As a tea educator, an organizer of multiple tea enthusiast Meetup groups, and a strong proponent of supporting local brick-and-mortar tea businesses, I have visited quite a few tearooms and tea shops in both Northern and Southern California. For the sake of brevity, I will use the term “tearoom.” I have noticed that it is getting increasingly difficult for tea enthusiasts to learn about the five major tea categories (white, green, oolong, black, and puerh) using only the tea selections offered at their local brick-and-mortar tearooms. This is because the majority of new tearoom owners are choosing to focus almost exclusively on flavored teas, and, recently, on flavored teas blended with herbals.
My position is that it is not possible to use blended, flavored, or scented teas as the starting point for learning about tea. The base tea is often not intact enough nor of high enough quality to facilitate learning. Even if it was, the flavors and scents in these teas mask the base tea, rendering any meaningful study of the base tea impossible. It is equally impossible to determine anything about the individual components of a blended tea. As a tea educator, I advise tea enthusiasts to practice brewing and tasting pure, unblended, premium, whole-leaf teas.
I am not making any differentiation based on the source of the flavors, natural or otherwise. For my purpose here, the derivation of the flavor or the traditional nature of a blend is a moot point and the relatively few established blended, flavored, and scented teas, such as English Breakfast, Earl Grey, and Jasmine, do not change my position. I have never been a tea business owner. I am speaking here as an advocate for the interests of serious tea enthusiasts and no one else.
I wonder what the trend towards the heavy reliance on flavored teas implies with regard to the knowledge and skill base of tearoom owners. Often, tearoom owners love tea and the social customs associated with the preparation and consumption of tea, but are not very familiar with pure, loose-leaf, premium teas and how to best prepare them. How can tearoom owners and their staff learn about tea and demonstrate that they are serious about tea if pure teas are not even available through their businesses?
The trend towards flavored teas is seen as a smart business strategy for a number of reasons, but it leaves the serious tea enthusiast in want of the pure, traditional teas they need access to in order to learn about and appreciate fine, premium tea. Many serious tea enthusiasts are left to “self-educate” by searching the Internet for information. They also buy books about tea to guide them. The lucky ones can learn by word of mouth from friends, through membership in tea groups, or from the few local tearooms with an adequate range of pure teas.
It is in the interest of brick-and-mortar tearooms that they supply tea enthusiasts with the pure, premium, whole-leaf teas before tea enthusiasts wind up on the Internet in search of what they need. A quick calculation tells the tea enthusiast that they can have Internet-based tea delivered to their home at a per-serving cost much lower than what they were paying for prepared local tea. Internet-based tea is often fresher and better quality than what they were getting at their local bulk tea venue due to higher turnover of product and the ability of the tea enthusiast to buy higher up on the direct importing or production chain for the tea.
Internet-purchased tea typically comes with brewing instructions and often has very detailed information listed on the Internet site it was purchased from, sometimes including sourcing information down to the tea estate level, month and year of harvest, customer appraisals, and tea-tasting evaluations by esteemed Internet blog evaluators. With this much information so easily accessed on the Internet, there is likely more information available about the tea on the Internet than at local brick-and-mortar tearooms that do not take tea seriously.
Tea enthusiasts quickly discover that they can buy their teaware and tea books on the Internet as well. They learn they can easily purchase and send gift tea and gift certificates. They can buy blended, flavored, and scented teas on the Internet, often the precise ones they were getting at their local tearooms, especially if the wholesale source is known and, if not the same ones, ones that are practically indistinguishable or even better.
The intermediate-to-advanced tea enthusiast knows that it is easier to mask low-quality, old, or poorly stored bulk tea as well as poor tea-making skills behind flavored and blended teas and it will appear, and sometimes rightfully so, that the owner of a tearoom with an overwhelming preponderance of these types of teas is attempting to avoid the challenges presented by pure teas.
Under these circumstances, what would motivate tea enthusiasts who have gone to the Internet to make purchases to return to their local tearoom? I believe they will not return – at least, not very often – and this could result in the “dumbing down” of tea services, to use a coarse but clear phrase. I am concerned about the future availability of both prepared and bulk, pure, whole-leaf, premium tea at the local brick-and-mortar level.
Yesterday, multiple staff members at a major California coffee-and-tea chain did not know how to ring up my order for a “for-here pot of tea” because the cash register button was “taken away” and a fellow customer with a British accent marveled on and on to me about how beautiful it was that I had gotten a “real” teapot and a “real” cup even though she was drinking coffee. A pair of women walked in the door together, and, smiling, pointed at my teapot/glass cup/wooden tray setup in apparent amazement. I noticed that this chain had taken its only pure, loose-leaf Oolong tea off the menu and an Internet check just now revealed that they no longer carry a single, pure Oolong tea online. These are not good signs!
For some tea businesses, it will not matter much to them financially that tea enthusiasts turn to Internet purchasing as long as new walk-in, flavored-tea-consuming customers come to “fill the void” and their Internet sales remain high enough, but that seems unlikely for most small, independent, brick-and-mortar tearooms that rely on local sales.
