We're looking for your feedback and guidance! (aka: Take our Survey, Get a Coupon )

Hello friends,

First of all, I want to offer my sincere thanks. We have grown so much since David first started this project a few years. Your support has been incredible, and is the main reason we can keep doing what we do. Thank you!!

As some of you may know, we’ve recently made some big changes: from a new updated website, to moving our operations to China so that we can ship teas directly from our partners’ farms right to you. These changes are only the beginning of our renewed commitment to what we’re most passionate about: cutting out the distance between you and the people who make the teas that you love by putting the focus back on the real superstars (on the source!): the tea farmers.

As we continue making changes, we want to make sure we hear from you! After all, at the end of the day, the other star of the show is you guys. Without our partners like Qingqing He or Mrs. Li, we wouldn’t have tea to share, but without all of YOU tea lovers, there would be no one to share with!

If you have a few moments, we would love to hear from you about what matters to you as a tea lover. That way, we can making the whole experience easier, faster, and more fun. You don’t need to be a customer, or to have even seen our website for your feedback to matter.

At the end of the survey, you’ll see a $5 coupon code for any regular order (basically, anything except Tea of the Month sign ups or our Five Teas for Five Dollars new customer sampler).

I would really appreciate hearing your point of view as continue working on this project!

Here is the link to our survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/verdanttea

And if you haven’t seen our new website, you can find that here! →
http://verdanttea.com

I think the survey should take about 10-15 minutes, tops. Thank you in advance! I can’t wait to hear your ideas and feedback, so we can get to work on improvements.

All my very best,
Lily D.

49 Replies
Sil select said

Done. Hope it helps!

Thank you so much, Sil!!

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Done.

Thank you! :) This is all very helpful

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Dexter said

I don’t think my tea buying habits fall into neat check boxes but I did my best to help. :)

I know just what you mean! It’s always challenging to balance the nuance of how we actually drink tea without forcing everyone to write essays or take a very long, complex survey. ;)

I really appreciate the feedback – thank you!!

Dexter said

I understand Lily. It’s hard to word the questions to get the info you want when everyone does things a little different. :)
For me personally, the word “value” was missing in some questions. My discussions are based on a combo of price/tea quality/shipping cost/customer service – they all have to be in balance – one is not really more or less important. That’s my feedback. :))

Thank you, Dexter. I understand just what you mean, and it’s true – it’s a difficult thing to tease out and break down if you isolate just one of the variables. I definitely appreciate your insight.

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Done. Thanks Lily :)

Thank you!!

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hehe ‘impossible to choose’ glad that was an option!

XD Exactly. That one was one of my favorites, along with “how often do you drink tea? every hour!”

yes! some of us just never stop drinking it :P

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boychik said

done. The difficult question was what should be done that i chose Verdant over other companies.

It’s a difficult question, but I truly appreciate all of the honest feedback we’ve been getting!

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Skysamurai said

Very well done survey!! I do a lot of surveys and most of the time I get fed up with having to go from one end of the page to the other just to press ok. Not only did you save me time in that regard but you also asked engaging questions. =]

Thank you! David spent a long time thinking about the questions, as well as all of the back end logic. I got to be the fun guinea pig and run through all of the versions testing them :)

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I did it as well, nice quiz, lots of questions that are good to think about! Hope it is useful to you :) and great set up of the quiz, I accidentally closed it and luckily when I clicked the link it went back to the last page I was on :D I hate my tablet sometimes haha

Thank you, MissLena! We used SurveyMonkey to build it; we’ve had really good luck with it in the past, as their logic is very flexible, as is their design. I believe they also have a free version, which I’ve used in the past for everything from birthday survey’s to end of course questionnaires for students and tutoring pupils (plus, I’ve definitely filled out my than my share of random, late night “would you rather” style surveys from friends :p )

Tablets are tricky – I know what you mean! I have these tiny fingers, and whenever I’m cold, it just refuses to sense what I’m doing. It’s not my fault, tablet: you’re just from the future, and I am not advanced enough for you!

