New to Steepster (and opening up shop!)
Hi everybody!
My name is Alexander, and I’m one half of the management team at alexander&james tea co., a tea shop that’s opening on November 9th.
I’ve been a big follower and fan of Steepster for quite a while now and I’m super happy to finally be a part of such a wonderful community.
I’ve been in the tea industry for some time now, working for a major tea corporation, and it’s actually my experience there that led me to want to start working on my own tea blends (I was discontent with the quality of ingredients being used and the handling of customers, among other things.)
I’ll be around on the forums, but in the meantime, I would love for you to take a peek around the site — www.alexanderandjamestea.com — and tell me what you think!
Thank you and the team at a&j is super happy to be able to share some tea with you.
- Alexander
I’ll be honest, i can’t stay on your website for long because of the constant snow movement on both sides. Interested to learn and read more on your teas but that will be enough to keep me off the site.
From what i was seeing on facebook though, looks like some interesting things that you’re doing :)
I invite you back to the site — I’ve turned off the snow! It should be a little less distracting now. Thank you so much for your feedback. :)
If only I could do that in real life. It’s slowly but steadily becoming a tundra here again.
Happy it’s working better for you now!
Sil — I’ll up the green overlay on that! Not meant to be hard on the eyes. Thank you!
MzPriss — Thank you! :)
Welcome, and the site looks interesting!
I agree with Sil, also it degrades performance and loading times on your machine. Some people with old machines may have issues.
Thank you for your feedback, Dayton. I’ve turned off the snow (apparently I also control the forecast on the site, hehe) so it should be much more accessible now. :)
Hi A&J,
The site looks very good to start with. However, I think that even after turning off the “snow” (which I never saw in the first place), it still takes a while to load. The images for each individual page of tea look pretty pixelated until they’re finished downloading.
Also, I think that when you click on the “sneak peek” option for each individual tea, the pop-up page that results takes up a very large part of the page – so large that a scroll bar appears and I can’t see the basic info behind the pop-up. Is there any way to resolve those issues?
Hi Christina! I’m working on the sneak peek as we speak. As for the pixelation, I’ll see what I can do — though the site coder I’m using does take a bit to load graphics on some machines and internet browsers. Thank you for reporting both of those! :)
Thanks @Marzipan! Adding it in now.
Edit: the description’s been updated. :)
James and I want to thank everyone, by the way, for being so patient and helpful with the site! We’re humbled by the time people have taken already to come see what works and what doesn’t. Thank you!
Welcome Alexander! Thanks for introducing yourself, it’s always nice to meet new tea vendors :-)
For some reason, your website did not load on my iphone and ipad. I will look at it tomorrow on computer.
Good luck with everything, I already love the way you interact with members here!
Hi, Tea Fairy! :) It’s up on Android and Windows (mobile and desktop); I’ll have to have a friend check their Apple product as I don’t have one.
Thank you so much for the well-wishing! :) The team really cares a lot about making friends, and the company itself was founded on the idea of sustainability and giving back to the community. We think that’s a great recipe for success.
So great to hear that! Sustainability and community, full of wins!!!
And yo, please do get Apple on board lol ;-)
I looked at it on iPad, I had to reload the page 3 or 4 times before I got anything other than a white screen.
Welcome! I was able to load on the IPhone, but was unable to navigate through the page.
Marzipan (edit: and TeaTiff), if that’s the case it’s probably rendering issues with the mobile version of Safari. I’ll contact the host and see what they can do to help out because that would be an issue on their end.
Thank you for checking!
Welcome to Steepster!
I think the site looks really good as is! I appreciate that it’s easy to navigate as well, and the layout makes a lot of sense to me. The pictures of the blends look really, really good too. Those oolong and puerhs…
I’ll be keeping an eye out after your launch, as I’d love to pick up a couple of the blends to review on SororiTea Sisters after I’ve finished going through teas I’ve already got. I’m curious what Canadian shipping is going to look like?
One thing I’d suggest would be either offering sample sizes of teas or a “sampler pack” where you could choose samples of three or five (or whatever) different teas/blends. For reviewers/bloggers who buy their own tea and just want to pick up several different teas in smaller amounts to review 2 oz. of tea is an awful lot. Plus, in general, it’s always nice when you can sample something before buying a larger amount.
Regardless, best of luck! And again, welcome! :)
The small batch pu-erh that we’re carrying is honestly one of the most distinct shengs that I’ve ever tasted — it’s really beautiful and complex. The jin xuan is really quality, too, and it works surprisingly well in no.60 Punch Drunk, the first oolong blend we’ll be carrying.
All shipping is most likely going to be flat-rate, although that’s on James’s end of the business (I’m the one to commend/blame for tea selections and blending, media efforts, graphic design and product engineering right now) so I’d have to confirm with him. I’ll try and keep you posted on that!
And keeping bloggers in mind is an excellent idea, and something to which I’ll be able to respond more fully once we have the shipping all squared away. Smaller samples is something that we definitely plan on including by open!
Thank you for reaching out and I’d love to keep in touch! :) Feel free to email the team at [email protected] if you have any more questions, comments or suggestions (and the same goes for everyone else, too — you’ve all been amazingly helpful!)
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