Need a reputable online tea source

Also, you may want to try Holy Mountain (good quality, fair prices) or Imperial Tea Court, in my opinion best quality overall, and competitive prices for the grade. Then there's Enjoying Tea - very inexpensive, acceptable quality. Whole Foods' major supplier for better teas is Silk Roads. The Phoenix is okay; and they do buy their teas in small batches. Frontier is their other big supplier (for herbs, as well) and these are generally old, stale teas since they are sold in big lots and kept in poor storage. Shen

Hey Guys

My first online tea order was Adagio. And it was my last :(

So I am not really in a place to recommend.

Coming back to Adagio...

All their teas were rated 4 or 5. My mind goes haywired when I see that all those feedback count for nothing.

At least to me....

Having said that, they have lots of HAPPY customers, so who am I to comment?

But what really impress me is their Alexa ranking. They rank 102,000, that is extraordinary.

You are talking about 1000 to 10000 visits a day, with hundreds or even thousands of orders daily.

How did they achieve that?

Even Upton, probably the largest vendor, only ranks 900,000.

Sevencups ranks 450,000, and 7th on the Alexa list.

Looking at their descriptions, prices and info, I can see they outclass the like of Teaspring and Jing in term of quality.

Some of their teas may seem pricey, but it is a reflection of the wholesale prices in China.

I have a few tea garden contacts in China.

When I read the descriptions, I can guess where they get the tea from, how authentic it is, and whether they are telling the truth.

I am sure may othe vendors you have suggested are equally worth considering.

:)

Julian

Starbucks has lots of happy, loyal, customers

It was Frontier and Phoenix I bought locally, the Frontier first before the store changed management. I was pleased with the Frontier Sencha, Assam, and English Breakfast, but feel that the Phoenix Sencha and two other Japanese greens were stale. A buyer beware situation for both brands, I guess. Toci

My take on adagio is that I really liked their oolongs, much more than any other oolongs that I had anywhere else even at higher prices. But that's probably because I always ended up with green type of oolongs from other places, and I just don't like those. Their canisters are neat, but I think in fact you might be better off with resealable bags because you can flush all the air out, but it's nice that you can reuse those canisters for longer term storage. But I don't like the way they call teas "adagio oolong 8", etc, because I have no idea how to compare them to teas from other sources. What if I want to find a similar oolong at Upton's? or at IPOT? I doubt Adagio grew that tea so it'd make more sense to tell me what province, what area, the type of preparation, and so forth. Other than oolongs, their black teas were about comparable to specialteas and upton's blacks priced at that level. I liked their site, too. I think they have some nice teaware, but I haven't looked at it for a while.

Andrei

It will be quite tricky for Adagio to provide detailed info as the other higher end vendors.

Their business is in the brand. With the amount of tea they are selling, their challenge is to keep the consistency of quality expected of their brand.

In any case, their customers don't really want to know that actually their longjing tea is from Sichuan province or their Wuyi oolong is not from Wuyi mountain at all.

It is a bit like Mcdonald. They don't necessary make the best burger, but people still go to them because they know how to make a burger that people would buy.

I think they realise this right from the start. That's why they are so successful.

Sometimes I wonder if they might launch a high end tea site one day. Given their customer database and marketing network, it will be a very powerful force.

Although selling higher end teas require a wholly different approach.

Just my random ramblings. Please feel free to disagree with my comments.

Julian

Upton. Served me well for years.

I was surprised that they sell a lot. I thought upton and specialteas are the biggest stores. For some odd reason I thought adagio are really small. I thought it very odd that they tie up teas with musical terms, and a little off-putting and gimmicky. When I listen to philip glass I don't go "that sounds just like the honey dew oolong I had the other day". I also thought they're impractical with expensive jars instead of cheap but useful plastic bags. World: 1, my intution: 0. I've never seen them sold or advertised anywhere, either. Selection isn't nearly as big as Upton. Their site navigation with colorful cups looks informal and not overly polished, but in a good way. They push a silly plastic tea pot on the front page. Plastic tea pot??! Did the world run out of glass AND sand? The funny thing is that when I ordered from them I'd always feel good and nice because I felt I was supporting the little vendor. Strange but true.

Oh and the pot is $19 whereas you can get ceramic pots for around $14 and really nice glass ones for around $25. This doesn't make any sense at all to me. I don't understand this planet, I need to move to Mars - I bet they always use nice red zisha pots.