Thank you, again! I really appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts, and to think about the questions as carefully as you did. We’ve gotten so many great responses and ideas already – I am very excited to get cracking on improvements!

Good to know about survey monkey! I have tiny fingers too but I still manage to close things on my tablet lol, not sure if I’ve had the cold finger problem but sometimes I click things and it just doesn’t realize it!

Happy I could help you guys out by taking the survey :) thanks for the coupon!

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looseTman said

Completed! Thanks for asking!
I tried to copy and paste the coupon # to MS Word and it didn’t work. When I went back to retrieve it the survey would no longer allow me to access that page.

Oh no! Thank you so much for letting me know – I just sent you a code in a Direct Message. If you have any issues using it, please give a shout and let me know!

And thank you again for your help :) I truly appreciate it.

looseTman said

Thanks for the coupon code. You’re welcome! We’re all happy to help any of Steepster’s favorite tea suppliers.

looseTman said

Additional survey thought:
Anything that can be done to insure flavor consistency from year to year would be greatly appreciated. For example, I’ve read some dismayed Steepster comments that Laoshan Black, Yu Lu Yan Cha, or Zhu Rong Yunnan Black did not have the same wonderful flavor compared with a previous crop year. I’ve also had this same experience with two other favorite Steepster tea suppliers.

Thank you, looseTman!

Laoshan Black and Yu Lu Yan Cha are extremely interesting, not least which because they are still such new teas. For example, Yu Lu Yan Cha has only been produced for a few seasons, and is still effectively in development: about five years ago, no one outside of Laoshan had ever really heard of Laoshan Black, and the few that had wrote it off as a “copycat tea” with nothing unique or worthwhile to share, simply because Laoshan was not yet an established producer of anything other than Laoshan Green (and even that was practically unknown outside of Shandong!). While any small batch, single origin tea will see changes in flavor with every season due to weather, etc, Laoshan Black and Yu Lu Yan Cha are new enough that, every time they are produced, they are being worked on. Compared to something like Dragonwell – which has been produced and evaluated and desired around the world for centuries – these experimental teas are still very much experiments. In a way, the world at large has not yet “decided” on what these teas taste like, and the people who grow and make them (the He Family on one side, and Wang Yanxin on the other) work every year and every season on creating something they’re truly happy with. As the tea plants grow and change, as people pioneer new techniques – these will all be brought to bear on creating the tea that season.

All that said: I appreciate the idea, and I know that this is something our partners think about all the time. Whatever comes, there are a few things we know will always be true: 1) every season will be unique in it’s own way; it is one of the frustrating, beautiful things about seasonal produce of any kind, and tea is no exception 2) our partners will never offer a tea they are not truly happy sharing, 3) David and I and everyone at Verdant will do our best to taste and share our subjective experiences of each harvest and transparently, accurately, and honestly as possible, and 4) as much as possible, we share everyone’s thoughts, experiences and reviews with our partners.

They hope that everyone to enjoy their teas. They also want to share teas that everyone will enjoy. While these two ideas are related, they are not exactly the same, especially when it comes to such relatively new teas. How does someone like Mr. He stay true to sharing his perspective on what his teas want to be – what they should be? How can he work to build a reputation for his home – for his own teas, for his neighbors, for his grandchildren – while also keeping an ear open to listen for what people love most about his work? And how to do all this, while still being open to new opportunities to experiment, to try something new, and perhaps have a hand in developing the region’s next great tea?

All of this keeps me extremely excited, especially in getting back to the idea that the tea industry in China is by no means a static thing. It’s growing and changing all the time. It makes me think, “the future is now!” It makes me excited to look back and a decade and say, “Wow, can you remember? There was a time when no one in Laoshan made oolong tea! And now look and see where we are today!” It also makes me think about the balancing act between faithfully sharing and representing what our partners want their teas to be, while also sharing all of your feedback back to them.

