High end tea suggestions!

i think it depends largely on what you mean by high end tea. Under my definition, adagio would never make the cut :)

Haha! Ok! I misspoke! Scratch adagio! Just lead me to some fun brands that are amazing! I love flavored teas also!

I find most David’s teas to be a little disappointing and the flavors a little weak, but I have found a few that I like. I have tried a few Butiki teas and really liked most of them. Even the one I wasn’t fond of was interesting and well balanced. I have 5 Palias teas that are all really nice, flavorful and smooth, but I was able to go into a store and smell them before choosing. Several that had interesting descriptions didn’t pass the sniff test, so I’m guessing I’d have been disappointed if I had ordered online based on the description. I have enjoyed the Lupicia teas I have had too. They have interesting, unusual and fun flavors like sweet potato pie and lychee. I tend to favor dessert teas, so my opinion on what is good may differ from your preferences.

I ordered 5 Mariages Freres teas on Black Friday- they had free shipping if you spent 75.00 or more. They are offering that again today. Market place foods.
Was thinking about just getting the refill bags of their teas so I can try more flavors! What do you think? Should I bite the bullet and just the tins?

Yes. It’s like 13 bucks for the refills and like 22 bucks for the tins. Huge difference! I think I will just get the refills. I am getting some as gifts and splitting the rest w my mom. Usually their shipping is free with 250.00 or more and I think this is the only place in the states to purchase their tea. I just will have a big stash for the year!

You all are such fun! It’s nice to talk to people who know their teas!! I will try the brands you all suggested! I ordered some from Zhi on Black Friday and that was a disappointment.

For flavored teas I would recommend Butiki. For example: Champagne & Rose Cream and yes it tastes as amazing as it sounds.
From Adagio I would recommend the Maters Series. My personal favorites include: Golden Curls, Anhui Keemun, Fujian Jasmine Pearl and Wuyi Da Hong Pao. Also I just redesigned the whole look for the Maters Series (the production usually takes about 6 months) and I have to say that the new tins for the Masters Series will be very cool.

Whew. You all talked me down from ordering more MF. OK….. Does butiki or PDT offer specials ever? Wonder if I should order now, or wait for. Special of some variety!! Thank you so much!!

Thank you so much!

Golden Moon has some mindblowingly wonderful teas, and they are affordable to try as samples (woe to you once you get hooked though, ha). Honey Orchid is one of the best premium black teas I’ve ever tried; I love Sinharaja despite generally disliking Ceylon, it’s just that good a specimen; they make my favorite Irish Breakfast blend of all; their Coconut Pouchong is wonderful and less creamy, more a fresh coconut flavor than others I’ve had; their Hojicha is a yummy after-dinner treat when you kind of want coffee but not the caffeine that goes with it. I hear good things about their Kashmiri Chai too, which has a mixed base of black and green tea. The Sugar Oolong too.

Mandala and Verdant are really good if you like high quality, unique pure unflavored teas and blends. Personal favorites include Mandala’s Special Dark and Loose and Luscious Lincang pu erhs; Mandala’s Morning Sun; Verdant’s Zhu Rong; Verdant’s Golden Fleece (honeysuckle in a cup, reminds me of Golden Moon’s Honey Orchid); Verdant’s Laoshan Black (and really anything from Laoshan village…the Bilochun Green and Autumn Harvest Green were the first pure greens to win me over as they’re outright delicious and satisfying as well as being wonderfully complex); Verdant’s spring oolongs; Verdant’s Earl of Anxi (it has frankincense in it! Mood-altering); Verdant’s Imperial Breakfast Blend; Verdant’s Ginger Sage Winter Spa Blend. They’re both companies where when I drink their tea, it’s when I can set aside time to really appreciate how complex they are and marvel at how whole worlds can live inside those leaves. Yezi Tea, Taiwan Tea Crafts, and Teavivre offer a lot of pure high quality tea leaves that have similar stunning complexity and richness. I’ve found Tao Tea Leaf to be good quality for the price for these kinds of teas too (their hou kui is my favorite). I want to try Camellia Sinensis for this sort of thing as well, but haven’t gotten around to it yet.

If you want wonderfully smooth, very nicely blended black teas with cheeky-cute packaging and marketing, Andrews and Dunham is quite nice. Double Knit Blend is a fantastic everyday black blend that is as satisfying as a good cup of coffee, full of plain old tea flavor done really well. I love it.

