thepuriTea - online Edit

Overall Experience: POSITIVE. I made one purchase from them during their Black Friday sale, 2011.

General Information:
According to their http://www.thepuritea.com/pages/about-us webpage, this company is run by a mother and son team. “We source all of our teas and teaware directly from China, Taiwan and India to ensure the maximum quality, value and freshness for our customers.” For their selection of loose leaf teas they have a reasonable number of black, oolong, green, and white teas; it looks like they are (almost) all pure (I just checked their website and they do have a few flavor-added black teas along and a few scented teas; still, most of their teas being ‘pure’ must be one reason why they are called ‘The _Pur_itea’!). They offer a very limited number of teapots and other tea accessories. I like that they don’t have too large a selection of items, as that gives me the impression they carefully choose what they carry. They have a reasonable description of each tea (no information on location and year of harvest). They had at least one sale that I am aware of during Black Friday, 2011. They offer samples and 4, 8 and 16 ounces sizes for most teas, such that the price per ounce decreases for larger quantities.
My Experience:
My order was processed relative quickly and came within a reasonable amount of time. There were a couple of samples included with my order. Each Tea was reasonably fresh. I ordered mostly samples (see Packaging); the amount in each sample was smaller than I was anticipating (most had only 3 -4 TSP of dry Tea, and yet from something stated on their website I had the impression it was going to be twice that size); this was disappointing to me. On one of the discussion threads on Steepster I remember reading that they were ‘revamping’ their website, including how they package their samples (I hope they are larger and come without the unnecessary packaging that I mention below). To me their prices on their Tea seem reasonable.

Website:
The overall presentation of the site is simple and elegant (although, to me, the ‘Hellobar’ at the top gives the site a somewhat cluttered sense), it is very easy to navigate, and they have decent enough pictures of each tea. The use of a cart when purchasing items and during checkout seems fairly straightforward. They have a blog, but it doesn’t look like they post there very often (less then once a month).

Shipping:
Straight from their homepage: “Free Shipping Over $50, Free Samples w/ Every Order, $7.50 Flat Rate Shipping, We Ship with USPS Priority Mail”
My Experience:
Everything I ordered was in stock and shipped (and included a couple of free samples).

Contact Experience:
None.

Packaging:
(This may have changed) Their samples were sealed in tiny thin silver-colored bags, which were enclosed inside another thin collapsible cardboard box with their company logo on it. Although the ‘boxes’ were somewhat stylish, I thought they were unnecessary, and thus wasteful.

Would I buy from them again?:
MAYBE.
Nothing really stood out about the tea or my experience with them. I thought the samples were very small, and yet I did like that they sent a couple of free samples with my order (although they weren’t really Teas I care for). There would have to be some special event (like another big sale) or some other reason for me to consider buying from them again (especially since they don’t include harvest dates on their green Teas). If there were ‘half’ ratings, I would rate them 3 1/2 stars.

I have ordered from here about three times. The tea is good quality and well priced in the higher amounts. Amounts around 4 oz. seem pricey. The ship times are reasonable and they get the packages out fast. They run shipping specials and percentages off every now and then. They seem open for suggestion which is good, and they do answer emails quickly. All in all, a good place to buy quality tea. If they get the sample packaging worked out and add a little more origin information on the purchased teas, they would be worthy of 5 stars.

As of December of 2011, the sample packaging is a little cumbersome. The inner packages are small and stiff, and hard to measure out of. They have a cute little cardboard sleeve that goes over the sample (which I recycled immediately as they take up a good amount of space), and I think they need to stop trying to make a sample that fits in the sleeve. Please, send out a sample that fits the customer’s needs. The website suggests the samples have enough tea for 10-12 cups of tea, and for the fluffier teas it seems more like 2, for the black teas, maybe 6 or 7….remember, they have a space limitation with that cardboard piece. Either the website needs to reflect what is in the samples, or the samples need to be bigger to match what is actually on the website. Really, I think 6 cups worth is a good amount to really be able to tell if the tea will work for you. 2 cups worth is very skimpy when they claim to have sent me 10. I did get a good deal on my samples, but if I had paid the full price, I would have been extremely disappointed. I am still mildly so, because I did not get as good a deal as I thought.

Full size teas come in foil zip packages. I would be nice to have a little more information about when the tea was picked, so I have an idea of how long it will be good. There is very little information on each tea on the packaging. Just a type and the amount on a small white sticker.

Tea- 5 stars
Service and responsiveness to emails- 5 stars
Full size tea packaging- 4 stars
Sample packaging- 2 stars
Sample size amount compared to website claim-1 star

ETA: With their site relaunch in Feb. 2012, they have changed the amount of the ordered samples to be at least 14 grams or half an ounce. They have also contacted me asking how they can improve sample packaging. Wanting to improve and asking how is a great start.

Like Dinosara I ordered around Cyber Monday. I think everything was 25-30% off and then shipping was free so I figured I’d try a couple sample sizes of some of the teas.

The teas arrived quickly, especially considering the distance they had to be shipped.

And as Dinosara also said, it really does not seem like there is as much tea in these samplers as it says on the site. For 10-12 cups it should be around an ounce of tea, but none of mine really felt like they are going to have that much. And I wish they had 2oz too! I really like the gunpowder tea they sent me as a sample with my order but 4oz is too much for me.

The packaging for samples is pretty meh. I hate having to put things in other containers but what can you do for the price. The tea is good though, and as I try more companies I think I would be likely to return to ordering from this company.

I ordered for the first time during a Cyber Monday sale where they put all of their teas on sale and free shipping without any code needed. That meant that I was able to also use a coupon code that hadn’t expired so I got an amazing deal on the tea.

Their website is nice and easy to use, and I like that they offer a “build your own” sampler set where you can get samples of any of the teas that they offer. When you buy a large number of samples you get a discount depending on how much you order, which is also nice. Normally they offer free shipping for orders over $50, but like I said they had waived shipping for Cyber Monday anyway. The shipping was incredibly fast—I’m pretty sure it shipped less than 24hrs after I made my order—and I got my order very quickly even all the way across the country.

The samples came in little lightweight cardboard containers that had foil-plastic heat sealed pouches in them. Unfortunately I’m not a fan of the pouches because they are not resealable, so I had to find some other container to put them in. They were very full of tea such that once I cut them open I wouldn’t be able to close them up with a clip or anything, and more than one of them was not completely heat sealed so that some tea escaped from the packages into the box. Also, I thought the samples would be larger; on the website it states the samples should contain 10-12 cups of tea, but my samples each contain a variable amount of tea; the smallest one probably won’t make more than 4 cups of tea. I did get three free samples with my order (which was only samples to start with, so that was quite nice), but one of them doesn’t have a label so I have no idea what kind of tea it is!

The tea is high quality and tasty, and they do have a 100% customer satisfaction policy so if you disliked a tea you could potentially return it. I would order again for some teas I can’t get elsewhere, but I do wish they sold an amount between a sample and 4oz (2oz is perfect!).