That’s one big reason why we redesigned the website the way we did: to make it clear that these are seasonal products, unique to this moment and to this particular region, this particular farmer; to give as much control of the collections to our partners as possible, so that they can always share what they are most excited about sharing; to split our descriptions up into (on the one hand) clear, simple, straightforward and transparent tasting notes that focus on relative flavors, and (on the other hand) subjective tasting journals that clearly come from our own, personal experiences and point of view. How do you accurately, honestly and transparently represent and convey flavor – perhaps the most subjective, personal and intangible sense we all share? Only by acknowledging that this is nearly impossible, and focusing and relative / comparative flavor (more vegetal, less savory but still a little savory, just a hint of floral with no spice) and then (separately! so as not to color or bias those that do not wish to be “spoiled” by our point of view) share our very personal experiences with each harvest, as subjectively as possible, just as folks here would in their own Steepster reviews.

No one can promise that a tea will be exactly the same, every single time it is picked and produced. To do so would be simply untrue – a deception that does harm to everyone involved by creating false expectations, and by belittling and obscuring all of the complicated processes involved in producing that tea. As I mentioned, that’s another reason we wanted to redesign the way our website and our company worked to be as transparent as possible.

… and whoops, I see I’ve written quite a bit here! These are questions and issues we think about all the time, both amongst ourselves and each week when we reconnect with all of our friends in China. I love hearing your own ideas and feedback, because it helps to continually challenge us, and keep us bringing our best to bear on the questions that never go away!

looseTman said

Lily,
Thanks for your very detailed reply! I’m sure you all do your best to offer enjoyable teas. Obviously, climatic / weather variation each year is a significant factor just like it is for wine. Tea lovers of course will associate certain flavors and aromas with a particular tea especially if it’s a very popular one. Perhaps adding the year to name of each tea will remind us all that each year is unique and that we need to sample first before buying a pound of our “favorite tea” from the previous year.

Dexter said

Wow – ok, I need to change how I think about tea. I have a thousand questions from that explanation – but won’t until I’ve had a chance to wrap my head around some of it. Just a couple to clarify if I understand this correctly….
“How does someone like Mr. He stay true to sharing his perspective on what his teas want to be – what they should be?” I love this comment. He’s an artist who needs to stay true to his own artistic (?) vision/taste/tradition while trying to please the tastes of the masses. Interesting. You can’t please everyone – his target market is people who share his preferred technique/style. Just as every beer tastes different because of the style of the brew master – tea tastes different because of the style of the processor – is that part of it?
So do I prefer YuLuYanCha over Laoshan Black because I like Wang Yanxin’s style better than Mr. He’s ? OR is it about geography/cliamte/elevation/age of trees – all the things I thought was important to tea production? or is it a bit of both?
I love this community – just when I thought I finally had an understanding a comment makes me rethink everything I thought I knew. :)

Dexter said

I want to change my answer to the “how much do you know about tea” question on the survey to …. not much :)

@Dexter – awesome! :) These are the questions that keep me up at night, and make me feel privileged to get to work with the awesome people that we do.

“Just as every beer tastes different because of the style of the brew master – tea tastes different because of the style of the processor – is that part of it?”

Yes, absolutely. This is something I think can’t be emphasized enough. Of course the actual tea you use and the growing conditions have a huge effect on the final tea… but the perspective and goals of the people growing that tea and picking that tea and finishing that tea ALSO have a huge effect. The two sides a so closely related that it is often really, really difficult to tease apart. David wrote a really interesting article on that from the perspective of exploring “terroir” in tea:
http://verdanttea.com/terroir-and-its-influence-on-the-flavor-of-tea-part-one/

This article began as an investigation of the nitty gritty of how terroir and the land itself effects the taste of tea, but really became an exploration of how where a tea grows effects the decisions tea farmers and tea masters make when it comes to the tea the grow and produce.

