Thunderbolt Teas-Anyone Ever Dealt With Them Recently?

hi shen,

please forward all your details to me - i shall personally speak with them and arrange your shipment.

if needed i can send someone over to them and check up the matter.

regards ankit

Shen,

I also ordered a couple teas from them, probably the same day as your initial post. I have also had no luck contacting them, but the order arrived in today's mail ... wrapped in a cloth bag sewn shut. Haven't tried the tea yet, but wanted you to know it arrived.

Salsero

The teas arrived today and although I've no yet tried them, I'm looking forward to a long Darjeeling weekend! Ignore my previous crankiness. All is well! Shen

hi shen,

glad that you received the teas.

have a great weekend drinking them.

regards ankit

great to have found this topic on thunderbolt Tea. I am in UK and wanted to order some teas from this vendor, but wanted to do a bit of research work on them first. One thing I know is that you get your teas once ordered :) I logged on to this group just because of this topic. Hi Shen and Hi Salsero! Some update on their teas please, I mean the quality. Some of their teas look awesome and mouth watering.

T. Jain

I have to say that none that I ordered "knocked my socks off"; however, I only tasted a small swallow of each. I, too, was very disappointed with the Castleton. The Margaret's Hope seems to have a little more depth. As of this date, I am using them for chilled tea. Even chilled, the Makaibari smells and tastes a bit stale. My family loads it up with lots of lemon and they are not nearly as fussy as I. Truthfully, it would only be fair for me to sip a full cup for a tasting and then report; but, I have been loving my Yunnan Golden Blacks right now and have not given other teas proper attention. My criticisms are probably unjustifiable since these are older, sale teas and not current stock. Free shipping on all their teas is a plus; but, the quality of the Lochan teas seems to be much higher, although the shipping (courier) is expensive. I'm up to my neck in excellent blacks, pu-erhs and some Spring greens right now that it may be some time before I give the Thunderbolts adequate attention. Shen

Thanks shen, you are a life saver, but do you mean to say that you didn't order the fresh ones? You had ordered the 2006 stocks? I was looking forward for their 2007 stocks. I am a great fan of puttabong and they have one from first flush. I checked other sites for the teas they have, prices are sky high and as mentioned by you the added shipping cost. The 2006 stock was mediocre you say that means 2007 must be a little better the experienced. What do you say. I will give it a shot by ordering some first flush fresh teas and will update. Has anyone ordered recent 2007 teas from Thunderbolt Tea? Please I need your feedback. sooner the better because i am about to order. will wait for sometime for the feedbacks and after that i will give it a try.

i visited some more sites from other indian vendors like golden tips tea yes, lochan tea too , but what attracted me to Thunderbolt is the choice of teas they have on their site - they have got my favorite teas. I looked it up at other international vendors and got some of their teas laid out, like for uptons, but their price and shipping whew!

So please need your feedbacks on the FF 2007 teas from thunderbolts.

On Aug 30, 8:12 am, snipped-for-privacy@zapak.com wrote: Hi Shen and Hi Salsero! Some update on their teas please, I

I ordered Thunderbolt's Thurbo SPL (China Special), 2nd Flush '06 and Castleton FTGFOP1 SPL China, Aut '06, both on sale, both last year's tea (though, of course, '06 is the most recent harvest for autumnal). It took a long while for them to arrive in the mail, but no longer than the teas I order from China. You may have quicker delivery in the UK since you are closer. I have only recently "gotten it" about Darjeelings, but I have no complaints about either of these teas which

-- to my simple palate -- are delicious. I even did some Turbo gong fu style the other night, thick, strong, and not excessively astringent. Given the low price and the free shipping, these teas strike me as a fantastic bargain, including the current year's offerings, which are not that much more expensive. I do, however, worry a little that the cut rate prices might mean they will be out of business before long. Customer service is lacking as they never responded to either my e-mail or Shen's, but the teas did arrive (packed in a hand sewn cloth bag) and I have been greedily drinking them since.

