An earlier post asking how many teas you have (I typically have 12 or so) got me thinking about what I don't have. I'm pretty happy with my mix that fits my moods and time of day but I've got a big gap in oolongs and would appreciate recommendations. Mine are all on the light side -- jade, wuyi -- and I'm missing the big oolongs -- rich taste, plenty of fragrance, smooth but with some bite. I've tended recently to stick with Taiwanese.
So, please, some more adventurous options that are ones you rave about. I'm not looking for more everyday good old faithfuls but the fill your mouth, make you sit up and music goes off in your head types.
Two workhorse, lowish price generics -- Wegman's Wuyi (a good buy but indistinguishable from a green), Adagio Ensemble -- plus a Sparrow's Tongue, Zhong Shan and "organic" Water Sprite. I've used the published figures on oxidization percent in scanning and have looked for heavy oxidization as a guideline.
Everything I have ever got from those folks was stale and substantially overpriced. And none of the oolongs they have is like what the original poster is looking for.
OK, well it seems like the issue may be more with the vendors than the teas themselves. I'm a big Wegmans fan but their teas are highly overpriced and lower quality, they are essentially just loose leaf Republic of Tea. Not a real good measuring stick as far as tea goes. (but their jasmine pearls, ginger peach black, and black raspberry sage black, are all decent for flavored teas)
Adagio is basically the same story. Overpriced and underperforming. Same with Teavanna except there you get deceptive service and terrible people as a bonus.
Not trying to be overly critical but none of these would be any of our recommendations around here. You can get much higher quality tea for the same or less money from reputable vendors that will take the time and effort to help and guide you.
All of those teas you mentioned are actually very good teas, just not from the sources you chose, that's all. Shui Xian (also known as Shui Hsien or "water sprite") can have many forms, try one that is medium roasted and one heavily roasted. Teaspring.com, Houde Asian Art, Imperial Tea court, and possibly Jing Teashop should all have this and you should be able to find one or two in your price range. Same for Wu Yi's or Dan Congs, which are both oolongs and should fit the bill all from those same places. The sparrow or bird's tongue ("que she") can be harder to find and is one of those teas that freshness and quality is the main focus, I don't have a great source for this and just happily stumble upon it every now and then. Upton Tea is another site that will easily beat the prices you were paying and offer better tea but it just isn't quite the quality available from the others I mentioned. It is a great place to get your feet wet and experiment though.
Hopefully that will help point you in the right direction and get you some solid teas to try.
Thanks for the comments. I agree with you about Adagio -- I got given it as a gift. The Wegman's I buy for the Wuyi and jasmine green only because it's the best I can find in a shop. The problem is locating a vendor -- there aren't any of quality near me. The few within driving distance are clearly buying from some wholesaler on the cheap and even where their teas have the names it's clear they re not top quality -- I've given up on Dragonwell as being anything from dyed paper towel torn up to flaccid if-you-try-hard-you- can taste-something-perhaps. (I've had "young" Hyson and Ceylons recently that were half the price of specialty vendors and overpriced at that.)
The online vendors don't really offer much help. I should probably try more of Upton's offers, but I haven't been that impressed. Your sound advice of finding one that will be personally helpful is what I'd like but haven't found. I tried a good Australian supplier who specialized in oolongs and has a great catalog but viewed delivery as not really their responsibility -- four months for an incomplete shipment with substitutions. Which vendor(s) would you pick as superb specialized catalog/good service?
Many online vendors actually provide great service and help. It's hard at first to figure out which do but fire off an email with some of your questions to a couple and you will quickly find who are helpful. Others here can probably add a few but my list of my go-tos are:
Teaspring.com (daniel is very helpful, prices are great, Chinese teas only) Stephane Erler (a great guy and extremely knowledgable) Houde Asian Art (can be pricey at times but always worth it) Jing Tea Shop (not always a first pick for me just because of the teas I drink but always excellent) Hibiki-an/o-cha for Japanese greens (pricey but again mostly worth it) Imperial tea court (some like them, some don't but generally the reasoning is not the quality of the leaf itself) Yunnan Sourcing LLC (an ebay shop but great teas and prices, good place for Puer) Upton Tea (Maybe if I were into black teas and darjeelings it would be more of a choice, but I'm not really and they never wow me like the places listed above)
Now, you have to realize my tea tastes dictate where I go for tea. I drink mainly Japanese greens, a few non-green non-flowery oolongs, yellow tea, jasmine green, chamomile, and not much else daily. I occasionally dig into a new area of tea just to experience it but I rarely find one or two that end up staying around.
