Bon Teavant has had a poll running since October 2009, asking "Where do you buy tea?
And the winner is........."My favorite tea shop": 46% of the votes. Next, 25% buy "online", 17% "other", and 0% "at a tea lounge or tea room".
Buying teas from local merchants is a good idea, because it means your local tea purveyor is more likely to stay afloat. As well, it's wonderful to sit with tea sellers to have them steep teas for you, and to help you select a tea that you can smell and see before you buy it.
Buying teas online also has its benefits. Since there are tens of thousands of teas in the world, if not more, one cannot find everything from one or even half a dozen tea merchants, and if you are sincerely curious about tea connoisseurship, you might sometimes want to try teas that you find online that aren't available in your local tea shop.
Curiosity pulls us towards the unusual and outstanding. But you want to be sure to be careful, particularly when buying teas from merchants overseas. The advantages and disadvantages of buying tea overseas? First, tea prices tend to be lower, offsetting the higher shipping costs, so you will usually pay about the same as you would in the U.S. when it's all said and done. Second, many overseas tea merchants are in Taiwan, China or Japan because they love the culture (or are native to the culture) and want to know everything about the teas at their place of origin. I consider this a bonus.
There are, of course, dangers. Having your credit card floating in the hands of someone you don't know may or may not be a risk, but can be mitigated with the use of Paypal, when offered. If the deal "goes wrong", it might be difficult to resolve a dispute in a foreign country from such a distance, and laws of the land in China are necessarily different than they are in Europe or the U.S.
Many sites, like Bon Teavant Market, have a professional and highly secure service that collects customer's payment information; and this information is never seen or saved by the site. This protects both the customer and the merchant. I assume this is the case with many other online sellers, but I don't know for sure.
It does seem that the "vibe" of the tea seller comes through the site, and if you feel comfortable with the character and nature of the site, you are probably in good hands. You want to buy from a merchant (whether local or online) who will allow you to return a product if it is unsatisfactory in some way and who will go to great lengths to assure your comfort and satisfaction with the entire process.
Hype and marketing savvy make me nervous, as it does most people, but the tea people I know and trust are pretty low key, humble, and more apt to be focused on the tea experience.
And the winner is........."My favorite tea shop": 46% of the votes. Next, 25% buy "online", 17% "other", and 0% "at a tea lounge or tea room".
Buying teas from local merchants is a good idea, because it means your local tea purveyor is more likely to stay afloat. As well, it's wonderful to sit with tea sellers to have them steep teas for you, and to help you select a tea that you can smell and see before you buy it.
Buying teas online also has its benefits. Since there are tens of thousands of teas in the world, if not more, one cannot find everything from one or even half a dozen tea merchants, and if you are sincerely curious about tea connoisseurship, you might sometimes want to try teas that you find online that aren't available in your local tea shop.
Curiosity pulls us towards the unusual and outstanding. But you want to be sure to be careful, particularly when buying teas from merchants overseas. The advantages and disadvantages of buying tea overseas? First, tea prices tend to be lower, offsetting the higher shipping costs, so you will usually pay about the same as you would in the U.S. when it's all said and done. Second, many overseas tea merchants are in Taiwan, China or Japan because they love the culture (or are native to the culture) and want to know everything about the teas at their place of origin. I consider this a bonus.
There are, of course, dangers. Having your credit card floating in the hands of someone you don't know may or may not be a risk, but can be mitigated with the use of Paypal, when offered. If the deal "goes wrong", it might be difficult to resolve a dispute in a foreign country from such a distance, and laws of the land in China are necessarily different than they are in Europe or the U.S.
Many sites, like Bon Teavant Market, have a professional and highly secure service that collects customer's payment information; and this information is never seen or saved by the site. This protects both the customer and the merchant. I assume this is the case with many other online sellers, but I don't know for sure.
It does seem that the "vibe" of the tea seller comes through the site, and if you feel comfortable with the character and nature of the site, you are probably in good hands. You want to buy from a merchant (whether local or online) who will allow you to return a product if it is unsatisfactory in some way and who will go to great lengths to assure your comfort and satisfaction with the entire process.
Hype and marketing savvy make me nervous, as it does most people, but the tea people I know and trust are pretty low key, humble, and more apt to be focused on the tea experience.
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