What's the best tea site?

Upton carries almst all its teas in sample size, so you can compare six Darjeelings or 6 Oolongs for under ten dollars each. Ten Ren has a wide variety of teabags, which can serve the same function. Mightyleaf looks like an interesting site, but isn't sampler friendly.

I buy my Darjeelings from

Note that only a very small number of the Ten Ren teas are available in bags, and the bags are pretty much always made with one of the lower grade teas. For example, they have something like eight different grades of tikuanyin available. The Rockville, MD store stocks about four of them but can get the others on request. The tikuanyin bags are probably made with the lowest grade (which is not a bad tea at all).

I am drinking the Ten Ren "black" in bags right now, since it is very convenient for travelling.

--scott

My wife works in Rockville. I'll have her stop by there for me.

Peter <

Don't do it! Go yourself, and ask to smell the teas. If you ask nicely they will often make a cup of a given grade for you to try as well. But just smelling the different grades is an eye-opener.

I swear the "King's Tea" stuff smells like latex paint to me, though.

--scott

Coffeegeek is definitely the ultimate coffee site, I use it all the time. I have also been searching for an equivalent site for teas, with no luck. Lots of tea sales sites, of course. I have been happily buying from Uptons for a few years. I feel that I can trust them to sell quality products, and their customer service has been excellent. The only bad experience I've had is with Simpson and Vail,

They have a poorly maintained website and just don't have in stock items that are on the website. After ordering from them after about 2 hours of online shopping, I got a "sorry that item is not in stock, but we can sell you this product for three times as much" email a few days later:( Had to go back to the drawing board and spend another couple of hours finding what I had wanted--I hate that!

Good luck!

MO

Ben wrote:

Doesn't that have ginseng in it?

/Lew

Yes, "which from Wisconsin State of America." Toci

It does, but I can't see how that would smell like latex either.

--scott

I've had some great experiences with these sites.

- some great selection of loose teas and decent prices. - some great teaware, esp their ingenuitea set. - love their tea jams and tea drinks.

Some of my two year-old, incredibly poor quality TGY that I have sitting on the shelf behind me has sort of taken on that scent. The Tianfu (what Ten Ren is called in China, what it originally was called) actually sells this sort of tea to the public; bad thing is, people buy it. I definitely wouldn't put it past them to do that sort of business in the US; a place seemingly where nobody knows jack about tea. At least we know the wiser.

Hi Ben:

My wife and I own Indonique Tea and Chai cafe in New Orleans. If you want to learn more about tea visit the Speialty Tea Institute at

I recommend reading Norwell Pratt's "Tea Treasury" for the basics. Next, armed with this knowlege, visit a tea retailer like Indonique and test them. Our specialty is Chai, but we sell lots of premium wholeleaft teas. We're at: And because we're not afraid of corporate competition, try: or

Also, a great site for teashops around the usa is at the tea map on

Best of luck George and Daya Constance Indonique, LLC

George and Daya Constance, Our hearts go out to you, your families and all the victims of Katrina. .