There are not many people who know thier teas well. Maybe only 1 out of 100 knows tea well. :) To them a green tea is a tea. Do you think they know what is long jing and bi luo chun? So maybe that's explain why adagio is such a winner! their teas would be extremely good for the rest of 99 people! :D Me too bought a few times from them in the early days!

Hi, just joined this group. Interesting posts.

My wife and I used to order from Adagio until last spring, when friends of friends opened up an online store (divineteaonline.com) in Canada (sorry about the promo bit...). About 75 teas, and they ship everywhere. Prices are great, and selection is ok. We've had not so great experiences with Camelia-Sinensis in the past (no service, questionable freshness).

That's my 2c (US or Canadian, doesn't make a difference anymore !!!!),

Gabe

Their pu-erh is good, but their shipping outside the USA is a killer in cost. Its the thing which stops me going back for more.

Kat

Andrei

Adagio and O-Cha, the two most visited tea sites have extensive affiliates. Just go to google and type in "tea affiliates" and you will find all those vendor offering commission term for referring visitors.

It ranges from 10% to 20%. Adagio offers less, probably because they are better at converting visitors to sales.

I was looking into it at once, but I can't really bring myself to recommend their teas. I will simply be lying to myself.

I think they do have the mass appeal.

Julian

I just saw that. In 92 the CD was 62c now it is level with the green back. Plus you get Universal Health Coverage. All I get from my HMO is take an aspirin and make an appointment in two weeks.

Jim

snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com wrote:

Julian, No offense; but, I really don't get this line of thinking. We are known, here in America, for expecting and accepting mediocrity. That be, what difference do these statistics make. Good is good. Whether it be a teeny vendor in "west podonk" or a huge dealer in New York. Some of the finest, most careful, vendors I deal with have little blogs that offer really wonderful tea (Teamasters, Stephane, for example). And, here we go again: I tend to be a god-awful, fussy, arrogant tea snob and I really, really research and taste what I purchase, whether it be a Chinatown bargain or "jeez that's nearly a month's rent pu- erh". It's all subjective. Perhaps, we should move onto a more specific question: what tea, exactly and what picking does this poster have in mind? Are you talking about customer service in terms of qaulity of product or shipping? Like most tee guzzlers here, I go to certain vendors for certain teas. I know what to expect in terms of price and shipping. And, geez, I've always been a little leery of heading off to a place with BIG numbers. Can't even bear to think of buying a KRAFT cheese or a General Mills breakfast cereal.

Shen

Shen

Thank you for asking this thoughtful question.

In the world that we are living now, sometimes we are too obsessed about ourselves - what we like, what we recommend and what we think.

Don't get me wrong, I love your recommendations. I would love to try out Houde and their wonderful selection one day, hopefully in not too distant future.

Sometimes I just feel it is more refreshing to "switch" myself in the background and see what other people are doing instead.

I love humanity. I really do. We live in the world of democracy. Truth always present itself as paradox. The mass is always wrong. But it is also least likely to be wrong.

Okay, let's see what we glimpse what these big numbers statistics.

Sometimes understanding how people behave can shed incredible light into ourselves...

Why is Adagio so successful? I think it is due to their simple products, deep and wide marketing network, great customer service, great customers loyalty (which results in so many positive ratings) and fantastic bundling.

That is how I ended up buying from them anyway ...

Why is Sevencups the highest ranking Chinese tea vendor? I think it is because of the owners passion, deep sourcing network and and rich tea informatioin.

But buying behaviour is a strange thing. Tea is not the only thing we buy.

I recently bought two oolong teas from the Teamaster blog. Not necessarily because I think he has the best tea. It is because I like him. I feel like I owe him a lunch having followed his blogs for a while.

And yes, I totally agree with your proposal that there is a tea for everyone and making "blanket" recommedation simply doesn't work.

:)

Julian

Julian, Another simple thought here: why is Adagio successful? Well, when you do a search for online tea vendors or checkout a "yellow pages" ad, the word "Adagio" begins with "A" - right near the top. To be honest, any teas I've had from them are "good enough". The older I get, "good enough" isn't. Shen

I guess I'm very Tea challenged... I get my loose leaf tea in a tin at

and really enjoy it. You can buy online... I enjoy the English Breakfast... with milk even:) chilichick

Shen

Good observation.

I talk about Adagio, but I was so bitterly disappointed the last time I ordered from them that I stopped online buying tea altogether.

Since I know my site partner, I get my teas mostly directly from tea gardens in China. It just turned out to be even richer tea info, lower cost and much much higher quality. The downside is it is extremely time consuming, but very fascinating to talk and learn from them.

Julian