95

I am really enjoying this tea. It’s bold without being bitter, and the hit of cranberry and orange is just right. It’s just what I needed to wake up this morning. I would definitely recommend it to any and all of my friends in the US.

Too bad I won’t be getting any more in.

We placed an order with Harney on 4/8/2011. Today is 4/25/2011. Our order still has not shipped, and all e-mails are either left unanswered or forwarded to another department who takes a turn not answering any of them. The only semblance of a response I’ve gotten from anyone is simply “International orders take longer to process than domestic”, which simply isn’t good enough. Other companies seem to be able to handle the processing times just fine without letting them take this long. We’ve canceled our order and won’t bother trying them again. There’s nothing they make that we can’t find here, in the last few weeks we’ve discovered tons of little tea shops in Toronto.

So for my friends in the US, I highly recommend this tea. For my Canadian friends, it’s good, but very much not worth the hassle. Thanks for letting me try this, QueenofTarts, I might have to see if I can find it locally.

Preparation
Boiling 4 min, 0 sec
Indigobloom

oooh, new tea shops! There aren’t nearly enough of them in the core downtown area where I usually am.

Daddyselephant

Kensington Market is turning out to be a surprisingly good place to go for teas! And there are tons along Queen Street, we’re going to check out Pippins soon on *Uniquity*’s recommendation.

Kristin

Aww. Sad.

Uniquity

I’m sad to hear your experience went worse than my own…But on the plus side, your Alice teapot is (hopefully) available at Pippins! Hopefully you can find some more excellent indie stores and make me jealous once again. : )

Daddyselephant

Uniquity, we tried to spot by Pippins yesterday, actually, I thought of you! We’d never been to that part of Toronto before, it was gorgeous! The teapot there is out of our price range, but we found it elsewhere online. I was just utterly disgusted by the complete lack of customer service. But we look forward to exploring a few more tea shops we’ve found in the area!

Uniquity

I wouldn’t be afraid to let Harney know of their abysmal performance on this front, if I were you. I know you’ve sent e-mails already to them, but to lose not one but many customers (as this is, for the tea community, a pretty “public” gaffe) is something that should be of major concern to them.

Daddyselephant

I’ve sent many emails, and contacted whoever runs their twitter (I actually got a response there) The twitter convo is as follows:

Me: Utterly disgusted with @HarneyTea. We placed an order on 4/8, still not shipped. Customer Service less than helpful. Canceling our order.

Harney: I apologize for the problems, and our failure to respond to you quickly. Pls. let me know how I can help to make this right.

Me: Improve your international customer service and respond to emails. It shouldn’t take 2 weeks to process an order.

I don’t think anything will actually come of it, but this is just ridiculous. I’m thinking of one last email to customer service, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I do plan to continue to warn my Canadian friends away from them. The tea is good…but not good enough to make up for this junk.

In other news, had a very nice conversation with the people at Pippins today, I might be getting my teapot there after all!

Uniquity

I’ve gotta say, any US based company (tea related or not) that treats Canadian orders as if they’re going to the moon automatically turns me off. I expect lengthy shipping times and potential customs problems, butas you’ve rightly said before, in some cases we are closer than outlying states. I can imagine how the poor Alaskans and Hawaiians must feel (You know how you always see “Free Shipping! Except to Alaska and Hawaii”…)

Daddyselephant

Yeah, I put the effort into a long, long e-mail to customer service laying out everything that happened that led me to cancel my order and sent it just now. I hope it’s actually read and I hope they actually do something because this is ridiculous and unneeded. We ordered a box of card games from Steve Jackson Games and it managed to be here in a little over a week, processing and shipping times. There’s no excuse for Canadian orders to be treated as “international” orders. In fact, on their website, International is defined as “outside the US or Canada”.

Blegh. I am so completely turned off by this company that I’m not sure I’d ever order from them again, even if they did clean up their act.

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Indigobloom

oooh, new tea shops! There aren’t nearly enough of them in the core downtown area where I usually am.

Daddyselephant

Kensington Market is turning out to be a surprisingly good place to go for teas! And there are tons along Queen Street, we’re going to check out Pippins soon on *Uniquity*’s recommendation.

Kristin

Aww. Sad.

