Here's Hoping Traveling Teabox Round SIX (US only) (Closed for signups)

Not sure if I’ll be able to mail tomorrow or next Wed. But here are the updates!
Removed: a ton of old teas
Sampled a ton remaining in the box!
And removed these for later (meaning out of the box completely — most of them had one serving left):
Whispering Pines – Rivendell
Silk Road – Red Pearls
Blackbird Tea Co – Chai Rojo
Yunnan Sourcing – Premium AA Zheng Shan Xiau Zhong Fujian 2015
Liquid Proust – French Toast Dian Hong
Angry Teas – Canadian Maple
Anna Marie’s Red Velvet
Den’s – Shincha Kunpu
Dammann Freres – Sakuma Yuzu

Added:
Teavivre – Jasmine Silver Needle (Mo Li Yin Zhen)
Davids – Salted Caramel
Davids – Glitter & Gold
Davids – Goji Pop
Daivds – Saigon Chai
Plum Deluxe – Poolside Sipping Green
Teapots & Treasures – Canterbury Zoobilation
Simpson & Vail – Dikom Assam
52Teas – Chocolate bacon
52Teas – Pumpkin Chai
Queen’s Tea – Blue Tea
Puerhshop.com – Premium Classics 58
Harney – Yellow Fairy
Zen – Phoenix Pearls
Silk Road – Congou Black
Simpson & Vail – Lavender Lace Herbal
Wooree Tea – Imperial Green (sharing since they were so kind to send a sample that cost so much to ship – please write tasting notes for this one!)

Zen sent these over to include in the teabox:
Assam Mangalam
Fengqing Golden Buds
Japanese / Seven Treasures
Imperial Bi Luo Chun
Si Ji Chun Oolong
Coconut Chai
Sweet Coconut Island

SO the teabox cost $13.55 to mail from NY to NC and that was with a few teas that SensiblyScript bought inside the box. (The weight with those is 6lb 12.80 ounces.) SO if a couple people were hesitant to join the box because it might be $30 and you want to sign up knowing that it isn’t $30, I will take a couple more signups! I guess there were plenty of teas I saw in the last round to remove, so that really decreased the size.

And there were also a lot of teas that had one serving left, so a lot of extra packaging will be removed to decrease the weight as the box moves on.

Skysamurai – I just checked and you aren’t following me, and please make sure you’re following a few people on the order list. Thanks

Update on the box: it’s here!!!! Actually it got here yesterday (a day earlier than expected, yay!) but I was a little overwhelmed at that point, so you get the update today instead.

Thanks for organizing everything, Tea-sipper! The box would be even more overwhelming if I had to sort through all the categories of tea at once. (If you don’t mind, though, I might move the “Imperial kuding” out of the Green Tea section. I did not realize that “kuding” isn’t actually tea tea, but instead an herbal tea made from an extremely bitter holly-like tree. Silly me! Next time I’ll know better.) And thanks for the teas you sent just for me. Unfortunately they’re going to have to wait their turn. ;)

A couple of observations that I have about the box right now:
1. There are only two types of white tea in the white tea section. And there’s no yellow tea section. I may have one or two white teas that I can add, but if anyone has an overabundance of random white tea (or yellow tea, but somehow I find that extremely unlikely), this is probably going to be a great place to offload some of it.
2. So many green teas!!! I’m really excited because I’ve been disappointed with the green tea samples I’ve gotten so far (from Verdant, Yezi, etc). Not that they were bad, but somehow I was hoping they would taste different in some way that I can’t quite explain. Hopefully sampling some of these teas will help me decide if green teas just aren’t my thing or if I just tried the wrong ones in the past.
3. The box itself is a tiny bit scrunched on both ends. It looks like they jammed it into a space that was half an inch too short, so now it has a little pleat down the side right by each end and several wrinkles on the top flaps. I’m wondering if the damage is minimal enough that it won’t cause problems or if I should start looking around for a replacement container.

I think I’ll end up doing a ton of sampling, so I’ll write notes on as many samples as possible, but that may or may not be all of them depending on how much free time I have this week. I’m planning to sample the Zen teas sometime when I can sit down and concentrate on writing really good reviews. :)

I’ll be back and post an update in a few days. :)
(And TeaNTees, I just sent you a PM.)
I go now to drink tea!!!

(ETA: hmmm, looks like I’ll have to tone down my enthusiasm a little in future so I don’t make everyone doubt my sanity. After all, as Terry Pratchett says, five exclamation marks are a sure sign of someone who wears underpants on their head. Which is obviously not how I want people to see me.)