Lupicia is kind of overwhelming and it’s hard to get a sense of their teas before buying if you’ve only got the online shop to go by, but I have found a ton of teas from them absolutely wonderful and very unlike anything else I’ve tried elsewhere (personal favorites include Earl Grey Grand Classic which is very unlike EGs as we know them today but has a very old world feel, smoky with exotic Chinese longan fruit; Momo Oolong Supergrade which is so far my very favorite peach tea; most of their chestnut teas; Orange Kidd for a no-caf treat; and Orzo, which is a kinda bizarre no-caf barley tisane that steeps up black and watery like gasoline but then tastes kind of like coffee).

For subtle but eerily accurate evocation of all sorts of things, Butiki is awesome (too many favorites to name them all…Champagne and Rose Cream white; Cantaloupe and Cream white; Flowery Pineapple Oolong; Holiday Potato Pancakes and Applesauce green; Mango Lassi rooibos; Peppermint Patty herbal which reminds me exactly of the gooey center of a Junior Mint candy; With Open Eyes green which has notes of strawberry preserves, ginger, and toffee; Peach HoppiTea black which is based on peach lambic beer; the new Irish Cream Cheesecake which is delicious as a breakfast treat…and The Black Lotus, which is Butiki’s fancypants English Breakfast, is one of my favorite tea blends ever, hands down). Butiki also offers tons of unusual high quality unflavored teas too—anything from aged oolongs (she has one that’s as old as I am, and I’m…not a spring chicken LOL) to wild teas to darjeelings with notes I’ve never found in anything else (artichoke!) to Kenyan purple tea.

For something generally more affordable and easy to sample a lot of different stuff before you buy bigger sizes, Della Terra is quite nice (they have try me sampler packs where you can pick your own teas to sample, some personal favorites include Oatmeal Raisin Cookie; Lemon Chiffon; Earl Grey Creme; Blueberry Crumble; Pineapple Upside Down Cake which has little to no pineapple in it but a great baked cake dimension). Joy’s Teaspoon does a similar pick-your-own sampler thing (5 or 8) and a lot of those have been quite good (I like Spicy Pear; Mahalo which is a fruity green that always cheers me up; Cinnamon Roll; Lemon Zest). New Mexico Tea Company has some nice and very affordable options too (their Casablanca green is yummy; and at least last I checked they offer free shipping).

I’ve grown to really love Harney and Sons the more orders I place with them—I used to think of them more like Upton Imports, a general survey mass emporium introductory spot with the midling or hit-or-miss quality to match, but I’ve come to recognize their quality. If you like legacy-style brisk breakfast blends they have roughly a billion different kinds and of the mountain of them I’ve tried so far I’ve been hard-pressed to deem any outright bad and tons are excellent (in particular I’m a big fan of Queen Catherine; Eight at the Fort; Big Red Sun). And a lot of their afternoon and flavored teas are fantastic for the price too (Viennese Earl Grey which has a lighter touch than most; Tower of London; Fruits d’Alsace; Boston; Florence; Tokyo). They also offer a few things you rarely see elsewhere, done very well (Soba Cha which is roasted buckwheat tea; Tencha which is a Japanese green rarely seen pre-matcha-ed outside of Japan).

American Tea Room and Samovar seem kinda divisive, and they are indeed pretty pricey (especially without sales/coupon codes) and sometimes hit-or-miss. That said, I love ATR’s Brioche and Nirvana and Coconut Oolong and Victoria, and a lot of their plusher flavored blends (Romanoff, Toasted Fig, stuff like that) are great coldsteeped. I still haven’t found a Samovar tea that completely blew my mind especially given the price tag, but I also haven’t had anything from them I truly dislike either.

Then there’s the world of Frenchy teas (Fauchon; The O Dor; Dammann Freres; Mariage Freres; Nina’s Paris; Palais de Thes; Kusmi), which seem a craze right now on Steepster, ha. If you like heavily perfumed in a layered sort of way blends, they can make you feel pretty posh and also evoke lots of memories the way good perfume can (caveat: I haven’t tried all of these companies yet and actually don’t much care for Kusmi). Finding them with affordable shipping to the United States or Canada can be tricky though, alas.

It’s too soon to tell—I only just got some samples from Black Friday sales and haven’t gone through them all yet—but so far I’ve been quite pleased with the Art of Tea and Fusion Teas samples I’ve tried. Todd and Holland also seems promising, but I still haven’t placed an order. And lots of Steepsters seem to enjoy Simpson and Vail for nice flavored blends.