About the same time I ordered some of Lochan Tea's Giddapahar Muscatel Imperial, 2nd flush, 2007 and Premium Assam Tips, 2nd flush 2006. The shipping was expensive, the service is excellent and the Giddapahar is absolutely magnificent. They included samples that doubled the amount of tea that I got, including a the Kishanganj Doke Royal Snow Bud, 2nd Flush 2007 white that was featured in a recent internet group tasting under the auspices of T-Ching. Although white is not my typical quaff, with some help from the recent spate of reviews I have come to understand this Doke and appreciate it as something very lovely. Lochan also has some very attractive gift-packaged tea that looks worth keeping on hand when you want to impress someone with a different kind of gift.

The Lochan Assam was a little disappointing, but I have been disappointed in all 31 Assams (yes, I counted) I have tried since November 2006, most of them from very reputable sources. It is starting to dawn on me that the problem may be in me myself rather than in the Assams! It's possible that I'm just not destined to feel as strongly about Assams (which sound so delicious) as I do about a great number of other teas.

So, yes, by all means give Thunderbolt a try, but check out Lochan Tea's fine selection also.

Thanks salsero! i am still online and i got your feedback. thanks for your guidance regarding this vendor. seems fine to me to give it a try. thunderbolt site is open and so is lochan as you have recommended and I am comparing. Ya had a look, I will go for thunderbolt first. and my decision for FF purchase would be puttabong, singbulli and makaibari and yes one more from second flush muscatel castleton. oh their 1200 gram order offer looks tempting, but let me try these 4 first. I will leave a feedback once i get these teas.

thanks again to all for the help

ordered the teas and got confirmation from their cc vendor and from thunderbolt. I couldn't resist ordering using their expedited service which would take around a week to get the teas delivered.

the confirmation mails i got. first part is from the cc vendor and the second part is from thunderbolt tea. i am eagerly waiting as i am out of stock, all my previous darjeelings ordered from upton have exhausted. i have excluded my personal information from the mail below.

===========================Quantity: 1 Product ID: 11 Vendor Product ID: makaisiltips_ff07_100g Description: Makaibari Silver Tips ($ 23.25 USD)

Quantity: 1 Product ID: 12 Vendor Product ID: singsft_ff07_100g Description: Singbulli SFTGFOP-1 ($ 16.92 USD)

Quantity: 1 Product ID: 9 Vendor Product ID: puttclexcl_ff07_100g Description: Puttabong Clonal Exclusive ($ 17.94 USD)

Quantity: 1 Product ID: 9 Vendor Product ID: IInd07CastMus100 Description: Puttabong Clonal Exclusive ($ 13.90 USD) ========================== Dear Tea Lover, Namaste and Greetings from Darjeeling!

Thank you for your valuable tea order. Your tea will be shipped soon by Expedited Service. It will normally take 5-7 days for delivery as promised by the auhorities.

If there is anything, please feel free to write to us.

Thanking you.

Regards, Bandhana Chettri,

Mailing Address: Thunderbolt Tea,

2/2 Kutchery Road, Below Pharin Villa, Darjeeling - 734101 India.

Phone: +91-354-2259619, +91-9733070262 Email: snipped-for-privacy@thunderbolttea.com Web:

===================================

Why does Thunderbolt Tea website not open in India.

Rajiv Lochan

I have to agree with Salsero. Although, I preferred all the Lochan teas (they seemed to me to be of much higher quality), do give Thunderbolt a try. Since shipping is free, teas are inexpensive, and they have a large selection, what have you got to lose? The teas I tried were all 2006s on sale. If I do want more Indian teas, I would consider testing Thunderbolt's again; but, as I said, I think it would be difficult to find a better Indian tea than Lochan's (although, admittedly, shipping is very high). Shen

Thank you salsero and shen. both of you have been great help to me. But one thing i didn't like about lochan tea is about intruding privacy matters. I recently got a mail from Ankit lochan, I have included the mail below. Its like picking up emails from forums and blogs like these and marketing for your own good. this is not the right kind of marketing gimick. Receiving unsolicited email is an irritation, you all know. if ankit wanted to send teas to me then he should have mentioned right here on this post.

