Favourite online tea sources!
Hi everyone! I’m fairly new to Steepster, but have been a regular tea drinker for a few years now. Most of my current collection comes from my local Teavana and David’s Tea stores, but I’m looking to branch out. I’ll soon be moving to a more rural area, so will have to do most of my tea purchasing online. Do you have any favourite online sources for loose leaf tea? I like a wide variety of straight and flavoured teas, so I’m open to any new tea experience!
(I live in Canada, if that makes any difference)
Since you’re in Canada, make sure you take into consideration the horrible state of our dollar AS WELL AS the shipping charges. There are quite a few Canadian sites for tea, I’ll start with a couple.
http://camellia-sinensis.com/en/ Free shipping over $50.
http://www.tealux.ca/ Free shipping over $60.
Agree with OMGsrsly and I’m going to add:
http://www.taotealeaf.com/ Free shipping over 35.00
https://www.capitaltea.com/shop/home.php free shipping over 49.00
If you are moving from Davids & Teavana, then perhaps the next step should be Capital Tea (noted by Dexter above). They have a wide selection of teas, at good prices. In fact, they are a great, general tea source. Customer service is excellent as well. Once you hone in on a few favourite types of tea you can then opt for more specialised retailers. But at this point, Capital Tea is your best bet. (CS is also great, but pricier.)
Best wishes,
sherubtse
Is Capital Tea in USD or CAD? That would hugely impact any ordering decision I made…
Edit: CAD. Found it on their site.
As OMGsrsly implied above, if you buy in USD you will be looking at substantial exchange rate costs – at least 17% at present. This is another good reason to stay at home via Capital Tea.
Best wishes,
sherubtse
You’re in Canada? We are a tea company located in Ontario! We have flat rate shipping for $7 dollars. Also free shipping for purchases over $50.
Fantastic! I’ll definitely take a look at your site! I find choosing tea online so difficult because I haven’t had the opportunity to smell or taste it, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it.
You can also read the tasting reviews for our tea on this site and what other users thought of them. We are a pretty new company too.
I forgot to add. We are also running a promotion right now, 25% off our vanilla black teas with the promotion code: SoLongAndThanksForAllTheFish.
As for other reatailers capitaltea.com has a wonderful selection of estate teas. Teavivre is a great source as well. We buy tea for our personal use from all over the place. There are plenty of great tea vendors out there. You should also look at Butiki teas. She’s going out of business, well, she is ceasing operations very, very soon. Her teas are wonderful.
Yeah, I can also strongly recommend Butiki – absolutely fantastic teas and not too expensive, even with long-distance shipping etc (I have to pay to ship to the UK T_T).
Verdant also sell wonderful teas, but their shipping is often annoyingly steep. If you can stretch to it, the quality of produce is well worth it.
Butiki is gone for good on the 31st of January though so don’t get attached to anything! :(
For Verdant, I always spend the required amount to get free shipping (50, I think). The exchange rate bit me last time though.
Is it really the 31st of January?? Oh man, I was hoping to use tax return funds for a big Butiki order, but there’s no way I’ll have that by then…. Major sad face over here!!
DeliriumsFrogs-Yep, it is the 31st for sure. Feeling very mixed about it right now as the day gets closer.
Oh geesh… I need to figure something out over here. I really wanted to place one last order! (mortgage payment isn’t THAT important, right?? lol)
Don’t know about Canadian shipping but Mandala Tea, Shang Tea, Teavivre & Yunnan Sourcing are phenomenal.
I’m going to second Mandala (flat 9.00 to Cda) – love Mandala. Teavivre is also really good – Free shipping over 30.00. Yunnan Sourcing – the tea is really inexpensive (good quality) but I always found the shipping to be pricy, but I guess that balances out. The problem is the US dollar exchange right now – but if that doesn’t bother you those are great choices.
(I don’t know anything about Shang Tea – but basted on Nicole’s other suggestions I will have to look them up)
I don’t know about their shipping, since I’ve only shopped in store, but http://sayteaonbloor.com/ has very good tea and very reasonable prices.
http://what-cha.com/ has very reasonable shipping, a low free shipping threshold, and excellent tea. The exchange rate probably won’t be kind to you sadly.
https://secretgardentea.com/ is Canadian has some really excellent flavoured teas. Their site is not working properly right now (invalid security certificate) but they told me it should be fixed by next week.
https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/LuxBerryTea has nice flavoured blends. I’m not sure if you can pay in CAD$ on Etsy, but they’re Canadian and have free shipping, I believe on all orders.
ebay’s Berylleb King Tea and Royal Tea bay great sellers. Crimson Lotus another as well as finepuerh and Angelina’s Teas. They are basically puerh vendors but they carry other types as well.
I don’t tend to shop the same way many other Steepsterites do, but I do 2 or 3 orders per year, mostly to replenish favourites. Like everyone else said, keep an eye on both shipping and exchange rates. If you can order in CAD, do so.
Teavivre is my main tea source, though I do a Verdant order once in a while. I’ve ordered from Mandala twice so far and really liked the tea, but the exchange rate sucks.
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