In order to hold the business of tea enthusiasts longer and to increase the appreciation of premium teas, I now encourage independent tearoom and tea shop owners to consider expanding their tea selection to include at least one representative of each of the five tea categories in a pure, unblended form. I encourage them to offer in-house tea education on a regular basis and to participate in Tea Meetup and other face-to-face tea activities that Internet-based companies cannot offer. Oddly, it is only businesses that offer pure, whole-leaf, premium teas and face-to-face tea education that will stand out from the pack in the near future.
Ideally, to educate and appeal to introductory-level tea enthusiasts and to supply staff with a wide enough range to begin to understand pure, premium tea, I suggest that tearooms carry a White Peony/ Bai Mu Dan (Fujian, China White), a Long Jing/Dragonwell (China Green), a Sencha (Japan Green), a High Mountain Low-Oxidation Oolong (Taiwan Oolong), a Heavier-Oxidized Oolong/Wuyi Yan Cha (China Oolong), a Ceylon (Sri Lanka Black), a Darjeeling (India Black), a Keemun (China Black), an Assam (India Black), and a good quality, Shou/Cooked loose-leaf Puerh (Yunnan, China). As a minimum, one of each category should be carried.
The only scented tea that I would consider adding to this short-list is a Jasmine Green or a Jasmine White (China Scented). Lapsang Souchong (Pine-smoked China Black) is a useful an option.
These selections demonstrate enough of the basic differences between and within the five tea categories to be useful to tea enthusiasts as introductory self-learning tools and to brick-and-mortar tearooms as teaching tools for staff and customers. The black teas are sufficient to teach Breakfast Tea blending once the characteristics of the individual teas are understood. The addition of Lapsong Souchong allows for making Russian Caravan-type tea blends. It can also be used in food recipes for its smokey flavor. For those that want to include blending with traditional flowers, red bud roses, whole yellow chrysanthemum, osmanthus, and lavender are versatile offerings to combine with pure teas and to offer as caffeine-free alternatives. Their addition also lowers the caffeine level of blends since their volume displaces some of the caffeine-containing tea.
The list of necessary teas would lengthen for intermediate-level tea enthusiasts to include at least Bai Hao Yin Zhen /Silver Needle (Fujian, China White), Bi Luo Chun (China Green), Gyokuro (Japan Green), Matcha (Japan Ground Green), Tie Guan Yin/ Iron Goddess of Mercy (China Oolong), Dian Hong/Chinese Breakfast (Yunnan, China Black), and a non-aged, Sheng/Raw Puerh (Yunnan, China).
Matcha and the usual accoutrements are admittedly expensive to stock, but it is extremely easy to use matcha in cooking, beverages, and body care lotions due to its fine, ground texture and a little goes a long way. The inclusion of matcha allows the tearoom owner to easily broaden the range of possible tea classes and tea cookbook offerings and maintain the attention of intermediate-level tea enthusiasts.
Advanced tea enthusiasts need access to a wider range of pure teas that would further demonstrate the nuances of region, cultivar choice, rolling style, oxidation level, roasting level, roasting method, age, and more. Others might argue for other specific teas that they consider essential for the different levels of tea education. Also, an alternative advanced approach for a tearoom would be to offer a comprehensive range of teas from a specific tea category or a specific geographic region. I describe this as a “depth-versus-breadth” approach.
Unfortunately, I have witnessed a tearoom that used this latter approach go out of business even though it was selling very high-quality pure, whole-leaf, premium tea and authentic teaware. I do not know all the issues the business faced, but I venture to guess that such a business probably needs to have extremely strong Internet-based wholesale and Internet-based retail sales. A walk-in customer base is probably not be enough to sustain it in most cities.
The needs of the advanced tea enthusiast are beyond the scope of what small tearooms that are currently selling a high percentage of blended, flavored, and scented teas can offer. The tearoom that is able to fulfill the educational needs of the advanced tea enthusiast is unlikely to be offering a preponderance of blended, flavored, and scented teas, and, of those three, may only be offering a small selection of naturally scented teas.
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Hey thanks for perpetuating the tea snobbery attitudes pervasive to the industry. People who enjoy flavored teas are just as enthusiastic and serious about teas as those who drink unflavored tea.
‘The trend towards flavored teas is seen as a smart business strategy for a number of reasons, but it leaves the serious tea enthusiast in want…’
Insert audible eye roll.
It has not been my experience in Portland Oregon to find independent tea shops that don’t carry a selection of whole leaf teas in all categories. I also find that the owners are extremely knowledgeable and eager to educate their customers. You’ve made some interesting suggestions about educating tea novices but I think the reality is that most people just want something tasty to drink and if it’s healthy, so much the better. They’re considering making a shift away from coffee and find the flavored teas to their liking. I see the process as just that…….a process. Some will become tea enthusiasts , just like some people are coffee enthusiasts or wine enthusiasts. The bread and butter of those establishments are simply people who enjoy what they’re drinking and might want to explore some more. Will they want to learn the subtle nuances between different types of green tea, maybe not, but if they’re loving their green tea blended tea, and drinking tea throughout the day, I’m happy about that.
