Lupicia Summer Happy Bags

How were they disappointing?

It’s because we love the mystery. I too was underwhelmed by the selection, particularly in the large percentage of packets of 10 tea bags which Lupicia valuates at $8.50. This would not be something I would choose but I have used them as gifts so not a total loss. There were two duplicates, so even less variety there. I purchased the $100 Happy Bag and thanks to diligent comparisons made on Steepster, some of us did not get a tea tin. Not a big thing but still, $10 value so that annoyance tainted my experience. They made it right after an email asking about the disparity. Anyway I picked this up since I wanted to maintain my monthly newsletter.

Kittenna ordered a $60 bag (to split w/Sil I think?) and I ordered a $30 one, she paid for it but had it sent to me since I was collecting up orders for her. It took a week for it to arrive, and when it did, the $60 one was missing a couple of the teas, one of them an originally $30-something Darjeeling. I think it was Momoko in the tin that was missing too, and maybe one other tea. There also wasn’t the free sample so touted all over the place. Because they only ship UPS it takes a week for anything to get to me from CA and I had planned to get this box sent to Kittenna after the bag arrived and before postage rates skyrocketed so the wait was kind of nervewracking for me. The $30 bags were all the same but I did not know this anywhere, and a local friend wanted to split a $30 bag with me too so I basically got every single of the same teas again.

And then of those same teas most of them had expiration dates on the package not even 6 months away. So while I love the idea of getting random teas at half the price because I’ve not tried much from Lupicia, I do not love that it’s just a front for getting rid of product close to being unsellable. If they were at least up front about that, I would feel better about it.

Thanks for the feedback! I was kind of assuming the tea would be stuff that they were trying to get rid of, but this does give me something to think about before I place an order.

No problem. It’s hard to feel like I make sense w/the expiration date thing, it’s just sort of like as a buyer it’s not really that relevant once it’s at home but somehow if it’s still at the store it being close to expiration is just a no-no. I’m guess it comes from working in those types of things where it’s a huge deal to make sure nothing’s on the shelves that’s expired. I actually don’t mind at all with the tea but if they said it was stuff that’s closer to its date, I guess I’d feel better.

The other thing that I wish would be clearer is that there is only one $30 bag and whether or not there are several variations again of the $60 one. That would have been really helpful.

It’s not a terrible deal at all but it’s hard for me to go with it given additionally it’s $7 shipping, takes forever to reach the east coast, and UPS seems to like to dropkick my packages in the process (maybe that’s the only form of transportation it takes).

oh yeah! I was wondering about their shipping policy.

Yeah, I wish they were in store so I could save shipping.

My new years one was pretty good. I had 1 repeat and 1 tea I didn’t care about. 2 of the teas in my bag were freaking amazing that I wouldn’t of bought otherwise and are staples to me. I really wish I got some teaware, but instore that year it seemed they just loaded up on tea.

Ditto what I said to Momo?

We were pretty ticked about the $30 darjeeling…. meant we got like 3 less teas than everyone else. It sucked.

Kittenna – How did you know you were missing something? Did they give you a list of what you were getting or something?

I was the first one to get the bag and it felt the same weight as my $30 bag, so I looked in it and compared it to the thread that was posted here where people had posted what was in theirs, and it became clear that there wasn’t enough tea. There were 3-4 versions of the $60 bag so it was pretty easy to figure out what was missing based on what other people posted.

Momo – That makes sense. Good thing there was a thread about it, and that you got the two bags to compare.

Sounds great!

This time around, these bags are only sold online.

Oh, bummer!

Nice! Looks better than the Christmas one :)

That sounds pretty decent! :) Jealous of the Melon Oolong and Cookie, in particular!

Whoa. 8 packages of tea bags? That’s 4x what was in the average New Year’s bag. I’ll post what I get tomorrow…UPS says it’ll be here by the end of the day!

Nice – momoko is fantastic!

According to the bags they are 50g (1.76 oz). You might end up with different teas if you ordered I think.

It’s great deal I think. Enjoy your tea