Each person has their own point of view about what their particular tea SHOULD taste like. For established regions, that comes from history: what is this region known for? what are the hallmarks of the established traditional style? Now, will I continue making the current tradition great? Can I afford to? Perhaps I will buck traditional and go a completely different route in order to highlight some ignored facet or potential of this varietal, this region, this style.

Compare, for example, Mrs. Li in Longing and Mr. He in Laoshan. Interestingly enough, both grow tea from the same varietal (the “original” landrace in Longing, often simply called the Longjing Group (longing quanti))! This was the tea brought to Laoshan centuries ago by the Daoist monks to cultivate in their gardens for meditation. When tea was “officially” brought to Laoshan during the middle of the century, there were many other varietals that official bodies attempted to plant and spread in the region – none took, until the monks snuck back into their gardens and brought cuttings and transplants to farmers in Laoshan, like Mr. He’s father.

Despite being practically genetically identical, Mrs. Li’s green tea tastes completely different from the He Family’s. Why? Well, part of it is surely climate. Laoshan is colder for more of the year, and is closer to the ocean than Longjing. The soil is surely different as well: in fact, Laoshan is famous first for it’s peculiar rocks that it is for either its spring water or tea. But speaking of spring water… the water from the springs in Dragonwell is also different than Laoshan’s spring water.

But another big difference? The people who grow and make the tea! Each have very different perspectives on what they want their green teas to be, and that is for many reasons.. the easiest summary would be: history. Mrs. Li’s family has been growing Shi Feng Dragonwell for as long as anyone has been keeping track. She has a photo in her living room of her father picking tea with Mao Zedong. Just a few minutes walk from her house, Emperor Qianlong composed poetry and left calligraphy praising Longjing tea. To create any tea other than Shi Feng Dragonwell Green tea from her Spring picking? That would simply be a waste of her time, of her husband’s time, of her daughter’s time. The market demands that tea be Dragonwell Green Tea. No matter how interesting an oolong or black tea or even curled green tea might be, there would be too much opportunity cost. Plus, Mrs. Li does not want to make other kinds of tea. It is enough for her to carry on what her father taught her, and to sell to the friends that come and see her in the Spring. It is hard work, but she is rightfully very proud of what she produces; it would be ridiculous and downright insulting to press and ask for anything else.

Laoshan, on the other hand, is very different. It has only been growing tea for fifty or sixty years. As yet, the market demands nothing from Laoshan, so Mr. He is free to experiment and find out: what if we made a black tea? a green oolong? a roasted oolong? a flat pressed green tea? curled green tea? needle shaped green tea?? Laoshan’s identity has not yet been set! The PERFECT Laoshan tea could be waiting… undiscovered.. a style of finishing which could bring out the very best of Laoshan in those leaves. How will you know if you do not experiment?

Then again, this also means Laoshan is not a protected tea region like Dragonwell or Wuyishan or even the Qianjiazhai region of the Mt. Ailao national forest preserve. For Mr. He and his neighbors, it is very much a race to establish Laoshan’s tea as a tea that can stand on its own merits, that can be desired by the national and international market as Laoshan Tea specifically, for its own unique traits. That is something that keeps me up at night, that makes me want to do all I can to support the He Family in their work. They give so much – take so many risks on experimental harvests, in acquiring equipment and building out their workshop so that their neighbors don’t have to sell their leaves to a bigger factory or plantation… so that Laoshan can establish it’s own identity.

If Laoshan does not establish itself, there is a very real risk that Laoshan tea could go away: the land is highly desirable for tourism (for the seashore and Mt. Lao is right there) and for housing (the city of Qingdao – 16 million people – is only an hour away, through a tunnel in the mountain chain). What is keep that land from being acquired? There is no garuantee Mr. He will be able to pass his land down to his daughters, Qingqing and Hehe, or his granddaughter, NiuNiu. That’s not how land ownership works in China… purchase land must be repurchased about every 80 years, and if some developer can offer more for that land? Well… the only defense lies in building a real demand for Laoshan tea, and in proving to the world that it deserves to be protected, and it deserves to continue developing.