I also find the quality of blended teas, in Portland, to be quite high. They’re not using lower quality leaf or stale tea to be masked by over powerful flavors. They are connoisseurs of blending which I liken to a wine maker whose job it is to blend different grapes to achieve excellence.
Your point that one cannot evolve to become an intermediate enthusiast or an advanced student of tea in its purest form through blends is true but not everyone wants to learn about tea on the level you’re suggesting or that you or I would like to for ourselves. I think tea shops that are successful will be so because they appeal to those in their community. Providing education about tea to those who are interested is critical to move them along on their tea journey. But remember, some might not want to take the ride and just want a nice, hot cup of delicious flavored tea that suits their pallet.
Melissa – I think Dianna is not a tea snob. I think she LOVES tea and wants everyone to fall in love with it as well. It is rich in taste and history and I think she feels that in its purest form, orthodox whole leaf, people can learn to appreciate it for its amazing depth, personality and flavor. When I have had friends over and served them their first properly prepared cup of high quality whole leaf green tea, they’re amazed how delicious it is. Having brewed it improperly themselves or been served poorly prepared or low quality teas that were not flavored, they thought it tasted horrible. Which it did. Flavored teas are very forgiving – of time and temperature and quality of tea. Orthodox whole leaf teas are not – hence the need for education and learning proper brewing techniques.
Thanks for your response but I beg to differ. I challenge you to refute the sentence you partially quoted:
“The trend towards flavored teas is seen as a smart business strategy for a number of reasons, but it leaves the serious tea enthusiast in want of the pure, traditional teas they need access to in order to learn about and appreciate fine, premium tea.”
Flavored teas are not being made to help people learn about fine, premium tea. I am not knocking the skill required to be a good flavorist. I leave it to someone else to rally for the flavorist because that is not my calling and there is no shame or snobbery in that.
What I am saying is that you can learn very little about tea from drinking these beverages and learning about tea is of paramount importance to a serious tea enthusiast. This is not snobbery. This is scientific fact. Please re-read the article in light of what it is intended to address.
[…] Finally, one posted earlier today on the T Ching blog by Dianna Harbin, who I am happy to say I know and had some good conversation with at the World Tea Expo this year and last. She covers how tearooms are shortchanging their own customers, and what that might mean for the neighborhood tea shop in the future. tea enthusiasts need access to pure teas in tearooms and tea shops […]
Michelle,
I am glad you are having such a good experience in your neck of the woods. I did not claim to speak for other parts of the country in my post because I have not observed them enough to evaluate them.
You are talking about independent bulk tea shops, and, I suspect larger ones, whereas I am including places that serve prepared tea which far outnumber the bulk tea shops in my area. I see this trend in small tearooms, coffee-and-tea cafes, small tea cafes and small bulk tea businesses, especially ones where tea is not the primary good being sold. The trend is very strong at new businesse that carry thirty or fewer teas, loose or boxed/bagged.
When I go to most cafes and tearooms, I now have to struggle to find an unblended, unflavored, unscented tea. English Breakfast, Earl Grey and Jasmine are all in this category.
The fact that the tea shop owners you observe in your area carry “a selection of whole leaf teas in all categories” and are “extremely knowledgeable and eager to educate their customers” actually supports my argument. These are not the businesses I am concerned about. I am guessing these are businesses with closer to one hundred teas.
What would happen if folks newly coming into the tea arena do not continue the tradition of carrying this wide array? Would they be equally “knowledgeable and eager to educate”? How would they and their staff acquire their knowledge? Those are the businesses I am concerned about.
Your observation that “the bread and butter of those establishments are simply people who enjoy what they’re drinking” supports my observations. I am aware of the interest in these teas by most consumers and that they are big sellers. I know that the average consumer prefers flavored teas and has no motivation to explore tea further. I am not trying to discourage consumers from drinking these teas for health or other reasons.
I did not claim to speak for the interest of these consumers. This segment has plenty of proponents. You are a notable one and I applaud you for that. Thing is, I only claimed to speak up for the interests of serious tea enthusiasts, a different segment of consumers.
Arguably, you have access to the highest level tea blending done by people with integrity in your area but that is not really to my point and it is certainly not typical. I am saying that it is impossible for a tea enthusiast to learn about tea in depth if all they drink is blends, even the finest of blends. They must experience the straight teas.
I doubt that you would disagree that, on average, it is easier to sell an old scented, flavored or blended tea made with a percentage of old tea than it is to sell an old unscented, unflavored, unblended tea. Am I wrong?
I am not stereotyping all tea blenders/flavorists/scenters of subterfuge but I do acknowledge the reality that it is harder to judge freshness on those teas and it is easier to use lower grades of tea successfully. The average consumer wouldn’t perceive the difference. They are not scrutinizing the tea at that level so the tea passes muster. It is good enough and there is no crime in that necessarily. But again, they are not the serious tea enthusiasts I am speaking up for.