I’ve had the box a couple of weeks now and I’m getting ready to send it along, so here’s a little update! I was hoping to get the box out to TeanTees by Saturday, buuut that didn’t happen. So I guess I’ll revise my plans and send it out today or tomorrow instead. I did obtain a new box, which is about an inch shorter but seems to work fine, so now I’m just getting everything packed up again!! I double-bagged a couple of teas that seemed to be leaking smells and I added steeping suggestions to a few others (obtained from the Internet, not invented by me, of course) because I got tired of running back and forth between the teabox, my computer, and my stove every time I wanted to sample some tea. :P So hopefully that will be helpful to someone. Anyway, I sampled, like, twenty types of tea or so and I have a few new things bagged up to include in the box, but I’m going to wait and post my final tallies after I actually send the box away in case I change my mind about one or two things at the last minute. :)

Sent the box off this morning! I tried to add an amount of tea approximately equal to what I sampled or kept (although I had to estimate a little because I didn’t weigh every single sample. Maybe I should’ve done that, but it didn’t occur to me until it was too late).
Teas I sampled (approx one serving, sometimes less) were (not in order, because I’m not that organized):
Tao Tea Leaf Milk Oolong
Two Guys’ Tea Peach Oolong
Premium classics 58 black Yunnan puerhshop.com
Gold Tips Tea Assam Exotic
Silk Road Teas Congou Black
Sarasota Tea Corsican Pear Spice Rooibos
Zen Tea Yunnan Fengqing Golden Buds
Aliexpress 2011 Braided Leaf Raw Puerh
2011 Norbo Young De Spring Raw
Art of Tea 99% Oxidized Purple Oolong
Capital Teas Genmaicha
Tokoron 2015 Shincha
52 Teas Earl Grey Cheesecake
Teavana Fig Rose
Zen Tea Sweet Coconut Island
August Uncommon Teas Midnight in the Garden
Teasource Wuling Mountain Black (finished)
Teavivre Premium Keemun Hao Ya
Mountain Rose Herbs Houjicha
Chocolate Toffee Crunch Black
Enjoying Tea Imperial Kuding
KONI Papaya Green
Davidstea Cocomint Cream
52teas French Toast
Verdant Xingyang 2007 Shu
Adagio Citrus Green
Jamais Vu
Simply Good Tea Sencha Green
Zen Tea Imperial Bi Luo Chun
52teas Pumpkin Chai
T2 Teas Jade Mountain Oolong
2006 GFTM Bangwei Raw Puerh
2006 Nannuo Yunhai (puerh)
Puerh Frisbee
Beautiful Taiwan Ruby Red (finished)
S&V Assam Dikom Estate
Floating Leaves Taiwan Ruby 18 Black
Teasource Yunnan Jin Hao
Zen Tea Phoenix Pearls
August Uncommon Teas Staring at the Sea
Zen Tea Coconut Chai
52Teas Marshmallow Treat Genmaicha
Zen Tea Japanese Treasures
Harney Yellow Fairy

Soooo apparently that was like 43 teas that I sampled. (And it was so much fun!) I’m estimating it was about 2-3 grams per sample. Teas that I kept include:
KONI Papaya Green
Premium Classics 58
Jamais Vu
Staring at the Sea
Harney Yellow Fairy
Wooree Imperial Blend
Mountain Rose Herbs Fidnemed Nighttime

(And, if someone’s trying to keep track of how many types of tea are in the box, I also kept the empty bags from the two teas that were down to their last crumbs when I sampled them.)

Then I added these teas:
Zen Tea Gyokuro Uji Superior
Red Leaf Tea Cheesecake Matcha (tiny bit)
Zen Tea organic Loose Puerh
Zen Tea Anxi Oolong Dark
Adagio Rooibos Vanilla
Adagio Formosa Oolong (tiny bit)
Adagio White Peony (tiny bit)
Adagio Thai Chai
Verdant Quianjiazhai Wild Picked Black (tiny bit)
Adagio Yunnan Gold
Soleil Tea Aged Puerh
Adagio Mocha Nut Mate
Soleil Van Dyke
Teasource Hunan Dark Tea
Zen Tea Milky Oolong

I hope someone will enjoy the ones I put in!! (My favorites of that group are the Teasource Hunan Dark Tea and the Soleil Puerh. Oh, and Adagio’s Thai Chai and Mocha Nut Mate.)

I’m worried that I may have miscalculated slightly because, at the post office, the box I sent weighed in a couple ounces lighter than the one Tea-sipper sent to me. [EDIT: I figured out why that is. It’s because Tea-sipper included some stuff from a stash sale for me personally in a separate bag inside the box, making it weigh a little more. Duh! So now I don’t feel bad.]

I received the box and it’s HUGE! This might take me a bit… Kayla I will be PMing you for your address! Thanks Sensiblyscript! :)

For those that might be interested, Zen just posted info on an awesome sale just for Steepster! (I had to order b/c I was on their site yesterday and almost ordered a couple things — couldn’t resist now!)
https://www.zentealife.com
Special tea sale for Steepster members! Thank you for your support !
Zen Tea prepared super sale – 50-60 % – for our entire tea collections.
2 days only (Mar 22 ~ Mar 23)
Discount code: steepster
Shipping: Daily for Canadian customers, March 24th for US customers through USPS
Order early, limited inventory!

I sent this onward to Kayla on Saturday. I will be updating soon on all that I sampled, removed, and added! :)