Great Canadian Travelling Tea Box - Round 3 - Sign ups CLOSED - June 2014

Yay, it made it! *throws confetti in the air *

Just a few quick things:
The tea from Blue Teapot is actually called Winter Wonderland not White Christmas – I’m afraid I mislabeled it, sorry guys. Also if the Fragrant Yellow Bud is the same on that I added then it’s from Murchie’s Tea & Coffee, not SBT.

Sorry, the fragrant yellow bud was my mistake. I have updated the list. Thanks.

So to start with, I liked that there is a large variety of tea in the box this round.

I didn’t like how long it took for the box to go around this time. It took about 3 months longer than I expected, for it to make a full round. I also not necessarily don’t like, but am not satisfied with the huge amount of David’s tea in the box. I know we all love David’s but there is just so much of it in here.

Next time … not sure.

I agree Lala that it took WAY too long to go around this time.
IMHO – it’s really hard to know what you should/should not put in the box. Everyone is at different places in their tea journey, everyone has such different tastes, everyone is looking to try different thing, everyone has a different idea as to what is unusual. What some might consider “dumping unwanted” into the box, might not seem that way to others.
Two years ago I would have been really happy to see a bunch of DavidsTea in the box – hadn’t tried many and if I liked it would be easy to get more. Now I’m pretty much past it – I’ve moved on to more straight teas.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that maybe set some guidelines as to what you/we would like to see in the box. Something like no one should add more than two samples from the same company ? and you can’t add a company if there are already more than 8 (?) from that company in the box.
Then the problem becomes – some newer members might not have the diversity in their cupboards to be able to do this and I’m not trying to exclude anyone – just trying to think of ways to get variety into the box….

i agree with the above. Strangely the hidden gems tea box that anlina started worked really well – there was no? davids tea in the box and there were a lot of things from a variety of companies that i’d either had very little exposure to, or none at all.

I think dexter’s right….need to figure out what the goal of the tea box is and set some guidelines. :)

I agree with all of the comments above about time and David’s Tea. I’m not a big fan of most of David’s Tea since I’m not drinking much flavoured these days. There was lots of variety in the box which I enjoyed.

The other thing that I’m never quite sure about and I know that “it’s up to you” but something to think about. How big should the samples be that are put it. Should we be putting in larger samples 15-20g so that a few people can try the tea? or should we be putting in smaller samples 5-10g so that each person puts in more samples and they are rotated out quicker (but this means less people get to try it)? Is this part of the been around more than once issue?

How weird is too weird that no one will try it?
If it’s too mainstream then everyone has either tried it or it’s already in their cupboard? what’s the correct balance?

I’m not sure there are any right or wrong answers just food for thought….

i know i try to put in enough for 1-3 ppl to try the tea, so that if someone loves it there’s enough for a couple more cups and so that if it gets back to lala an NO ONE tried it, she doesn’t have 40g of a tea

I’ll shoulder at least some of the blame for the slowness of this round. Next round I might look into other shipping options besides Canada Post as I seem to live in a big mail-sinkhole.

I agree with the less Davids Tea. The chain has gotten so big in Canada that even smaller place like where I live have a store – and all the stores have more or less the same selection so it’s not as if we’re getting anything new or different.

More high-quality plain teas would be nice.

I’ll also shoulder some of the responsibility for the lenght of time on the box. No excuses but I’ll definately do better next time.

For me one of the big “issues” with the box this round was that there was just so much tea. I loved the variety available but it made it difficult to sift through for probable options.

I’m not sold on restricting the types of teas too much though… As Dex said everyone is at different places in their journey and it’s hard to really say that a type or style of tea isn’t what is wanted. To be honest like a few others have already mentioned more plain teas would be nice to see from my perspective but aside from that shrugs.

As for amounts I don’t think I’ve ever put in more than 30g of any one kind of tea but I have occasionally out in sample sizes (1 maybe 2 cups worth), it really depends on what I’ve got on hand, especially if it’s something that I like and don’t have more coming any time soon.

First I just wanted to say thank you to Lala for organizing the box again. It was a lot of fun and thanks to your chosen themes, there was a nice selection of teas to try. That was definitely what I liked about the box this round.

However, as others have stated, I did find there was a fair bit of DAVIDs in the box. Honestly, I wouldn’t be so bothered by this if it wasn’t for the fact that most of the blends in the box were part of their regular collection versus in the previous round where a lot of the DAVIDs blends in the box were discontinued and thus was still something new to try. It just seemed silly to me that teas any of us could just run out to the store and get took up quite a bit of the box.

As for next round, I have been trying to think of themes but I got nothing though when the box arrived, my sister thought it was a box of patriotic teas. As in she thought all the teas were either white or red or maple or had something that could be linked back to Canada. That made me laugh so I thought I would share.

aye – i tried to add unflavoured because there was so much flavoured..but contamination is hard to avoid. I’d love to do an unflavoured travelling teaabox..but i’m lazy and haven’t had the desire to organise it yet lol

Maybe that could be the theme: unflavoured teas
Just a thought :)

I would be more interested in that too. I personally have plenty of options locally for buying flavored teas (and David’s especially) so an unflavored box would be more appealing.

How much tea does one have to have to start an unflavored box ???

Hm, more interest than expected! You can start a box with any amount, but more is better, within reason. Maybe two people could contributr to a start-up then receive it at the end to get some new stuff. For example, if I participated in an unflavoured box I would only add or remove puerh and blacks but if the variety was there it could work for many people interested in “plain” teas.

I would really love a Canadian unflavoured box . It would be nice to see natural blends in there too.(like Whispering Pines does or Jasmine pearls).

Does jasmine and other ‘scented’ teas really count as unflavoured though?

I guess it would depend on what people wanted. I consider scented teas in the same category as flavoured teas, in that they can impart an aroma and alter other teas. If it is light, packaging can go far though. My scented Tea Ave oolongs don’t impart an aroma through the packaging.