I am not speaking up for people who do not care about becoming serious tea enthusiasts so your observation that “not everyone wants to learn about tea on the level you’re suggesting or that you or I would like to for ourselves” does not change my position. As I said, “I am speaking here as an advocate for the interests of serious tea enthusiasts and no one else”. Again, this does not make me a snob in any way. This is a perfectly legitimate position.
Thank you for your final paragraph. I agree with every word. Green tea is a great example!
Let me begin by apologizing to you Dianna for an initial omission. In my comment I said that you were a tea snob but what I meant to say was that you are NOT a tea snob. Of course within an hour my ever vigilant editor, Erika caught the error and alerted me to it, allowing me to change it quickly. I hope you were able to get the feel of my comments which I thought painted you as a true tea lover and not at all a snob.
Yes, I feel blessed to be in Portland, the home of many serious tea companies; Stash, Tazo and Smith Tea to name a few. It is disconcerting to hear that your observations are so wide spread. The only other cities I’ve frequently recently have been NYC and Seattle, both of which, as you can imagine, are serious tea places.
Again, I believe your points are all well taken. My concern is however, how do we get people like Melissa, our first commenter, to feel like we’re not being “tea snobs”? During the first few years of T Ching, that was a chronic issue among the readers and I was accused of this by many. I love the fact that T Ching caters to retailers as well as the tea drinking public. Both are of tremendous importance to me and this blog. How can we all share our unique views and vantage points without alienating the other? I’d love to hear Melissa’s take on all this………..
Dianna, I value your observations and believe, for the serious tea enthusiasts, your points are right on. When I observe the coffee and wine industry, I am encouraged that they have found a way to appeal to the masses yet nurture a devoted following of enthusiasts. I suspect the same will hold true for tea.
Here, Here Diana! As a tea educator, importer, blender, wholesaler and retailer, I’m fortunate to have contact with a wide range of clients, from the novice retail consumer all the way to the tea business owner who him/herself seeks the finest in tea. There are indeed, many levels of the enjoyment of tea.
In my counsel to new tea business entrepreneurs I suggest to them that there are basically two kinds of enterprises, those that are run by tea lovers and those that are run by people who are using tea to do business. To be sure there is cross-over between the two. Purism in any art (as tea surely is) is the highest level, though at some point a dealer needs to sell what their customer whats to buy. Given that flavored and blended teas constitute the vast percentage in the overall US market, it is no surprise that one finds these teas in preponderance. Dare I say that even a few tea rooms and bulk tea merchants who DO carry some pure teas, are still unaware of the wide range in quality grades. I guess it is a learning continum of sorts. Wouldn’t you say?
Although we do manufacture flavored and blended teas, and I do feel that they are among the best available, still I whole heartedly agree with you that one can not really understand nor appreciate tea at its finest if mixed with another ingredient. We both spend a great deal of time and effort trying to raise the level of understanding and appreciation of what tea can be. Please do not be discouraged nor be assuaged in your efforts. Consumers and dealers alike need the hand of an experienced advisor. The flavored/blended section is well represented and we need champions like you to likewise promote and expand the awareness of the finest pure teas.
Humbly, Dan
While I think it is all right to sell and drink some flavored teas, I have found it disappointing that so many tea companies now put so much emphasis on flavored teas. I do enjoy flavored teas, but I see them as something different from pure teas.
When I want to drink tea, I want to drink tea, not herbs, spices, and flowers. On the other hand, sometimes I want a different taste and I will drink a tea blended with spices or something else.
The problem is that the blended teas seem to be taking over the largest part of the market, making true teas more scarce and more expensive to obtain. Even one of the most respected names in tea is putting out entire new lines that are all herbal or tea and herbal blends, while their formerly wonderful green and white teas are falling by the wayside. This is terribly sad.
I could not call myself a tea snob because I do accept and review all types of tea from herbals in teabags to rare loose-leaf teas and I believe every tea has its place, but I ache over the diminished availability of high quality pure teas which are my favorites. I may review and even praise a flavored tea because it does taste good, but I will buy a good Ceylon, Darjeeling, Dragon Well, or oolong before I will buy the flavored tea.
To each tea its place, but let us respect the leaf that created this business and put it first.
Fortunately, all tea shops are not created equal (Tin Roof Teas in Raleigh, NC, is an example – they carry an array of straight, true teas along with the other stuff). I, too, grow fonder of straight teas the more I learn about them and the more different ones I try. Sadly, the reality is that many tea shops (just like any store) have to focus on selling product, not on educating their customers, although many do try with tea tasting events. That means they try to hit the customer with a strong, pleasant taste, not something subtle and nuanced. How else do we explain pumpkin spice tea popping up at Starbucks every winter? I turn to online shops and get sample sizes of teas I want to try. The ones I like, I then order more. Or I make the trek up to Raleigh to Tin Roof Teas (formerly TeaGschwendner).
