Should I trust this tea shop?
I have a question for those who have more experience with tea shops than I. I live in a town with relatively little in the way of loose-leaf tea; as far as I was aware, Whole Foods has self-serve jars of Rishi, Republic of Tea, and Allegro, and a local store has tins of some loose-leaf Republic of Tea (a company whose unflavored black teas I like), and a coffee shop that sells stuff from the Tea Spot. I really prefer to use cash and buy from stores in town, so I’ve been somewhat limited. However, someone recently recommended a store in a historic district of town, and I’ve been excited to check it out.
I like doing a bit of research before I visit a place. I tried with this one, and the website for the shop’s tea provider seems… less than promising: http://travelingleaf.com/
They seem to have a good variety, but they’re pretty vague. Most of the photos of tea are stock photos; they list prices but usually not amounts; they say that certain teas are award winning (even Global Award Winning!), but, with one exception, they don’t mention which awards they’ve won; they say “certified organic,” but have no USDA certification information or labels on their site (my thoughts on “organic” tea are complex, but if a company is going to go with the organic label, they might as well make it official), and they seem to be much more into lots of herbals and herbal/tea blends, including lots of Eastern medicine herbs(not that these herbs are necessarily bad—my thoughts on this are, again, complex, but generally I much prefer straight tea).
Yet, they have some straight teas that look intriguing—even a few rarer ones (for me, at least—things like Pu’er and unmixed Keemun aren’t the easiest to find around here). So, is it worth a visit? Does it look more like a quality company with a bad or work-in-progress website, or a company trying to pass itself off as higher-quality than it really is? I currently have around $10 to spend on tea for the near future, and want to use it well, and am still relatively new to loose-leaf tea, so any insight would be helpful and appreciated.
Quickly checking their “award winning teas”, all are sourced from Art of Tea. Same descriptions.
example
http://travelingleaf.com/product/pomegranate-green/
vs
http://www.artoftea.com/tea/subscription/green-pomegranate-award-winning.html (art of tea has all the organic info btw)
You might want to double check prices (if you can find out the size) and see which seller is cheaper. This practice happens, we got a whole thread on it http://steepster.com/discuss/7096-companies-that-sell-repackaged-slash-rebranded-flavored-teas-from-other-tea-blenders generally its cheaper to go to the original source. Though, it might be worth a visit to smell the teas, try some samples, and order online for larger quantity at a better price (if applicable).
In the end, if you are buying from a Tea shop – make sure they store their tea well, in sealed jars (hopefully UV protected or dark canisters).
Ah—marvelous! Thank you. I’m not sure how I missed that; I think I searched the names I found most distinctive (such as Climbing Colorado), and didn’t find anything, so I assumed it was all from one source (or maybe it is, and they just changed some of the names). I’ve done that with a few other tea places, as well, and not found anything—I’ll make my searches more thorough from now on, including descriptions.
I do find this a bit irritating, and wish that they would be more upfront about where they get their tea. But, reading the other thread, I can see I’m not alone.
Most tea shops here in the US buy from wholesale distributors that are selling to hundreds of other shops. Art of Tea does have some good stuff so that might be a great way for you to save on shipping :)
Looks like they don’t store it particularly well—big clear glass jars in the open. Ah, well, I’m almost out of PG Tips, so I’ll probably go to the English store for my tea instead.
Buying from wholesale distributors is something I’m fine with—I.just wish that stores would mention where they get their tea from. Still, I guess that only makes it slightly tougher to research before I buy. It just seems odd that the provider gets no credit.
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