Best online store...

Upton Tea has an amazing selection (overwhelming, actually) and a variety of prices. Adagio has a good value, Golden Moon and Shang Tea are pricier but excellent. Red Blossom Tea is my newer favorite, with a range of prices and some of the less expensive are really good teas. The organic Golden Monkey is a great buy for a milder black tea.

We don’t think there are so-called best ones. We think there are a lot of good online tea shops but sometimes they have their own featured product.

Here we made a list of online tea shops with their operation location and featured products. It may help you.

http://www.viconyteas.com/directory/online-tea-shop.html

I would say DAVIDsTEA : www.davidstea.com The shipping is free over 50$, the tea is affordable for a really good quality and amazing flavors!

Okay not to pat ourselves on the back but we love our little tea shop! Although the prices are a bit steeper in comparison (yes we will admit), we can promise 100% best quality and we have free shipping no matter what! (just use promo code yayitsfree)

Strand Tea has very reasonable prices.

I have to give props to Culinary Teas. Great selection, great quality. Most of their teas have smaller sample bags you can buy to try out a tea. Each week there is a new tea on sale for 20 percent off…and they help support the troops, which is a cause dear and near to me. I highly recommend them – just placed an order a few minutes ago myself. (And no, I am not affiliated with them in any way).

http://www.culinaryteas.com/

I’ve gone to a lot of specialty tea shops and I think much on that has already been said, pricing aside, its selection and teas that interest, integrity of the information and the sourcing that is key. If you’ve been buying from Teavana, you are already buying at a high rate, so really almost anything is cheaper unless you are looking at high end oolong/dan cong specialty shops or that kind of thing. Ironically some coffee shops have better priced teas, just because its not their main business and they can afford to offer it at lower prices, but you generally find it harder to make sure they know what they are talking about. I personally like the Tao of Tea, Empire Tea Services, the Assam Tea Company, In pursuit of tea, TeaTrekker, Naivetea, and my home town favorite Staufs Coffee Roasters (but I’m biased). This site is great for looking up a tea and then looking at who carries it and then cost comparing them. I would start that way if your focused on price. Type in the tea, see who rates them high, go to the site, and see if the pricing holds up. You can also find some direct importers from china on ebay that can help you find cheep tea and hardware, but then you have to wait to see what shows up. Always wise to find and encourage shops local to you to carry good stuff and then patron them, saving yourself the shipping and allowing you to buy smaller quantities and play with new offerings..good luck!

I found a wonderful little tea company called Cha Tao in Colorado when I lived there. The storefront isn’t around anymore, but they still sell their products online. The couple who owns this business owns their own tea farm in China and bring theirs teas to the U.S. I love Harney and Sons, Teavana, and the new loose leaf teas from Tea Forte; however, Cha Tao is a small niche store specializing in China tea, which I love. Their website is http://www.chataotea.com/. They routinely change their teas depending on what is in season, ensuring that the tea is fresh.

Oh and how could I forget 52teas and his affiliate companies ManTeas and MySweetHoneyBush! These teas are definitely like none other.

I can’t help but throw my shops name out there! JoysTeaspoon.com, not the least expensive on the web but definitely quality teas. We offer a pair of sampler packs (Cinco Sampler from $7.99 and Ocho Sampler from $10.49) that you can customize to fit your sipping whims!