To state that tea is “the leaf that created this business” is like saying that iron ore created the steel mill industry. People create businesses. They choose what to base it on. Along with that comes pleasing customers so they will buy the products. As much as I hate to say it, we’re stuck with tea shops emphasizing flavored teas and calling everything under the sun that is steeped in hot water by the name “tea” as long as the public is uneducated on these things. The best we can do is add to that education, which Dianna and many others do, one blog post or tea tasting event or tea demonstration at a time.
Dianna, I truly think after re-reading your article that you did not intend to be coming across as a tea snob. There is so much of that attitude out there, though, that it has made some of us a bit over-sensitive. In the spirit of good will, I would like to say that we all have our preferences and the things we think should be, but we must respect that others have different preferences. Thanks for all the good information on tea you pass along to us desiring to learn more about tea.
There’s a degree to which I agree with the core idea of this post, but I also think that there are some key distinctions that are not made in it, and I also think there’s a degree to which this post is unnecessarily judgmental, imposing one particular view of “sophistication” on others, when in reality, it’s a question of personal taste.
People have different ways that they get “into” tea. Personally, my route to tea was through herbal teas. I grew up drinking infusions of numerous plants, including spearmint, lemon balm, peppermint, and numerous others. I was growing these plants in my garden myself, experimenting with propagating them from cutting and preparing them in different ways, long before I sampled my first cup of tea from the Camellia sinensis plant. Now, I am a huge advocate of pure teas and, for the most part, I strongly favor pure teas to flavored ones. And I designed RateTea.net in large part as a vehicle to advocate for loose-leaf pure teas in a culture in which pure tea and loose-leaf tea is in a minority culture.
But blends, both of herbs and those combining herbs with the tea plant, are a rich and complex art. There is nothing less legitimate about a vendor just because they focus on blends, or even if they focus in large part on herbals.
What’s the real issue here? I think that this post doesn’t cleanly identify it. The real issue is quality, art, tradition, and overall selection and preparation of tea and blends that focus on quality and help tea drinkers develop their palate and become more connected to the origins of their tea and the traditions behind it. This can happen with a Dan Cong Oolong just as likely as it can happen with a particular herbal blend.
There is a huge difference, though, between the tea companies that slap 10 different essential oils on a cheap Ceylon and sell them as 10 different flavored black teas, and companies that artfully select base teas and scent them traditionally as with Jasmine, Rose, or Osmanthus, or blend them with carefully chosen herbs. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a hundreds-of-years-old tradition or a new creation…what matters is the quality, the purpose, the care that is put into it.
We ought to be encouraging a focus on quality, tradition, and a natural production method, and encouraging innovation within those parameters, not forcing a particular viewpoint of “what real tea is” onto people.
Excellent point Alex. I think we can all agree on “a focus on quality, tradition, and a natural production method, and encouraging innovation within those parameters”. Well said.
If there was a ‘Like’ button for your post, I would have hit it, Alex!
I’ve enjoyed the post and the conversation. In my experience, a business that focuses exclusively on flavored and “entry level” teas will fail to capture the larger market and invest heavily in converting people to tea drinkers only to loose them as they graduate to more traditional options. A business that rejects the unwashed masses for the sake of tea purity will fail for lack of a customer base (excluding a few regional enclaves).
In the past six years I’ve employed roughly 100 “tea consultants” selling tea and personally helped thousands of customers. IF you sell flavored teas that are good quality and in which the character of the tea can be seen, a business can do well converting both casual tea drinkers and those who “don’t like tea”. I’ve seen many employees and customers start their journey with very little appreciation for high quality classic teas, only to find themselves “tea snobs” 6-12 months later.
There is a need in our market for businesses serving every segment of the customer base. The cheap ceylon with cheap essential oils is priced right to bring a Lipton drinker into the tea fold. The chain making tea by re-constituting tea syrups is effectively able to serve a cup of tea in 15 seconds or less. These offerings do play a role, and their role will decrease as the market matures. I would agree that there is a shortage of truly excellent tea shops with excellent teas.
My position with Adagio is built upon the belief that the value of a tea shop lies in the experience, not the product. Good quality tea is a critical pre-requisite, but it is not by itself enough to succeed. A tea shop or tea room must offer a range of services and experiences that CANNOT be replicated online. Besides, I never wanted to work in a grocery store, I want to play with tea! ;)
Dan,
Thank you so much for your comments. I agee that learning about tea is a continuum. I have gone through many stages with tea and hope to go through many more. I believe the learning is never ending and I expect it will continue the rest of my life.
I friend of mine told someone recently, “I am neither above you, nor beneath you, nor to the side of you.” The next time I write, I will try to improve upon conveying that to my readers so we can discuss the heart of my message.
Margaret,
Thank you for validating my observations. We have both seen the trend in Southern California. Some have not seen the trend in their market that we have seen in ours. I think they will soon. Some will not care, others will.
I will never forget the day James Norwood Pratt used the phrase, “tea lovers like us” to me after one of his presentations. It was the first time we had met. It was so inclusive and egalitarian. There is a place for all tea persuasions. I only ask a place at the table for those tea enthusiasts who want pure tea so they can further their understanding of “the leaf”.