All of this has an effect on the way the He Family likes to make their teas. For example, there are a few large plantations in Laoshan that specialize in selling to large wholesalers and that acquired their land by buying out their neighbors and employing wage laborers. These teas taste.. well, how can I put this? They do not taste like Laoshan tea. The tea seems to be doing all it can to mask and suppress their own unique character in order to be sweet and innocuous, according to the most classical traditional Chinese tastes. The tea masters (I use this term in the strict, technical sense: the people finishing and overseeing the production of the tea leaves) appear to be doing what they can to create something with mass market appear, but in so doing, they muffle the things that make you fall in love with Laoshan in the first place. All of the decisions you make in growing and finishing a tea can have these effect: how long to you keep the leaves covered? do you used pesticides and herbicides, or do you grow other tastier plants nearby to attract pests? do you use spring water, or piped municipal water? etc etc. All of these have an effect, even before the final processing.

I know Mr. He is most excited to grow and share teas that taste like his home – that taste like Laoshan, and that force you to think of that place and fall in love. That’s why his teas taste the way they do – because that’s how he wants them to taste. I always remember him telling us how much he regrets that he can’t welcome everyone into his home and make tea for us himself.. but that if he’s done his job right, every time someone tastes his tea, it will be as if they are transported to Laoshan. The leaves will tell the story of his home.

This is – again – a big part of why we changed how we do everything we do. Our partners are individuals with their own opinions, their own goals, their own points of view. They do not all agree with each other!!!! And that taste, that point of view, comes through in the tea that you drink.

Just as you say: just like a brewer or a cheese maker’s point of view means that all of their produce will taste different. Their produce can’t help but reveal their signature and their point of view. And that is so fantastic!! That is the joy of a hand crafted product… that human connection.

" So do I prefer YuLuYanCha over Laoshan Black because I like Wang Yanxin’s style better than Mr. He’s ? OR is it about geography/cliamte/elevation/age of trees – all the things I thought was important to tea production? or is it a bit of both? "

Definitely a bit of both! :) I dearly love and respect both the He Family and Wang Yanxin, but they are such different people with very different opinions! That certainly comes through in the teas they make. That’s one reason Yu Lu Yan Cha is named the way it is – that “Yan” is the same as in “Yanxin” – her signature and taste is such a huge part of that tea.

But technically, yes – they are fundamentally different. Both or processed in Laoshan with the same general technique (traditional oxidizing in the sun, as it is done in Yunnan, rather than in ovens like you often see in Fujian and Taiwan). However, Yu Lu Yan Cha’s leaves are not grown in Laoshan – they come from plants that otherwise produce leaves for Xinyang Magian green tea. That terroir and different varietal certainly also have an effect on the flavor of the tea… but then again, it was also Wang Yanxin’s choice to USE those leaves, and Mr. He’s choice to use his own family’s tea leaves.

“I want to change my answer to the “how much do you know about tea” question on the survey to …. not much :)”

That is how I always respond – I am always discovering how much more there is for me to learn!! Luckily, I am blessed with excellent teachers and guides.

Ooops!! That turned out much longer than I intended! : – P Clearly, this is something I think about all the time, but also clearly – I need to work on being more concise? ;) It’s just so difficult to be quick when you’re talking about complex things!

Dexter said

Thanks Lily – that’s a lot to think about. I always understood that human hands touch and influence the tea – but I thought it was more of a “skill level” that determined quality than actual artistic vision. (Does that make sense? – both had the same wool and same pattern but one scarf turns out better than the other because of the skill level of the knitter. What you’re saying is that they both have sheep and a vision of the scarf they want to make and to obtain that vision they decide on how to feed the sheep, when to shear, how to process the wool, what pattern to use, THEN the skill of the knitter?)
I obviously need to read your blogs and order more tea to sample them with a different frame of mind. I have Verdant tea – but I need to get some samples from the different farmers to compare with these thoughts in mind… LOL guess that coupon will come in handy. :)
Thank you for making me see this differently.