I live near Pittsburgh which has essentially no places to go for decent tea in person, so the Internet is one of my only sources except for rare occasions. I do seek out tea when I travel though and it's always great to actually go to really good tea shops.
Many, many thanks -- this is exactly the type of information I need. Interesting difference in our modes of preference -- I always want to explore and get something new, albeit with a trusty base store of reliables. I share your love of Japanese teas but, boy, are they difficult to find. Ironically, some of the worst buys I made were in Tokyo between shabu-shabus; if any types of tea have temperaments, its high end Senchas, while blacks are at least placid and stolid.
From all the strands of discussion on this site, it seems to me that the weak link in the US tea market is the store and that choosing tea, learning about it and developing one's own tastes is the easy part. Teavana -- which has maybe three or so decent teas -- succeeds only because there's nothing any better around them.
Actually they "succeed" in misinformation and deceit, which is not success in my book. I've brought up a few times my interest and desire to open an actual tea shop/cafe and the numbers just never work. It is almost impossible to honestly run a tea shop in brick and mortar form in most cities in the U.S. There are a few exceptions and a few cities that can make it work, but it's essentially a money sink without giving in to either coffee, some additional revenue source, or deceit.
Japanese teas are a tricky lot and take a lot of patience and unfortunately money to get right. I buy only a few specific ones a couple times a year as treats. Gyokuro and two senchas (one fresh during the initial harvests, and one a month or three later) If the year seems to be particularly good I'll go back for more of the first stuff. And I'll keep some matcha around. Otherwise it is just basic bancha for daily drinking.
Believe me I was at an exploration point too for a long time (still am to some extent) but there are certain areas I've explored pretty heavily and know exactly what I like, that cuts back the need for more than a couple of a certain type. When I range outside of it I rarely come across something better and ultimately wish I had just stuck to my standards.
I've noticed that my palate has changed greatly over the past few years, whereas my taste in wines remains pretty constant. I wonder if this is typical or just that as I move towards the big seven zero in age there are biological factors at work. Probably because of my Brit upbringing, I was very much attracted to black teas and found very few greens interesting. Now I find that subtle flavor is more satisfying than big taste. Adams Peak, which I buy when I can afford taking a second mortage out to finance it is perhaps my favorite of all teas now. Hence my growing love of great Japanese teas, especially Gyokuro. Properly brewed, it's a joy but my own efforts are generally a bust of truly nasty acrid Lucrezia Borgia specials. I plan to take your advice on trying to make more direct connection with Real People among the online vendors, since I do see that my buying is very hit and miss. Alas, I can't see the bricks and mortar players ever making things work. It's very much like old-style bookstores; they have little choice but to go the Teavan route -- they can't afford knowledgable staff and have to go for the high margin known names in pretty cans and gifs/accessories. I notice a distinct decline in the big gourmet food stores. Wegman's carries fewer and fewer good teas and more and more of those damned green teas with florist leftover petals added. Whole Foods is a lost cause. Ah well, I'll keep looking.
I appreciate and approve the RFDT community insistence on no vendor huckstering but it really is a help to get careful identification of the proven best vendors.
I do think that the best system is where you can visit a great vendor in person, and try the tea before buying. But unfortunately, in the US, there's just not the market for these sorts of teas (yet) to really support that.
But one nice thing with online vendors is that you can get small samples and then try brewing the tea yourself with your own teaware, water, etc. While a skilled brewer might be able to do a better job, it's still a better situation than a lot of brick and mortar tea shops, and brewing a tea 2-3 times will give you a better view of it than just trying it once.
The bad part of buying stuff online is that you'll end up with a lot of tea you don't like, especially at first. Over time, you'll get a sense of what certain descriptions mean, which vendors you can trust, which vendors you share certain preferences with, etc.
And if you're buying from shops which don't let you try the tea at all.. well you might as well buy online.
It looks like maybe you're in the DC area? I think there are one or two shops that specialize in Chinese tea in that area.
By the way, it's great that you're not top posting, but TRIM the quoted material when responding! I have to scroll through pages of irrelevant quoted material to read your and Lew's exchange.