Afterall with due respect to Salsero and Shen, its quite not fair to compare Thunderbolt's 2006 with Lochan's 2007 teas. Its obvious that there will be a difference in a tea which is one year old. That is why I went for Thunderbolt's 2007 teas. Let me see. They have sent me a tracking ID which I can track online. I will update you on my receiving the teas.

========hello!

it was really intresting to read about your intrest in tea.

please can we have your postal adress -- we would love to send you some teas on our expenses.

thank you very much.

have a nice day!

sincere regards, ankit

+91 94340 47280 "Tea is better than wine for it leadeth not to intoxication, neither does it cause a man to say foolish things, and repent thereof in his sober moments. It is better than water for it does not carry disease; neither does it act like a poison, as does water when the wells contain foul and rotten matter." ==================

hi!

i am sorry for intruding into your privacy- all i was doing was offering you some samples to try. if that is an offence - i take back my words - i apologise for trying to promote indian teas. you shall never again hear from me if this is the issue.

just a small note - we are a producer company having estates in india, china and nepal, our online shop sales do not even contribute to 1% of our total sales - our only motive for writing in these blogs is to promote indian tea and let consumers get value for money.

sorry again for writing directly to you - i will be more careful in the near future.

as a tea lover i was only trying to sample some good teas to you - my intention was never to get publicity or create some marketing gimmick.

frankly i am a bit hurt by this issue - anyways life is like this - we have to move on.

i hope you will accept my sincere apologies as all humans make mistakes.

have a nice day!

ankit

no offence Mr. Ankit but it was bit irritating because I was not expecting any emails from you, i was interested in your company because friends like salsero and shen recommended but this is like getting another spam viagra mail which explodes my inbox. Privacy policy is a strict policy you should follow and shouldn't send any mail that is marketing oriented. Don't tell me that you were not marketing your tea or trying to earn a customer. Even if you would sent me the tea samples or whatever name you give it, the ultimate thing for me is to buy your tea if i like it. or is it that you would feed me the teas throughout your life in order to promote Indian tea. Why would you spend your own bucks to promote Indian tea and expect nothing knowing that you are a tea merchant. If you were doing that then that is sheer stupidity. So what is turns out to be is purely your marketing strategy which is done in a very wrong way. I don't intend to hurt you, but think of all unsolicited emails that i receive. Your company may be huge and diversified but small things like sending unsolicited mail deprives you of what ever you have got or whatever height you may have achieved. I have never received such an email from upton or thunderbolt or any other tea vendor. you too wouldn't have written to me if it wasn't for this google group posting. you saw, got the chance and wrote - thats bad. they, thunderbolt, didn't write to me much but just to the point about my order and that is what i call professionalism. all i am interested is in the teas and its not that i didn't go to your site, i didn't buy from you, because you don't have my choice of teas. this you should have understood from my earlier post. if i would have bought your teas, then i would have done right away, but i didn't because thunderbolt had my choice. when you wrote to me without my consent, i feared that there would be a breach in submitting my personal details to you such as cc info etc. if you are not aware of such small privacy policies, why should i or anyone trust you, afterall, we all know you just through the internet and internet as you know is an equal playing field for all.

well, i have been drinking darjeeling tea for a long time and have never heard any tea gardens owned by lochan tea, can you name your tea garden in darjeeling? or is it other tea garden of india? sorry for if i offended you, but being practical and taking note of privacy concerns of your fellow cutomers is your first hand job. thats my advice. don't force someone to buy your teas by sending unwanted emails, if someone likes your teas and has the capacity to buy, he will definitely buy.

