Funny Tasting Oolong?

I suppose I could give it a shot? This was my first order from Teavivre, but I think I still have all the contact info and so forth saved from the order itself. I’m mostly just confused that the oolong seemed fine initially, and suddenly turned unpalatable within a span of days. Thanks for the advice, though!

That was partially why I was so confused, to be honest. I’m not sure how anything could have gotten in there. It didn’t have a damp feel to it, and the leaves were still tightly balled up, which leads me to believe it wasn’t exposed to water. If it isn’t in use, it’s zipped up and stored on a high shelf. None of the other tea on that same shelf tastes off, so whatever it was, it targeted the oolong specifically.

I’d considered that possibility as well, which is why had my sib try it too. She’s the only one who regularly drinks tea with me, so she knows what that particular oolong is supposed to taste like. She agreed that there was something off about it. Thanks for your post and thoughts~

This is what I ended up doing after humming and hawing for a while. I stared sadly at it in the bottom of the bin, willing it not to be so, but I’m glad that someone else is endorsing such a move.

Do people really save bad tea for seasoning? That doesn’t seem to make sense,

Yes, it doesn’t make sense but I have a hard time throwing out tea. This is how I get myself to throw out all but a little bit, so as not wasting all of it. It is easier for me to advise another to toss a tea out of concern for their health and safety than it is to practice the same on myself.

Yup, it’s flavored alright. I kind of suspected that might be the case as well, but it seems like the shelf life of even the flavoring should be longer than that? Not that I’m any expert on the matter, but two months isn’t a particularly long span.

I always shake tea directly out of the bag itself. I almost never use any kind of utensil, either, and definitely not for oolongs. It occurs to me that I sound like a total heathen confessing to as much, but that’s generally how it goes. Sorry!

Yeah, I ended up throwing it out. It’s a shame, but I’d rather be safe than sorry in this particular instance. Thanks for the advice, though. It’s very much appreciated.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility that this was the case, which is one of the major reasons I haven’t contacted the company about it. Could’ve been my own error. Thanks for the sympathy, though. It was harder than it should’ve been to toss it.

I’ll bet! Throwing out tea, no matter the reason, is difficult.
Do you wash your tins? Someone I know got mold in their tea because they washed their tin and it collected in the crevice and never dried out (she aired it for a few days even)

I just reminded myself that I still had other teas to ease the blow a bit. It was in a twice sealed bag rather than a tin, so I don’t think that was the issue, although that is a really useful tip for the ones I do have in tins.

I heat my metal tins briefly in the oven to make sure they’re dry, if I’ve washed them. As long as they don’t have any plastic parts and you keep the oven on the lowest setting, they should be fine.

Oooh, got’cha. I’ll have to do that once they’re emptied out and ready for another use. Thanks for the tip!

Thank you for your post and kind words. I suppose I should invest in another jar or two, just to avoid this from happening in the future. It was not a fun experience, given the amount of tea I had to throw out.

I don’t think a one page thread constitutes as huge? Don’t misunderstand, I can see your point, but I thought it was best to mention the company by name in case other people had experienced a similar issue in the past. Not all tea makers use the same flavorings or source from the same place, after all. And, again, I’m not totally sold on the idea that Teavivre is to blame, so I’m hesitant to contact them on an individual basis. It could have easily been something that I had unknowingly done to compromise the purity of the tea itself. I have enjoyed the others teas I bought from there (even if they were, admittedly, in much smaller quantities), so this was really just a one-off disappointment.

No offense intended, but I see a lot of people throwing tantrums and ranting on Amazon (to give one example), when that company has a “customer is queen/king” policy and will go out of their way to fix whatever is wrong.

I gather that many people are used to dealing with companies with poor customer service, but often if one explains what happened a company is willing to investigate and issue a refund or replacement.

Teavivre has a “no questions asked” policy, but I see that they do have a time limit. It never hurts to ask, however. It’s precisely because you are not sure about the source of the problem that it would be good of you to contact them directly, and then complain publicly if they do not respond appropriately to your concerns.

