Private Label Tea from Philadelphia

Hey tea lovers I just wanted to inform the group about our tea. We just started up in December of 2007 and we want to share out delicious brew with other tea lovers. Precious Will Tea is a private label tea company, run by a husband and wife team, based in Queen Village, Philadelphia, PA.

Our teas are the best available from around the world. We use teas recognized by the Ethical Tea Partnership

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for fair growing and manufacturing practices and hand-bag each tea in chlorine-free tea bags.

We currently offer 14 different teas. With selections in Blacks, Flavored Blacks, Rooibos, Greens, and Herbals you are sure to find something that will meet your tea needs!

Be assured, Precious Will Tea has brewed each tea we sell to ensure the correct balance of flavor and blend. If we won't drink it we won't sell it!

Please check out our website to learn more about us and our tea:

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Reply to
wwalker82
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I see you've begun learning to create and use poor-quality vector graphics to a nauseating degree. I'm not sure if you ever spent any time even finding out about this newsgroup before your ad, but I'm guessing not. Best of luck to ya but I'd imagine this ain't the place you'll find it.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

hi dominc,

thanks for the feedback. our labels are deliberately minimalistic, focusing more on the quality of tea and not some fancy branding. we are in the early stages of this project (fourth month) and have seen mild, yet consistent success.

we have only two goals through precious will tea: 1. to make tea approachable for those who know nothing of tea beyond the yellow lipton box; and 2. sell enough tea to afford us the opportunity to someday visit the very fields from which our teas are produced - a very long term goal.

i noticed you participate in many tea chats and would love to see what your knowledge has produced, may it be your own line of tea offerings, a tea shop or formal publications on the topic. otherwise, please refrain from random blasting's until you've seen and tasted the product first hand.

thank you,

wdw

Reply to
william

Random blasting or not - perhaps, you didn't get the message very clearly: DO NOT AS ADVERTISE HERE. No one likes it, nor is it the place. IF you had read this group for any period of time, you would realize that even the VERY BEST teas are not to be advertised here. Your marketing goals are irrelevant. The bottom line is that this is not a forum for advertising. Dominic, in my honest opinion, was being as polite as possible and he's pretty knowledgeable about teas. If you have a specific tea to review, as a taster and not a vendor, go ahead. That's interesting and many folks will generally jump in and share. I have promoted or criticized many a tea as a taster myself. But, in this case, you are, VERY OBVIOUSLY, pushing your teas. Check the archives - not wanted here. Shen

Reply to
Shen

Wow, you got a pair of brass ones. I honestly have no time or patience for you or your snake oil. Your website is terrible, offers no information beyond "the best tea in the world" which *must* be true since you have never even visited any growers nor have you listed any origin or really anything beyond piss-poor graphics and generic names.

Your "ordering system" is solely comprised of an Excel spreadsheet. There's a thing called SSL, you may want to look into it.

You go ahead and send me a sample of your "best" tea (it can be very small, 1 gaiwan's worth even) and I will pay for the actual shipping costs happily. I would be the first person to shout from the rooftops of its excellence regardless of your lack of tact in this newsgroup, your disrespectful attitude, ignorance, and lack of web savvy. I'm

100% straightforward and honest, and that is what I was to you as well. You came here to astroturf this newsgroup with an advertisement, and I called you on it. Not just me, but everyone here is no stranger to this behavior as it happens quite frequently and is not the way to drum up business.

Attacking me or anyone here is certainly the wrong way to turn your initial faux pas into anything productive. You made a mistake, apologize and move on. If you'd like to participate in this newsgroup and provide insight, intelligent conversation, and to probably learn a ton about the business you've chosen... go ahead, we'd be glad to learn more about you, the real scoop on your product, and offer help and insight about tea... not business, but tea. Business will naturally follow without ads.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

Apologies Shen. It was not our intention to maliciously litter an advertisement free space, and you are correct, we have not been following this group's thread long enough to know that.

That said, I am certainly willing to drop our post/thread if able. I do not participate in Google Groups often enough to become familiar with how-to's, so your experience would lend helpful here. Let me know what I can do, and I'll move forward with it.

Thank you,

wdw

Reply to
william

Read my reply below and it should catch you up. You may want to start by reading about Usenet:

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You will find these points listed, among others:

  • Do not use Usenet as an advertising medium.

  • Think About Your Audience. "Be familiar with the group you are posting to before you post! You shouldn't post to groups you do not read, or post to groups you've only read a few articles from" "One normally does not join a conversation by just walking up and talking. Instead, you listen first and then join in if you have something pertinent to contribute."

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

Again, apologies all around.

I am more than happy to drop the thread, but have no idea how to go about that process - any ideas?

Thanks,

wdw

Reply to
william

You can't. It is what it is and it will always be since Usenet is permanent and archived. Which is why you should take your time and properly research where and how you choose to advertise. Look, to be perfectly frank with you, this isn't the place for your tea. The folks here, myself included, truly drink some of the best teas in the world. Teas that cost hundreds to thousands of dollars for ounces/pounds. No offense to you, your business, or your product... just realize what you are selling is most likely of less quality than what most of us here drink daily or have thrown away. That sounds harsh, or even arrogant, but I can assure you it is the truth.

I only mention this because you could probably learn a lot from many of the folks here, and it would only help you. Search our archives, read our posts, research the regions and teas we drink and talk about. Again, I think you just saw the word "tea" in this newsgroup's title and assumed we were Lipton drinkers or all American. We aren't. There are real tea growers here, people from around the world, and some authorities on certain types of tea. More importantly most of us have decades of dedication to tea, it is part of our lives and in some cases religions.

