Internet Tea Sourcing

Mandala, White2tea, Crimson Lotus and from ebay Berylleb King Tea.

Those two you mentioned both have excellent quality. I have bought from Teavivre a couple of times before and recently from YS for the first time. You have to wait a while before you get it, though, because they ship from China and it just takes time to travel. :) If you like Chinese teas, Teaspring.com is also worth a look, even though they’re not a very common sight on Steepster. I’ve had good experiences from them as well. They carry my most favorite ever Tan Yang. They also ship from China.

Many companies allow you to order only samples, and some will also include a random free sample with your order. Teavivre also had a program at one point where you could sign up to occasionally receive a free sample and then you would “pay” for it by reviewing it on their site. I don’t know if that program is still going, I never signed up for it myself.

I’ve been really pleased with the teas I’ve bought from http://what-cha.com/ The shipping is very reasonable, you can get 10g samples and the teas have been very nice quality.

I’ve found ordering stuff online only slightly more hit or miss than buying stuff in store. There’s some correlation between how a tea smells and how it tastes, but often enough I’ve bought a tea in store because of how it smells but been disappointed in the flavour.

I have found good tea from Mandala, Yunnan Sourcing, and Berylleb on Ebay. Also great with a caveat are Puerhshop and Dragon Tea House. They both sell so much that it is easy to buy something you will not like. Mandala in particular sources their teas well and are a US seller. Puerhshop has some excellent teas (and some not so excellent) and are also a US seller. Yunnan Sourcing has two websites, yunnansourcing.com and yunnansourcing.us. The latter ships from the US.

Upton and Harney and sons are two good on-line stores with a broad range of teas at many price points. They both offer reasonable shipping and a wide variety of samples. If you are patient, Harney offers free shipping for orders over $25 several times a year, which is a great opportunity to buy samples.

If you go to the “teas” section of Steepster you can select a single vendor and read the reviews for their teas. This can reduce the potential for buying teas you won’t like. When I’m placing an order I often keep one tab of my browser on Steepster and the other on the store, switching back and forth to check the reviews of teas that look good on the site, or checking prices of teas that rate highly on Steepster.

Yunnan Sourcing, Mandala tea, Tao Tea Leaf, Jing Tea Shop, Teavivre.

I have ordered from Butiki and Teavivre and both are excellent quality and good customer service. Still exploring though and waiting on an order from whispering pines and Harney and Sons. Can’t wait!

I will +1 Harney & Sons, Tao Tea Leaf, PuerhShop, Teavivre, & What-Cha
And I’ll also add Yezi, Tao of Tea, & Den’s Tea.

I’d definitely recommend signing up for newsletters for stores you think you may like, as there are often sales going on. I’m also subscribed to the “Miscellaneous Sales” thread which is a good way to find sales at shops you may not follow.

I’ve had really good service from Capital Tea Ltd https://www.capitaltea.com and Tao tea leaf. Capital Tea sells most teas at a 20g sample size and Tao tea leaf has small one-e serving sample sizes. http://camellia-sinensis.com/en/ often has well catered teas and zentealife.com often has great prices for tea ware. I can second many of the companies listed above. The places I have purchased most often from are Capital Tea and Aliexpress ( various stores, admittedly at times risky, but I’ve got some great teas through the site).

Thank you all for the help! I put all of these together on a page and am going to go through each of them and then place a few orders :)