I dont have any trouble with the Teavana hard sell. I think they are a net plus by introducing people to tea who arent cruising the city looking for unknown tea shoppes. Its better than the green tea weight lost carts on the mall. Im in a guys house recently. He showed me a $1000 China Postal box he just received from Yunnan Sourcing. We tasted some puer from previous shipments. I complimented him on his choice of teaware for the tasting and asked him where he got it. Teavana.
I'm not saying all of their tea and wares are terrible, I'm saying the entire business model is, their treatment of employees, and the general ethos of Teavana. I bet there are a couple good teas, I'm sure there are a few knowledgeable folks, I'm sure one can find a really good pot... but my point is why. Wouldn't you rather give that same (often less) money to someone who is doing things right? Who *is* knowledgeable, who *is* the owner and employee or who treats and hires skilled folks properly, who stocks all exceptional items and who takes pride in them.
The community for quality tea in the U.S. is small, why make it harder for the good guys to win by diluting the relatively small amount of money flowing through this market to vendors and outlets who don't deserve it? That ensures only that we will get more Teavanas and Adagios in the future because they are the only ones who can survive. I don't want to see that happen, it would be a true shame.
People are free to vote with their dollars however and wherever they like, some know full well what these places are and still choose to patronize them, some folks simply do not know that there are better, more reputable, places out there. I've had family and friends honestly think that they got a great deal and that this place is the pinnacle of tea, once they realize they over-payed by 50-100%+ or got garbage and were outright lied to they are genuinely shocked. That doesn't help tea or the fostering of tea culture in America at all.
That's all I'm trying to convey.
- Dominic
PS In college I worked at Radioshack. A terrible place that preys on the same ignorance and uses the same tactics as Teavana. I was actually skilled and knowledgeable and didn't resort to the standard crap, I was always in the top sales for the entire district and had happy loyal customers. I'd get reamed at meetings for not using scumbag tactics and pushed and penalized, just like many accounts from Teavana workers, I didn't give in and I don't think anyone should have to in these circumstances. Luckily for me it was just a temporary job, but for many it is not.
You cant fault the location, location, location business model. SqFt isnt cheap and the prices ballpark for what they sell. I dont think they subtract from a tea shoppe bottom line. People eat at chain restaurants because it is convenient. The tea shoppes will benefit in the long run from the spill over like when some get the bug to find out more or just from the shear foot traffic curiosity. My local British tea shoppe doesnt know that much about Chinese teas. My local Chinese tea shoppe doesnt know that much about British teas. What advice would I get if I choose the wrong place. And neither of them heard about cambric tea when I encountered it last Christmas. When I speak of tea shoppes I mean a Brick-N-Mortar. Not some guy filling online tea orders in a warehouse with the bin covers off because it isnt his responsibility to put them back on. And Ill make sure the samples you get in the mail dont match what you order. The tea industry needs their version of a Starbucks. Not because they are the best but allow others to fill niche markets.
You dont think there are people asking themselves if Teavana can do it so can I. Previously they looked at failed tea shoppes and said it isnt worth it.
No. It can't be done in 90% of U.S. locations without resorting to the exact same tactics of Teavana when you actually run the numbers, so all it does it solidify that the only way to exist is to copy their model. There are some other ways which would include adding food, or some other attraction, or succumbing to coffee. These move the focus away from tea a bit and they also add a considerable expense and barrier to entry.
When you actually take in numbers (which I've done) they just aren't large enough to support tea. In one instance near me coffee outsells tea by 30:1 and the margins are so vastly different that the tea actually loses money and is only absorbed by the other sales. This is with middling quality tea which wouldn't be seen as even close to anyone here's standards. When you factor in good tea it gets grimmer.
I actually think Teavana is a fad and will dwindle away completely or down to a few performing stores, malls and high rent places aren't sustainable and their business model ensures that they go under. Half of their customers will eventually grow in tea and realize that there are better/different vendors with better pricing, and half will be happy to stay at their level. They may choose to evolve a bit to counteract this or they will have to become a Starbucks-like franchise. I don't see either happening. We shall see.
I want to see a national chain synonymous with the word tea. Ill see the noname tea shops spring up to provide competition like you see with the wannabees feasting on Starbucks. 90% of new businesses fail which has nothing to do with the competition.
DrinksForum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.