To try to claim you have "the best tea in the world" is laughable at best and honestly put up the largest red flag ever to 99% of the readers here, I was just the only one who took the time/effort to notify you of it instead of ignoring it and letting it fall away. I do this to any posts of this nature (not just yours) here on this newsgroup for a reason, to warn the casual observer/lurker that this post is not in any way associated with us or is a known reputable and trusted vendor to anyone here. In a word, SPAM.

Again, all this may sound harsh, but it isn't. You are free to spend some time here, learn the ropes, contribute, listen... just never advertise or try to do what you did again and all will be forgotten in time if you are sincere and become a valued member. You've got a black eye, just one, you can suck it up and it'll heal or you can move on.

- Dominic

oh, and this is Usenet, not anything to do with Google. It has been around long before Google, and will be if/when they are no more. You happen to access it via a Google service, nothing more. The link I provided earlier and some quick research should catch you up.

Reply to
Dominic T.

Thank you for the affirmation Dominic. I appreciate the extra-step you've taken to explain the value of the group. I'll drop in from time to time, mostly from a distance, to pick up a few nuggets of experience from the crowd.

We've been spreading the word fast than we've been building the business (side business/hobby really), and stepped rather impulsively here. My wife made the initial post, hence my ignorance this is not a google group.

Cheers,

wdw

Reply to
william

I realise that jumping into this sort of an argument is unlikely to help anything, but I think that you are being entirely too harsh to the original poster. The advertisement in question wasn't a mindless spam and, even if you objected to it, their responses were apologetic and polite. The way that you're behaving towards the original poster is, in my mind, far more offensive than their posting of an advertisement here.

On top of that, as has been mentioned before, the FAQ and charter for this group does _not_ specifically prohibit advertising except as follows:

"but this newsgroup should NOT be used for advertising herbal tea products or discussing tea as anything other than a beverage."

If anything, this implies that advertising C. sinensis based teas /is/ allowed. If you are going to be this irate about messages like this, I suggest that you make sure that the "official" FAQ reflects this. If, that is, it really is "the will of the group".

I agree that untargeted spamming is undesirable, but I wouldn't lump what appears to be a hand-written message from a small startup company in with bulk commercial advertising. I agree that full-on advertising should be restricted here, but I don't see any reason why someone representing a company should be prevented from talking about their products here provided that they don't hammer it home and flood the group.

As a reader of this group, although not a frequent or knowledgeable poster, I'm finding it more offensive to read your responses than the polite messages from the original poster. It's clear that you dislike this advertising, but this is one person who has made a mistake and should be treated with some basic respect. A simple, polite message asking them not to advertise would be much better than the repeated and personal attacks that you're currently flinging at them.

I'm not going to get into an argument, so I won't be replying to this message, but I wanted to show (particularly the original poster) that there are people here who don't agree with you, especially in terms of the way you're expressing yourself. I'm not advocating free-for-all advertising, I'm advocating treating other people with a bit of respect, even if they've inadvertently broken the rules.

Joss

Reply to
Joss Wright

if you were a reader of this group you would've seen this matter come up from time to time.

please go back and read some more.

mindless SPAM is NOT WELCOME HERE.

Reply to
SN

Joss, you're welcome to your opinion. I was and am 100% honest and I made every attempt to clarify every point I made. I get so sick and tired of people defending this kind of thing that I honestly stop caring. But, when you or someone like you - a casual reader/poster here - decides to order tea from one of these sites and gets taken or scammed *then* get back to me about how harsh or terrible I am.

I have spent countless hours and years protecting consumers/banking online as a profession, if you truly think my comments are unfounded or baseless then go right ahead. Go ahead and order tea via a spreadsheet with personal info with ZERO protection or security. No matter how well meaning or good intentioned, nothing excuses a complete disregard for customer security. See how much good intentions help when your identity/private info gets stolen. It's a serious issue, I take it seriously, I've seen the damage first-hand over and over.

Once he apologized, I backed off and offered nothing but constructive criticism. There is little more I can/will do.

- Dominic

Reply to
Dominic T.

Wow. Thanks for the moral support Joss, however I'd rather see this issue fade away.

In regards to our shoty or otherwise dodgy website, this is a small project to supplement some newly found free time after a normal work day. We have not made the final leap to design and build a full blown e-commerce site with all the bells-n-whistles, but it is something we are constantly considering and pricing. As for "security", we rely on google for that service. We actually never see any credit information, just shipping information.

I do appreciate the general concern Dominic has vocalized concerning spammers, as I too loath the variety of offers made from Nigerian oil tycoons from the random household items I post on craigslist, however I wish he had highlighted our use of google checkout as a reliable source of security. We put our first "funds" into the tea and its packaging, not our world wide image - am obvious mistake.

Let's all just leave it at that.

Thank you,

wdw

Reply to
william

Folks promoting a business do very little "inadvertently".

Reply to
Shen

Dominic,

I empathize completely with your position. You (and others) have been burned and you don't want to go through that again, AND you want to alert others to the dangers. I appreciate that. My only issue with the recent responses to the spammers/newbie posters is the fact that they were greeted with both guns blazing. Perhaps this poster is a scammer; perhaps not. While I consider myself a jaded cynic, I would prefer to think that most people are just oblivious and not up to something sinister. A polite "this type of posting is not welcome here; refer to the FAQ" should take care of it. Anything more just adds fuel to the fire and invites third parties to jump in with their two cents (yes, like I did) and we end up discussing whether advertising is allowed or not.

I understand where you're coming from. OTOH, if someone is going to go to a brand new web site with no track record and give them personal and financial information, then they could probably stand to learn from their own mistakes. I don't buy from ebay sellers with little feedback; I wouldn't buy from a web site that just popped up. But that's just me.

Alan

Reply to
Alan

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