Loose tea sites online?

and many others.

"Orange pekoe" is a description of the condition and quality of the leaf -- not a variety of tea. See the Tea FAQ if you found that statement interesting:

Message-ID:

I've had excellent luck with SpecialTeas. I've never tried Upton but I hear many good things about them.

I'm the opposite. I've enjoyed quite a number of the teas from Uptons (the Irish Breakfast especially) and wouldn't hesitate to reccomend them. I'm intrigued by Specialteas and expect the same sort of satisfaction based on a lot of reccomendations from folks whose tastes I trust. I just haven't made an order yet myself. -Doc

Thanks Jules and Doc. I will check out both sites AND the FAQs.

Giselle

People have given you a couple of suggestions for upscale teas online, so I won't add to that. But I did want to mention that if you are not looking for hi end tea, just grocery store type loose tea, you can probably find that in pretty much any size city by going to an 'ethnic' food store. Indian or middle eastern stores are likely to have black tea, and asian stores green tea. These won't be nearly of the quality that one can get from Uptons or Specialteas, but they can be quite servicable, a lot cheaper, and no waiting.

You made a good point, especially for a person switching from tea bags. You're proposing what I'd call "better than" grocery store type loose tea.

We have a large Chinese grocery here. They have a small selection of Darjeeling, Assam, and Ceylon, and a large selection of Chinese and Japanese teas.

We've got only a very small Indian grocery (sniff) but I went recently to a very nice Arabic grocery in Tucson (Caravan). They've got (perhaps) ten brands each of Darjeeling, Assam, and Ceylon.

I got (Lipton "Connoisseur" Darjeeling (Green Label)) and some Ceylon brand I've never seen before. Neither are quite as good as what I've gotten from Special Teas but I'm having no trouble drinking them.

I'd say more than servicable and a whole lot cheaper.

I've never thought of Upton and Specialteas as "upscale". True, they have better stuff than you'd find at a grocery store, but not nearly the quality (or prices) you'd find at In Pursuit of Tea, Imperial Tea Court, or Silk Road Teas, to name but a few.

I'm of the thinking that Specialteas and Upton are very good compromises between the "bankrupt-yourself" upscale sites and the generic stuff in grocery stores.

BTW, I hear that Specialteas is far better with green, but Upton specializes with black tea. DON'T get any of Upton's samplers (you can find my full rant on the Google r.f.d.t archives). In short, the tins are horrible, it's too much tea for a "sample", and the teas are not always representative. Check out

Have fun,

ZBL

I would agree that there is too much tea there for a sample - but I have bought their Darjeeling sampler and had good luck with it. I tend to buy entire tins, though, and would reocmmend someone buy sample sizes of the teas they think they'd like from Upton rather than the "gift pack" of tea (as I like to call it).

"Gregory Allen-Anderson" wrote

That's pretty much the problem. I'm two hours outside of a major city and right now I'm sitting on a ice-slicked hilltop. I can get to my mailbox but not much further. I thought it might be nice to order my tea brought to me until spring. :)

Giselle (now does anyone know where I can order a nice British butler by mail?)

snipped-for-privacy@posting.google.com2/1/04

I'm in complete enthusiastic agreement here. Thanks for clarifying it.

Silk Road Tea, as an example, has a number of $10. per quarter pound teas and some less expensive in the catalogue. That strikes me as reasonable. IME, some of them are excellent.

snip

Michael

I can serve tea but do not know the postage cost to your location :-)

BTW, no one has mentioned Betty's by Post selling the Taylor's online. I buy their Mountains of the Moon by the kilo, and with shipping to the USA it is still cheaper than some of the other online stores. They also do some fine Estate ceylon, Kwazulu and a great Lion Mountain Keemun.

One of the little touches is to have them make up a caddy with your blend, labeled as your tea, a neat gift.

JJ

In a conversation with someone at Silk Road Teas, I was told that Specialteas purchased a lot of Drum Mountain from Silk Road. SpecialTeas catalog mentions their "buyer" who travels all over China and buys lots of tea from small tea farmers, etc., sounds just like David Hoffman to me. I wonder if SpecialTeas would reveal which teas they obtained through Silk Road?