience and connection to the grower. Our prices are not just for tea but for the whole experience. All teas are packaged in reusable tins and come with trading cards of the grower. As we grow all our costs will go down significantly, especially packaging. Finally, the biggest reason why our costs are so high is because of shipping. Be mindful that all our superficial prices on the website include shipping anywhere in the world. Shipping 1 ounce of tea internationally is now close to $10, and it seems like every month there is a new increase in shipping rates. These are all issues that we are dealing and working hard to reduce so we can pass on the savings to the consumer. There is hope for getting our grower’s teas at more affordable prices for those true tea lovers that just want the tea. We are building out a Tea Chest where you can order bulk tea at wholesale prices (and you don’t have to be a tea retailer to participate). These will be the same quality teas just without the tins and trading cards at prices closer to $2-5 per ounce. I envision in the future that this will become the core of our business.

Thanks Elyse :)