Alex,
The purpose of my post is to “advocate for the interests of serious tea enthusiasts and no one else” because “I have noticed that it is getting increasingly difficult for tea enthusiasts to learn about the five major tea categories (white, green, oolong, black, and puerh) using only the tea selections offered at their local brick-and-mortar tearooms”. My direct observations were limited to “both Northern and Southern California”.
I expressed my concern that it is in the interest of small brick-and-mortar tearooms to supply tea enthusiasts with the pure, premium, whole-leaf teas they seek before those tea enthusiasts wind up on the Internet in search of what they need, probably never to return to that business. A.C. Cargill’s comment bolsters that argument.
I unfortunately participated in carrying the comments too far afield and this is obscuring the intent of my posting. That is partly due to Michelle editing her post after publication but still publishing my response to her original.
My intent is to scream from the rooftops that “tea enthusiasts need access to pure teas in tearooms and tea shops”. How tea businesses respond to that is their call.
Charles,
Your perspective is valuable and I appreciate you taking the time to read my posting and respond, especially considering that I am a former student of yours. I have been following the progress of your current endeavor. You have a very strong concept and team so I expect success.
Your comment that the local tea business needs to offer something not available on the Internet mirrors what I believe. I wrote, “In order to hold the business of tea enthusiasts longer …, I now encourage independent tearoom and tea shop owners … to offer in-house tea education on a regular basis and to participate in Tea Meetup and other face-to-face tea activities that Internet-based companies cannot offer.” You taught me well!
One of my three missions with is to support local tea businesses.
You have a strongly original and fun concept that cannot be duplicated online in the same way and an excellent team. Good luck with your new venture!
Dianna,
It was clear to me that you were not criticizing or demeaning flavored tea creators, resellers or drinkers, but rather bemoaning the lack of quality classical tea offerings and the resulting dearth of consumer knowledge and opportunity to fall in love with the leaf itself.
Speaking only for myself, let me say that I HAVE visited many tea shops all across the country and the availability and quality of classical unflavored teas is a bit depressing. There are bright spots of course, but most Americans simply do not have access to premium orthodox teas and there is nothing wrong with observing that and suggesting that it would be good for the industry for that to change.
I said in a recent post on these pages that innovation doesn’t happen in an echo chamber. I tend to be intentionally controversial because little is learned or accomplished by everyone nodding in agreement.
Bravo for speaking clearly and defending your opinion.
Still open & growing for 2.5 years in the most horrendous economy of my lifetime, we’ve learned and tweaked some things as a tea and coffee artisan shop (tea first in name & focus). We carry
a few unblended, representative of category teas, but we also carry many blends & herbals.
This works for us because we have to turn teas quickly for several reasons, including freshness of product, which is another reason we have limited ourselves to 50 best of best we could find. However, this a.m. a new customer came in who is totally a purist. He made a very nice purchase of teas we carry, but I also asked him to make a list of teas he would like to order (he had ordered online prior and found problems with freshness, quality, etc. from these companies) and I would get samples for him from several of my own vendors which he could sample and choose from and I would special order for him with prepayment. He was soooo good with that..delighted, actually. Otherwise, in my area and demographic, I would have teas sitting here being pure and ‘undefiled’ until the next rare purist came along. This is practical survival and growth Biz 101 for us. If you read Yelp reviews of tea businesses from all over the country, it will tell the story because there are purists, newbies, and in-betweeners who participate on Yelp. There are reasons why loose leaf tea retailers have been so few and far between as retail successes and we’ve been attempting to eliminate those reasons in our store and hopefully grow as a successful concept. Otherwise, things will be as they have always been in the specialty tea world and analysts will still be tell us why and what it will take. It’s wide open with millions of tea-thirsty consumers just waiting.
Diane W’s comment about reviews just reminded me of a conundrum that Adagio faces. We have more than 50,000 customer reviews of our products online (and reviews can only be posted by someone who has purchased THAT item, so they’re pretty accurate). It’s incredibly frustrating to introduce high quality teas rich with nuance only to have the customer completely misunderstand the tea. Sometimes they prepare it wrong, sometimes their biases get in the way, sometimes they just don’t know what to expect and are disappointed.
I’ve been pushing Adagio up-market, and they’ve complied by adding a Masters Collection of premium teas at much higher price points than is typically found on Adagio.com. One tea we offered this summer was an incredible Fukamushicha style Shincha (Deep-steamed Japanese First Flush). People posted reviews saying that they thought the tea was “crap” because of the particulate and uneven leaf style. This is a result of the deep steaming and an expected element of every Fukamushicha style tea. Then there were the reviews saying things like, “I don’t normally like green tea and don’t like this one either.”
Then we roll out some fruity blend and it gets five stars from everyone. I hate to be a snob, but sometimes I wish there was a way to qualify people before letting the opine. ;)
The moral of the story is that classical teas is still a hard business to make a profit in. But I also believe it’s the future! :)
Based on the conversation, I draw 2 conclusions:
1= A successful tea retailer focuses on making customers, not sales. It will take time to educate and inform. It will cost some (initially) wasted supply of “pure” teas. But without a focus on building customers over making sales, consumers will merely run off after the cheaper price, the shinier package, or the newest flavor sensation. Tea retailers who make customers have to walk that fine line between responding to where the customer is now in terms of preference, and being a step ahead to show what lies further down the tea-path.