Uniquity

I’m sad to hear your experience went worse than my own…But on the plus side, your Alice teapot is (hopefully) available at Pippins! Hopefully you can find some more excellent indie stores and make me jealous once again. : )

Daddyselephant

Uniquity, we tried to spot by Pippins yesterday, actually, I thought of you! We’d never been to that part of Toronto before, it was gorgeous! The teapot there is out of our price range, but we found it elsewhere online. I was just utterly disgusted by the complete lack of customer service. But we look forward to exploring a few more tea shops we’ve found in the area!

Uniquity

I wouldn’t be afraid to let Harney know of their abysmal performance on this front, if I were you. I know you’ve sent e-mails already to them, but to lose not one but many customers (as this is, for the tea community, a pretty “public” gaffe) is something that should be of major concern to them.

Daddyselephant

I’ve sent many emails, and contacted whoever runs their twitter (I actually got a response there) The twitter convo is as follows:

Me: Utterly disgusted with @HarneyTea. We placed an order on 4/8, still not shipped. Customer Service less than helpful. Canceling our order.

Harney: I apologize for the problems, and our failure to respond to you quickly. Pls. let me know how I can help to make this right.

Me: Improve your international customer service and respond to emails. It shouldn’t take 2 weeks to process an order.

I don’t think anything will actually come of it, but this is just ridiculous. I’m thinking of one last email to customer service, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I do plan to continue to warn my Canadian friends away from them. The tea is good…but not good enough to make up for this junk.

In other news, had a very nice conversation with the people at Pippins today, I might be getting my teapot there after all!

Uniquity

I’ve gotta say, any US based company (tea related or not) that treats Canadian orders as if they’re going to the moon automatically turns me off. I expect lengthy shipping times and potential customs problems, butas you’ve rightly said before, in some cases we are closer than outlying states. I can imagine how the poor Alaskans and Hawaiians must feel (You know how you always see “Free Shipping! Except to Alaska and Hawaii”…)

Daddyselephant

Yeah, I put the effort into a long, long e-mail to customer service laying out everything that happened that led me to cancel my order and sent it just now. I hope it’s actually read and I hope they actually do something because this is ridiculous and unneeded. We ordered a box of card games from Steve Jackson Games and it managed to be here in a little over a week, processing and shipping times. There’s no excuse for Canadian orders to be treated as “international” orders. In fact, on their website, International is defined as “outside the US or Canada”.

Blegh. I am so completely turned off by this company that I’m not sure I’d ever order from them again, even if they did clean up their act.

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Formerly aisling of tea, now you can call me ele .

“You can forgive a murder, but never a mistake while preparing tea.” Chinese proverb

Labels? Here you go: Femme, Wife, Lesbian, Homemaker, Happy. Don’t forget tea fanatic!

New label as of May, 2015: Diabetic. I’m using tea to satisfy my sweet tooth cravings and keep me hydrated without hurting my system or messing with my blood sugar.

Ah, tea. My love for you is ever changing. At my last update, I was all about the rooibos and now I hardly drink it. I only occasionally had an oolong and now I have one just about every day. I’ve learned the art of resteeping and coldbrewing and kombucha. I have a lovely little tea pet named…well, I haven’t decided on a name for him yet. I also have five! live pets, a tabby cat named Rosabella Francis (Bella for short), a ginger cat named Orange Julius Pekoe (Pekoe), a white and grey cat named Earl Jean Grey (Earlie), a tuxedo cat (and the only boy in the house) Prince Erik Darien Darjeeling (JiJi) and a red foot tortoise named Da Hong Pao (Pao). So if you see me referring to my girls, I don’t have kids, just animals.

As for tea, I love oolongs, herbals, and black tea. Since I am no longer working, I no longer feel the constant need for a mate energy boost, though I do still reach for it from time to time. I also drink less matcha, though I do throw a spoonful or two in when I’m making smoothies. Most of my tea I drink coldbrewed, and since I discovered coldbrewed rooibos was giving me headaches, I’m drinking less and less of it. Straight pu-erh is not a thing I enjoy, but there are a few flavored blends I like. Greens are still too finicky for me to bother with hot, but they make great cold brews.

I am by no means a tea purist. I greatly enjoy flavored teas and I put stevia in all of my teas. It’s just how I do.

I think I’m going to name my tea pet Mr. Turtle. Even though he’s a tortoise.

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Scarborough, ON

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