As it stands, people reading this thread may conclude that Teavivre sells old tea—which in my experience is not the case. Basically, your OP is a way of saying that people should be wary of their sales…

I have no evidence that it was/went bad, or that they were to blame. If I can’t be sure what the problem was, then neither can they. And sorry, but I don’t really understand how my OP is promoting anything besides a genuine series of questions and my own frustration when it comes to wasted tea. It’s not as though I’m trying to pin Teavivre with the blame in any way. I have, in fact, gone out of my way to point out that it may have been brewer error. I mentioned the company because it was relevant to the discussion, nothing more. If people want to draw conclusions from a single incident, that’s their business. However, I would be lying if I said I didn’t find it interesting that at least one other member has experienced a similar issue, and that they were afforded neither a refund nor a replacement even after Teavivre was contacted. If that speaks to their general method of handling complaints of this nature, then I don’t see where my problem would be treated any different.

I am offended by your comments Sherapop as I did contact them directly. They did question me and accused me of poor storage! In my book that’s more than a “no questions asked policy”. The production date on my tea was a year ago so that is also why I questioned the flavor.

I surely didn’t complain for them to just give me unwarranted free tea!

darby, how can you be offended when this thread was started by someone else who never contacted the company, and my remarks were directed to him/her, not to you?

I do believe that if someone makes a good faith effort to resolve the problem to no avail, then they have every right to complain. But what is the point of complaining in a public forum without attempting first to resolve the conflict?

Companies are run by human beings. Mistakes are made, and there are batch problems and other issues which arise with perishable items. Every company has to deal with these issues, and with so many companies vying for our wallet share, a thread like this one can cause potential customers to turn away. That’s what I mean when I say that it seems unfair to start up an entire thread on the topic without first lodging one’s complaint with the customer service department.

Now, lots of companies have poor customer service, and when I discover this fact, I never shop there again. To be honest, I am surprised to hear about your negative experience, given my entirely positive exchanges with this particular company, but at least you tried to resolve the issue first, before venting in a public venue.

Once a company refuses to take you seriously, then you have the right to vent, it seems to me, if you are sure that they are at fault. The OP did not have the addendum on it initially. Instead it made it sound as though buying stuff on sale at Teavivre is a bad idea. Now at least the matter has been clarified to some extent—s/he is not alleging that the company was at fault but that there was simply a problem of one sort or another.

Maybe the company was at fault. If they had multiple similar complaints about the same tea, then they could reasonably infer that the problem was with the tea or their fulfillment process, not with the consumers’ care of the tea. Then I am sure that they would issue a full refund or replacement.

Perhaps what happened in your case is that you were the only person to complain about that particular tea. Perhaps there were others, like the author of the OP, who declined to contact the company, so they had no idea that others had the same problem. That’s my point.

Mm, that’s a shame. Sorry you lost out and had such a disappointing experience overall. I love their oolongs, but I don’t want to spend money on something I’m just going to have to throw out again.

Right! I had high hopes because everyone here loves them!

I was basically accused of not storing it right. I know how to store my tea AND I even used their tin!

That’s more or less what I figured would happen if I were to bother slogging through their customer service. And I couldn’t really argue with them, either, given that I myself can’t be sure I didn’t cause the problem somehow. Honestly, the whole thing is kind of bumming me out even now.

Thank you! I really appreciate that. It was never my intent to make it seem like I was accusing Teavivre of some weird, underhanded conspiracy to peddle subpar tea. I really enjoyed what tea I drank before the taste changed. I kept rereading my OP to see if maybe I had unintentionally slandered the company, but it seemed pretty innocuous overall. I guess some people read into it differently. Regardless, some valid points were raised by those who responded, and I have a better idea of what might’ve gone wrong. I also learned some helpful hints about storage, so I’d say this was more or less a successful thread.