Tea-drinkers, unite! A place for all things tea.
Where do you normally get your tea, and what type do you usually get?
Where do yo uget your tea? From a specialty shop, online, your local grocer?
And what type do you usually get? Is it your favorite, or do you like to be adventurous and get different types?
Personally, I like to try different kinds, and I normally got it from a supermarket my family frequents, but I think I might start getting it from a health foods shop I regularly go to.




I'm usually getting mine at a speciality shop these days because I am hooked on loose leaf teas. Here in Canada we have a chain called David's Tea. It's really great and they have a points program so you can earn free tea every quarter so that's fun. I have a whole array of steepers and such for the loose tea. Hoping to get a mini compost going soon so I can put the left over tea leaves to use as plant fuel!
As for types of tea I love everything. Herbal without caffeine for evenings, peppermint or ginger for tummy aches, and white or green teas when I need a detox kick. Black tea or maté for an energy boost. Depends on my mood and my needs. I now have to avoid any flavours with dairy ingredients so I do have to be a bit more limited but I manage to still enjoy a variety (varie-tea?)
Yunnan Sourcing if I have the funds, usually I just see what's fresh on the website and go from there -- if you live in the Northeastern United States Wegmans has a solid collection of teas.
I love tea! I volunteer at tea festivals and connect with lots of local tea shops and their owners, so I've got a lot of options. Roy Fong is the owner of the Imperial Tea Court at the SF ferry building, and he goes to Yunnan to source all the teas personally. It's pretty awesome. Asha in Berkeley does the same, and the SF branch has books with a record of their travels. Song Tea in SF is owned by the brother of Red Blossom in Chinatown, and the Taiwanese teas are top notch - and expensive.
I also subscribe to two monthly tea boxes: Rosali Tea, based in SF, and Teabook, based out of Seattle (I think). Rosa goes to China and Taiwan to work with small tea farms, and bases her subscription off of the tea drinker's personal preferences (caffeine level, general flavors, etc. - there's a quiz you can take for the monthly, or you can purchase teas a la carte). Teabook sends you a glass tumbler and fresh tea leaves that are individually packaged. You don't get a choice, and I've gotten the same teas on a regular cycle, but they are of fine quality and stay fresh because of their packaging. Both subscriptions are a joy to receive in the mail.
Lastly, Verdant Tea is my favorite online vendor. Their site boasts detailed information about the farmers, the harvest, and tasting notes, and their Jin Jun Mei is gorgeous.
Boss man is a loose tea nut, so the hot drink station at work always has a bunch of infusers and a half dozen mason jars of different teas. The office manager buys huge gallon bags, it's wild! I prefer the peach oolong most mornings, though there's a jar of pumpkin spice latte tea from PSL season last fall 😂
At home, my cupboard is a mishmash of different teas. The grocery store down the street supplied some Tazo blends for chamomile and Earl Grey. Some Thai iced tea packets and jasmine tea bags came from Chinatown. I'm especially glad to brew the jasmine pearls I brought back from a tea store in Beijing, and the Assam tea gifted to me from a trip to India.
I normally get my tea at my local grocer but I used to buy tea at a place called Teavana. I had received a gift card from a friend of mine on my birthday. I decided to buy a teapot and a few Tea's and they were really good. I went back to purchase more but I began to notice they took a particularly large chunk out of my small paycheck at the time and decided to go back to my local grocer. Every now and then I will splurge, but thats not often.
My favorite tea is Chamomile tea. (Lately I've really liked hibiscus tea though). I like to think i'm adventorous but I tend to always come back to Chamomile. Maybe I sound odd by saying this, but sometimes, deoending on the company I buy the chamomile from, it tastes a little different.
The only tea I haven't tasted that I really wanted to is Oolong Tea. Maybe this weekend!
It varies greatly.
My go-to teamakers are Smith Teamakers out of Portland, and Harney and Sons out of NY. For Smith, I tend towards Lord Bergamot, their take on Earl Grey, for black, and Fez, which is a minted and myrtled green. For Harney and Sons, I love their Citrus Blend with several slices of lemon for a lemon black tea, like you'd find in Hong Kong. Smith also regularly does a limited edition blend in conjunction with local chefs that's often quite amazing.
Other teamakers I like are Palais des The (their St. James is an amazing black tea...), T2 (out of Australia) for unusual, but tasty, blends. McNulty and Sons in NYC has some great finds, like their Szechuan Black, or their Milky Oolong, both great.
Teas are botanicals...which means that year over year, the blends will change somewhat. So I spend a lot of time trying small amounts of new teas and blends, occasionally buying stuff I really enjoy, because it may not be around forever!
I use Red Rose tea bags from the grocery to make iced tea. I have boxes of Celestial Seasonings Orange Zinger and Sleepy Time on the tea shelf beside some Numi Moroccan Mint and Choice Oolong and Darjeeling. My husband keeps peppermint tea around for the occasional upset stomach. There's a tea shop in Winston-Salem that carries puerh and we keep a wheel of that around, too. Coffee shops in the area tend to have some interesting blends available and we pick them up on occasion.
I make tea with fresh sweet mint from my flower bed and have 3 tea bushes (Camellia sinensis) growing in the front yard, but they haven't gotten be enough for me to try processing my own, yet.
I get tea from pretty much anywhere that will sell it to me. I've got tea from the grocery store, Teavana, a local tea shop called Queen's Pantry, and some blends I've ordered off Etsy.
I have a few default teas, but I do like to toss in an experimental tea every once in a while. Sometimes it doesn't work out well and sometimes I find a new favorite, like the Long Island Strawberry Green from QP.