2= The tea industry needs those tea snobs. I hesitate to draw too many analogies from the wine world, but snobs at the opposite end of the spectrum often pull the collective more toward center. We need a few voices that say: “Those Cretans can’t appreciate the Fukamushi sencha because they’ve been drinking swill for too long.” Of course, no one wants to package the message that way. It would be more pleasing to the ear if the message was sent in mellow, well rounded tones. Call me cynical, but sometimes the crowd doesn’t respond well unless provoked to shame. I anticipate the days are coming soon when fundamentally likable tea snobs will “shame” the tea drinking public toward more “pure” teas, and the industry will be better off for it. I predict those days are coming soon.
A.C., your response to what I said has very little relevance to what I meant. I did not mean business as in tea business. Business does not always literally mean business. It also means “something in which a person is rightfully concerned” as we are all concerned with tea. I was making a sort of play on words. It never occurred to me that anyone would take it literally.
Found these comments on our Facebook by the very customer I spoke about yesterday, a tea purist. We welcome both novices and purists and try to have teas that will be exciting/pleasing to both. Yes, they can exist!
“Had a chance to compare both of the Oolongs I got on my visit yesterday. Both were infused in my Yixing teapots (my favorite way to brew tea although it is a little more of a process :). I found both Oolongs to be fantastic. Similar to the difference in coffee brewed using industrial methods Vs brewing in a french press I found that using the Yixing teapot really brought out all of the notes in the profile and accentuated them fully. The milk Oolong I tried in your shop yesterday was fantastic, so I am not saying there is any difference in the tea related to the brewing/steeping process… perhaps the ceremony of personal brewing enhances the experience and adds to the perception… In any case, I was very surprised by the coconut oolong.
4 hours ago · Like · Comment
Tim Osborn ?(continued from previous post) I had thought due to the strong scent of coconut I would not like it and find the flavor of the coconut to overpower the qualities of the oolong that I always look for. I was wrong! It is a very well balanced profile that the leaves deliver with hints of caramel and honey balanced perfectly with the coconut. I thought I liked it better than the milk oolong but after having another taste of the milk oolong I realize I like it just as much and will favor whichever one I am sipping on :)
4 hours ago · Like ·
Tim Osborn Continued… The milk oolong really shines using the Yixing teapot. It is interesting how I liked it at your shop and knew it was a very high quality but was having some difficulty getting past the butter aroma and notes. Butter being so far from my previous experience… or so I thought. I gave a family member a brewed cup and said “what do you smell”? They smelled the tea and indicated they could not place what they were smelling… I then asked “what do you taste”? Again they could not put their finger on the specific note that is so prominent… frustrated I nearly stammered “Butter”! Ohhhhh yes… I since realized that we often associate flavors and aromas with other memories and items that are similar or contain similarities. We are also sometimes prone to presuggestion. It is amazing how much information the brain processes even prior to trying something… as you stand in line for a hamburger your brain is already processing what the experience should be like. Anyone who has participated in “blind tastings” will know how difficult it is to bring all knowledge and experience to bear when there is no information to go on except the experience… so anyway I realized that the butter notes, and aroma of the milk oolong, were not unknown to me and were present in lesser degrees in some of the other teas I have had… they are just so intense… in a fantastic way! Once I realized that I was completely over my “butter phobia” and really opened up to fully appreciating the milk oolong for what it has to offer!
I hope more of your customers learn to appreciate oolongs as I have… You have some wonderful oolong teas and as the popularity rises I look forward to what other treasures you find! Thanks for the great visit yesterday… it”s awesome to have a REAL tea shop in the area!!!”
Since it wasn’t the main thrust of this article, I extended the conversation about tea snobs and taste of tea in a post here:
http://walkerteareview.com/http:/walkerteareview.com/the-sapience-of-savoring-tea
Diane,
In reference to your post that stated, “Still open & growing for 2.5 years in the most horrendous economy of my lifetime, we’ve learned and tweaked some things as a tea and coffee artisan shop (tea first in name & focus). We carry a few unblended, representative of category teas, but we also carry many blends & herbals. This works for us …”
You are doing exactly what I am asking tea retailers to do in this post, “Tea enthusiasts need access to pure teas in tearooms and tea shops”! You gave your tea enthusiast access to a small array of pure teas.
He could have found good tea on the Internet but he didn’t. Too bad for him that he had that experience but lucky for you! You now have a loyal customer who is willing to wait for special order tea to arrive. What great customer service! What a great customer!
This customer might make a great organizer of a tea tasting club for your business. He cannot get the face-to-face social benefits of tea from the Internet. His actions indicate that he wants your business to thrive and he wants social interaction through the sharing of tea.
