Would you consider buying a 40g premium organic Japanese tea for 15$?

I’m not sure about Japanese tea, but it sounds like a premium tea. Have you checked out tea vendors specialised in these Japanese teas? And do they offer teas at such prices. If so there probably is a market. I do suggest to offer a wide price range. Tea lovers also would like to stock daily drinkers.

No.

$15 for 40g isn’t unreasonable at all. I’ve payed more for oolongs and whites before. I expect any high quality dragon well would be up there as well.

It sounds like about the right range but it can be hard to pin down a quality level, variances in which can halve or double the right retail price for a tea. The suggestion to look at other vendors’ offerings makes sense; check out yunomi or whoever else. There will be prior threads in sites like this one about where to source different types of teas, including Japanese versions.

I must admit that it gets old hearing about someone coming across the idea that wholesale costs are lower than retail, or that different producers out there make tea, so they have an opportunity to bring something new to the market and earn their own share in doing it. In some cases that’s all absolutely true, maybe in this one, but just as often the person making that discovery can’t tell how good the tea actually is because they don’t know that much about tea, and are completely unfamiliar with different sources and types, and business practices and requirements, etc. It’s worse when all that is coupled with very worn out ideas for branding, to use Asian characters, or a tea leaf or bamboo leaves as icon motif. Just try to think it through, and look around at what else is out there, pay attention to the business end and the tea drinker’s end, be respectful of different takes on the original traditions, and it might work out.

Thank you all for the elaborated answers!

I’ve spent more than that before. If the tea is a good quality 15 dollars isn’t an unreasonable amount at all. I’ve spent that much on 25g of tea before.

This is a weird stipulation but I would spend $15 on 50g of tea. This is because I already have the amount divided in my head playing around with 3-5 grams lets me able to have around 10 sessions with the tea and then also have some left over in order to grandpa or drink more casually. Would probably spend $15 on 40g if it were high quality though. Hope this helps!

Cost versus quality, standard retail level pricing for tea of that quality level, is the standard concern these answers focus on. Really a tea business is about that plus all the other factors. There has to be a reason for people to buy the tea from you instead of any of the half dozen other well established Japanese tea vendors and countless other smaller suppliers. It doesn’t have to be a good reason, just something that works. On-site sales changes that online evened-up paradigm, where branding differences and marketing reach matters as much as the tea itself, at least until people actually try it. There is no doubt that whatever angle or spin you have in mind is being used now (like “straight from the farm direct purchasing,” except that you already bought and sold it), so it’s just a matter of recombining the ideas into a successful business.