Any interest in a monthly TTB club?

I think a monthly traveling tea box club could be a whole lot of fun. Each person who participated would put together a box of tea. The box could either be a grab bag or have a theme. The first week of the month, each person would mail their box to the next person on the list. For just the cost of postage, everyone in the club would get a box of tea to try every month. Who else would be interested?

23 Replies

For me it would have to a small box (low postage per month), US only, and I would have to know that the person sending my box was going to try to send things that I like rather than just teas that they want to get rid of. If it was anything like that, I’d consider joining.

Also guidelines on amounts (for example, a 5 serving minimum, etc.) So that you don’t get jipped.

What size box would you recommend?

5 small samples per box I guess?

They would be able to fit in bubble mailers actually

Login or sign up to post a message.

Nicole said

I’d be interested if the shipping cost was kept to like the least expensive flat rate option or something. Something less expensive than most of the actual subscriptions out there. :)

And you aren’t talking about just a one time make a box and send it to one person, right? It seemed like you meant that everyone would eventually get all of the boxes. Like a “regular” TTB only you aren’t putting samples in the box before you send it on. The boxes are set up from the beginning and at the end would have no tea left. So people would run the risk that the box they get for a given month may have nothing in it that they’d like.

So you’d have to have enough tea in the boxes for everyone to have a sample of each and guidelines on how much tea you take out when you get a box.

I may be wrong but I didn’t think everyone would very all the boxes. They way I understood was that everyone would send a new box to a different person every month.

I was thinking it would be best to run it the way most ttb’s are run. Everyone would get every box, and replace the same amount as they take out. The boxes would be smaller than most ttb’s I’ve seen, maybe about 1/2 – 1 lb (around $5 shipping from east to west coast).

Login or sign up to post a message.

I would be interested depending on how the boxes worked. I’d rather send out a box to a different person each month than pass along a box that was mailed to me. I think the boxes would be more enjoyable that way since they’d (hopefully) be aimed at individuals rather than throwing a bunch of servings of a few teas in a box and hoping that people will find it interesting.

Did that even make sense?

Being able to try a lot of different teas, including some I’d never buy on my own is one of the things that really appeals to me about ttb’s.

@Veronica yes, it makes sense and I agree.

@rosebudmelissa Maybe a way to have the best of both worlds would be to include teas that the person asked for, plus a couple of mystery teas. For example, if a person says they like jade oolongs and green tea I would give them malt jade oolongs and green tea and throw in a puerh, a white, maybe an herbal. That way they know they’ll get something they like and something new as well.

Nicole said

While appealing because of the personalization, it would take more scheduling from the organizer to do that way. For instance, I would not want to be scheduled to send to someone that wanted herbals or jade oolongs because I don’t have any jade oolongs or herbals to send to people. :)

I can see how it would be an organizing headache to do individual boxes each month. I didn’t think about that.

Yeah, but if you don’t get even one thing you like it’s super disappointing, especially if it happens month after month. That would suck.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Yeah, that’s my drawback with most tea if the month clubs. You run the risk of ending up with lots of tea that you don’t enjoy.

One of the plus sides of this would be that if I didn’t like the teas in my box for that month they’d go to the next person on the list rather than languish in my cupboard.

My next concern would be if I always send to the same person each month, and I’m replacing any tea I take out of the box, then by the end (depending on how many people sign up) they could see the same tea from me multiple times.

Oops, I meant to add this to the previous post. Typing on my phone is a pain.

It would be to different people, not the same person

seeing the same tea multiple times would be a concern. Keeping the boxes for a month would help. I think most people on steepster buy tea multiple times in a year. Having some themed boxes could also help. If you know that the box you have this month is a grab bag, but next month’s box is fruit flavored teas, you’ll probably save your fruit flavored teas for next month. But the downside is that if you don’t like fruit flavored teas, you’re out of luck that month.

Ok. If the monthly themes were set ahead of time that would help a lot. Personally if I knew the person I was sending the box to wasn’t a fan of the particular month’s theme I’d add a couple of extra teas that might be more their style, but I know not everyone might be able/willing to do that.

This sounds like fun. If you do it I’d join!

Login or sign up to post a message.

I may be interested, but yeah, it would be difficult unless it was more like a “secret santa” or similar set up, where you send things you’re pretty sure the people would actually like (or at least things similar – if not specifically on their wishlist – as I have definitely found things I have liked in traveling tea boxes that never made their way onto my wishlist for whatever reason).

I haven’t participated in many TTB’s but I feel like if we made a point of alternating between between variety boxes and themed boxes people should get some tea they like almost every month. It might work to have 12 participants, and have 6 variety boxes and the following six themes:
Black and Puerh
Sugar and Spice (Dessert teas and Chai/spice teas)
Green, White, and Oolong
Fruits and Flowers
Unflavored
Decaf and Herbal

I think most people would be interested in/be able to contribute to most of those themes.

Yes, I like where you’re going with that idea. I’m in! What would sugar and spice be though? Edit: nevermind, missed the parentheses! :P

Login or sign up to post a message.

Login or sign up to post a message.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.