Sil select said

this is a great conversation. Really love what’s going on here. Looking forward to receiving my order and revisiting everything again :)

@Dexter – Thank you!!

“What you’re saying is that they both have sheep and a vision of the scarf they want to make and to obtain that vision they decide on how to feed the sheep, when to shear, how to process the wool, what pattern to use, THEN the skill of the knitter?”

That is an excellent analogy – very well said (and much more succinctly than myself!). Not only that, but they decide what sheep to acquire, they have to decide how much land they’re going to devote to pasture and how much they’re going to devote to their shearing facilities; they have to decide whether they’re going to create the yarn themselves by hand, with the help of machines, or with the help of the master yarn-maker that lives down the street but who is only willing to make a particular gauge of yarn….

In short, Mrs. Li said it best: being a tea farmer is tough! There’s no way around it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTJIp6RATlI

And let’s be honest, for some people, it would be simple enough to say, “You know what? I don’t want to be a farmer. I can go to University and get a degree in whatever I want.. maybe I want to be a doctor or open a hotel or teach Chinese to kids in Sichuan.” If you’re going to do all of this hard work, it has to be for a reason. And that gives everyone involved a strong point of view – a reason for being – that (consciously or not) informs everything that they do.

All of this is one big reason why I feel so strongly that the tea industry needs to move to direct sourcing, or at the very least acknowledging the farmers and tea master (again, technical term!) behind the tea. It’s not like coffee, where the US-based seller often “finishes” the coffee by roast them – that makes you part of the production process.

Us tea sellers? We are NOT part of the production process. This is not OUR tea. We are privileged to get to share people’s work on their behalf, and it’s our responsibility to represent them to the best of our ability. After all – we wouldn’t have this fantastic tea without them.

Just think of your favorite tea you’ve ever had… wasn’t it wonderful? Don’t you want to know WHO made that possible? And I don’t mean the person who placed bags in a box and sent it on it’s way to you: that’s logistics, not craftsmanship. If you had the opportunity to try MORE tea from that person, that group, that family, that tea master, wouldn’t you want to? Because clearly: they must be a awesome! Not only do they share your taste, but they’ve got the skill to craft that tea that is so to your taste, and the skill to take care of those tea plants so that they can produces the kinds of leaves necessary to make that kind of tea. And then do it again the next year, even though weather conditions are different; even though the inflation rate is going up; even though you’re suddenly a grandparent and now you’re helping your kids figure out what it means to be parents, too; even though you’re now one year older, and the world has changed and so have you.

Being a craftsman is surely hard work. Being a tea farmer – not just a laborer who picks, but someone responsible for the whole thing from start to finish, all while juggling the responsibilities of being part of a normal human being, living every day? That is hard work.

Combine that all with having a vision and working to build a reputation and identity not only for yourself, but for your neighbors, your region, your style of tea… your country, even? It’s quite a responsibility, but it sure drives inspiring innovation and leads to some great tea.

Samplers of different farmers.. hm – that is a good idea! I would love to offer a He Family sample pack or a sampler with Li Xiangxi’s oolongs or a tasting pack of everything from the Zhenyuan Farmers’ Cooperative.. I think that would be a great idea! I suppose those would sort of be like mini, single box of our Tea of the Month Club?

I will think about it and see what we can figure out! In meantime, if I can help you pick anything out with that coupon ;) just let me know.

@Sil: thank you! Like I said: I still have so much to learn, but I truly appreciate the opportunity to share how I feel…. even if I need to work on being more concise :)

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LuckyMe said

Done and thanks for the coupon code. I liked that there were quite a few thought provoking questions

Thank you, LuckyMe! I truly appreciate the time you took to share your thoughts :) And I hope you can pick out something fun to try! If I can offer any advice or guidance, just let me know – though I know there are plenty of fantastic people here on Steepster who could give great recommendations, too ;)

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