Tekujain, Agreed, Brent! Ankit and the Lochan family are really incredibly ethical people. Read the postings on T'Ching and you'll realize how committed they are not only to the tea business in regard to purveying a good quality product; but, also in caring for the well-being of tea workers. These are not some folks looking to have your business or spamming you. Had you read the Lochans' postings in this group alone you would respect their approach to the stuff and the people of tea. Just ask Ankit not to email you. He's a very kind and decent fellow and I'm sure would immediately honour your wishes. There is probably just a misunderstanding. If you've got the time to go on the attack where it's really not justified, why not go after the real culprits who haunt your inbox drooling for your business. Or devote your energy to more important matters. I firmly believe the Lochans are not into invading your privacy! And you may take a minute to thank Ankit for his continuing generosity. The world is full up enough with misappropriated animosity. Please think twice before you misdirect your anger. It's the little nastiness- es that permit the bigger ones. Shen

Hi everyone, it seems that there are a lot of lochan fans! thats good but not all people are the same. Hi! Brent, you are new on this particular thread or whatever it is, and I respect your words, but you have directly asked me. Will you welcome any unsolicited mail to your mailbox? Have you always happily deleted your spam mails without wishing never to receive one again? The only difference is that you can hardly comment on those spams because there is nowhere you can comment, but this is happening right here in front of my eyes and I know who is spamming. Why wouldn't i get furious, i will, because it concerns my privacy. If you have read ankits mail properly, he has directly asked for my mailing address. We have never interacted before and why should i blind foldedly send my mailing address to him. I will not do so in want of some free samples. Yes, tasting tea samples is always better before buying but I should be interested. usually vendors do send tea samples on request and that is justifiable. You said Ankit offered you some teas, can't you see that he has been writing to all - you, me and god knows how many. he must be spamming a whole lot of people.

If you read my post properly before you could write, i have just suggested or adviced ankit to take care of customer privacy policy.

To tell you the truth, i had already forgotten about the incident after i had posted the advice message above and after hearing ankit's apologies, but brent, i had to answer to you because you were not even discussing here. Shen, you have beautifully written and you can say that you stole my heart away and melted the frustration. but people think it with your hearts crossed, should ankit carry on the practice of writing to anyone whom he finds is interested in tea no matter what he sends for free? I leave the answer to you.

Ankit, i advice you once again, please for god sake stop the practice even if you want to promote indian tea or any poor tea worker. Shen, I am aware of the tea people in Darjeeling, because I have been to Darjeeling in 2002 and visited quite a few tea gardens. The scene is pathetic and that is why, Darjeeling being my favorite, I make a point to buy it.

anyway, first thread posts and a fight, great experience and i like it because all tea people seem to be into it. oh yes, i will update you on the teas i receive.

I don't mean to fuel any flames, since Ankit has apologized twice now, but I wanted to respond to your previous post.

Firstly, aren't you blindly sending your mailing address *and* payment info each time you purchase something from an online vendor? Yes, I know Ankit sends a lot of people samples of tea, and some of them are friends of mine. If you didn't know, he has also provided several teas for community online tea tastings at TChing.com. Why should that make him any less trustworthy? If anything, doesn't it put him even more in the public eye?

Also, I just can't see how privacy is an issue here. You were not required to send any personal information whatsoever, and nobody is hacking into your bank accounts. The only things he knows about you are your name, which you posted; and your email address, which over usenet, is not private at all. What private information of yours did he compromise? Honestly, what damages have you suffered due to his offer, other than the time lost in deleting one email? I'm no more a fan of unsolicited email than the next guy when it is truly junk mail, but that's what junk filters are for.

Lastly, I fail to see how my lack of previous participation, despite the fact that I have been reading this thread since its beginning, prevents me from voicing my opinion on the matter. If you would like me to post about the original topic, I can say that I did enjoy the two teas I ordered from Thunderbolt last year. I haven't tried their first flush offerings, since I tend to prefer second flushes from Darjeeling, but what I had was good.

-Brent

Ok, this is getting ridiculous so here's my two bob's worth..... if some vendor, known to the group or myself offers me free samples (because I appear to be interested in tea, and, why would I be subscribed to this group if I wasn't !?) and asks for a mailing address then I have a choice:

a) say no thanks, I prefer to keep my address private b) I can take up his/her gracious offer or c) ignore him/her.

If you choose a) then I am certain that any reputable vendor would respect your wishes and accede to your request.

So, would I welcome any unsolicited mail from a known and reputable vendor offering me free samples of his/her product?? Yes I would.

Jumping up and down and making a fuss doesn't serve any purpose at all.

So come on folks, lets all count to 10 and move on.

Cheers Mal Oz