Most brick-and-mortar tea businesses miss the opportunity to create community through tea and that is one of the three reasons I started organizing tea groups on Meetup.com.
The other two reasons are to support tea education and to support local tea businesses. I now have Long Beach Tea, Los Angeles Tea, San Diego Tea, San Francisco Tea and Santa Barbara Tea on Meetup.com. I recently started California Tea on Meetup.com to support networking between California-based Tea Meetup organizers, tea educators, tea business owners and allied tea professionals in order to facilitate face-to-face tea event planning.
I’m glad you had a small selection of pure category teas on the shelf and that is all I am asking of tea retailers in this post. What would have happened with this customer if you hadn’t had them when he first walked in the door?
Diane,
Thanks for sharing your Facebook posts. You wrote that you “welcome both novices and purists and try to have teas that will be exciting/pleasing to both”. All I am asking tea business owners to do in my post is make room for everyone at the tea tasting table. I am glad you are succeeding at this.
I am trying to stay on-message in my responses but I need to make two off-topic comments. The first is that I hope you have permission to post the name of your Facebook contributor. If not, you can send in a comment asking the tching.com staff to remove the name. Just looking out for you here.
Also, your tea enthusiast is using Yixing clay teapots for brewing strong aroma tea (Milk Oolong, a pure tea, when genuine) and flavored/blended tea (Coconut Oolong). Yixing teapots are made of an especially absorbant clay from Yixing, China. The aromas of the tea are supposed to permeate the clay. This is highly desirable but this renders the pot unsuitable for brewing teas with different aromas. Some tea enthusiasts have a large collection of Yixing or other origin clay teapots just for this reason.
I’m lucky to have you as a reader. Thanks so much for reading and commenting!
Jason,
On your first point, that applies to most brick-and-mortar tearooms and tea shops but, as Charles mentioned, some businesses do not need their customer to learn “what lies further down the tea-path”. The fast-food chain sweet tea market is an example. That is why I said, ” I am speaking here as an advocate for the interests of serious tea enthusiasts and no one else”.
On your point that “the tea industry needs those tea snobs” to “pull the collective more toward center”, I think it is more likely that there will be a likable, down to earth, “tea personality” rather than a real “tea snob” that helps bring more attention to the pure premium teas. In order not to stray off-track, my reply to that has been submitted to your blog. Thanks for the link.
Yes, Dianna, I did get his permission to post it here. He is becoming a regular commenter on Facebook and is thrilled with ‘tea soulmates’ he can find OFFline. If we hadn’t had any high quality oolongs, he would have moved on, and if we had been ‘overloaded’ with any and every oolong, we may have lost credibility. As it is, I actually ordered one that had been sitting in the opened sample pack we had cupped & liked but just hadn’t decided to add but just ordered because of him and his great participation as a customer and future business from others he will tell about us. We love our regular customers and they have the assurance we don’t just throw teas and herbals at them but that we routinely sit, cup and discuss everything we bring in to see if it hits the high marks needed to become part of the ‘family’. Being a tea AND coffee business (50/50 sales), we probably put even more effort into making sure customers get the best we can find because we are very selective for space sake, if nothing else. And it is paying off as word of mouth spreads..the best advertising. Hopefully, we will be able to be part of your Tea Meetup network when the holidays are over and our website is completed…seems to be an ongoing project.
Bashing the Blends has been going on for a long time and is the title of the post that made me leave T-Ching. Celebrate the fact that people drink tea. Much as a mother would put chocolate chips into everything to get her child to eat more, we start where we start, and hopefully we will end with a sophisticated palate. If not, why try to elevate oneself by putting others down? That’s snobbery. Go ahead and dig your Te Kwan Yin at a hundred bucks for a hundred grams. Do you enjoy it less because someone likes a Stash Earl Grey? T-Ching is a great blog with a great history. Keep our eyes on the goal . . . return this country to the avid tea drinkers we once were, absent the taint of the Tea Party.
Thanks to T-Ching, I am treating kids to tea every Tuesday. I am an educator who admits that I’ve changed more kids’ lives with tea than I ever have with William Shakespeare. You haven’t lived until you have seen a 17 year old member of the Student Firefighters cradle a cup of tea in his diesel stained hands. Dressed in Carrharts, lumberjack boots, a huge belt buckle and a baseball cap advertising a farm equipment company, he asked, “Where did you get this Macho Gin Macho?” (Matcha genmaicha to the tea drinker.) That’s what this post is about. Diana, thank you: tea enthusiasts need la pura, and the rest of us, bless us, need simply to get started with the good stuff until we graduate to being tea enthusiasts.
Regena,
I’m sorry to see that you have missed the point of my post. This post is not about bashing the blends. It is also not about how to introduce people to tea, something blends are great at.
My post is about asking small tea business owners to stock a small number of traditional, pure teas for those few customers who need them to explore the different tea categories.
I have never said people who like blends are not tea enthusiasts. Those are your words, not mine, and I don’t agree with you.
Sharing tea is a great way to build community. Let’s welcome those to the table who want traditional, unblended, unflavored teas instead of calling them names and putting them down.
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