Verdant's reserve club post-unsubscription thoughts
Been contemplating the idea for the past few months successively deciding to “postpone until checking next package” and stalling because it introduced something good, but in the end I decided that it’s time to let it go.
Overall impressions :
The Good:
The money definitely wasn’t wasted. During past 7 or so months I’ve received some quite nice blacks and Mr. Han’s Yabao was simply mind blowing.
The teas I liked the most were : Qimen Anhui Black, Craft Revival Jasmine hand tied, hand curled golden buds, both Jin Jun Meis, Early Spring Silver needles and Unroasted Qilan Wuyi Ooolong. These were all awesome teas I wouldn’t have tried otherwise and if there were more like them I’d have no problem continuing subscription.
The Bad:
Part of the problem that led to unsubscription is continuity – once you love the tea, you want to get more of it and there is (usually) no way to procure another sample. This is kinda sad but not a real problem although it’d be great if they’d reserved a bit of each tea for people to buy some more of what they really liked.
The real problem for me, however, lies with the other half of the teas I’ve received. Namely, subscription’s heavy accent on TGY and shengs. There are just too much of them and either it’s water quality being detrimental or me liking the other tea types way more. I just can’t enjoy them as much as most of the “normal” tea I’d otherwise be drinkng if I hadn’t felt obligated to drink what I’ve been receivng as a part of the package. Also, there was a distinctive lack of Dan Cong oolongs which I consider to be my most beloved teas. There were maybe two of them (maybe more but not much more).
And there lies the problem – either I continue to subscribe and have this tea accumulate indefinitely(or interfere with my tea sessions indefinitely) or it is time to go. I chose the latter. If there was a way to “unsubscribe” from receiving just certain types of teas or at least reduce likelihood of their appearance in the package substantially – I’d’ve done just that.
I will definitely continue buying from Verdant as their teas are top notch but I decided to (at least for a while) explore tea variety by selecting what I want to try manually. It just works better for me.
You can buy more – or at least you could back when I was receiving the reserve club. Not sure if they just didn’t keep up with that.
However, that being said, yours are the same reason I cancelled after a bit. I may return here and there once i get through some of the teas that stockpiled in my cupboard because of preferences. heh
Yup, I get the idea of “introducing different kinds of tea” but it seems there are types that one won’t like drinking repeatedly regardless of how good they are. Quite frankly though, I’d just take Verdant’s autumn TGY any day over all TGYs from reserve club. However weird it might seem
I joined the reserve club last month and was able to order more of the tea I liked. They set up special pages for te reserve teas and the club gets a password to them. Thank goodness too cause the jin jun mei was sooooooooooo good!
I’ve only once received the mail with a page and a password and that was for July package I think. Also – only 2 teas in it.
Hi Zeks- you can always access all of the Reserve Club teas here:
http://verdanttea.com/shop/reserve-club/#out-of-stock
We still have limited stock of most offerings from each month, which we offer to Reserve Club members as affordably as we can.
Once you find the tea you’re looking for, the product page will have a place for you to enter your code (it’s the same as the one in the e-mail you received. If you need that again, just write to support / Kelsey / me or PM me, and I’ll get it to you!).
Thank you also for your detailed feedback. I know David’s been thinking about all of these things for the past several months, and we’ll very soon be making changes to the way Reserve Club works to help facilitate exactly what you’re talking about here. Stay tuned! :)
I had the regular subscription and I cancelled just due to the fact that I had too much tea accumulating! I love their teas, but I have a tough time drinking down a full 1 oz bag in a month, so I end up with a dozen 1 oz bags that have a few cups out of them at a time lol. I wanted to do the reserve as well, but the amount of tea would just be too much. It might be beneficial if they did some tea clubs with just the sample sizes, since then if you aren’t too fond of a tea, you just have a sample size of it, and if you love one, there is always the option to buy more of it. However, this might not be a good idea cost wise, as the cost of shipping samples is probably too much for the amount of tea being shipped, especially for people outside the US. I probably should have kept my subscription because I want to try all of their teas regardless haha. But just a thought :)
Oops my bad! Haha well disregard what I said for the reserve club lol but possibly an idea for the regular one :) hmm now I am contemplating joining the reserve club even more…haha
Thank you very much for your feedback!! David has been thinking over these issues for many months now, and will soon be implementing changes in the way Reserve Club works so that folks can have more control over their own tea adventures. We’ve already sent out more information in the Reserve Club boxes that went out this week. We’ll post more details once current members have received their boxes, so stay tuned for details!
Interesting :) Can you pls mail me the changes description that I’m going to receive in the next package? Given how our post works I’m not likely to receive it until mid October and if they are good enough I might just resubscribe
Looking forward to seeing how things develop with the reserve club. I too have quite a pile of reserve club teas accumulating that I haven’t gotten to. Part of it is limited time for gongfu sessions lately (which will hopefully improve in a month or so), and part of it is many of the things that you describe, Zeks. I have not been able to really gain a taste for puerhs or wuyi oolongs, and those make up a large part of the package. I have acquired so many of the puerhs at this point that I considered seeing if someone wanted to split a subscription to take the puerhs off my hands.
I never wanted to cancel, though, because I’ve had so many special teas that I wouldn’t want to lose that experience. I have bought more of a few of the teas, and I am glad to have them. I also really do enjoy getting the variety and trying teas that I normally wouldn’t try. But then finishing even a 1/2 oz pouch of puerh becomes tedious after I’ve tried it once. I can’t wait to see how the changes will be implemented!
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