Teavana Experience

On Sunday I went to the Teavana in Charlotte NC to pick up some Keemun and Lung Ching. I was not impressed. The saleswoman tried to get me to buy their Golden Monkey tea which was about $10 per ounce for a Flowery Orange Pekoe grade, then pressed me to buy a yixing teapot, and prompted me to buy a few more ounces of the Keemun and lung ching. So after all of that, I tried the tea and am certainly wiser for it (and poorer), and have decided to buy online from now on. The Keemun was smoky, savory, and bland. The lung ching hasn't fared better. Has anyone had good experiences with Teavana Chinese teas or is this chain the Starbucks of tea?

PS Does anyone know if the salespeople work on commission or sales of their expensive teas?

I have never shopped there, but from the sounds of it the salespeople are on a commission, or rather un-knowledgeable.

If you don't like pushy staff, don't visit China!

Joking aside, it sounds rough and rather unpleasant. I thought that I had heard vaguely good things about this shop before, but I'm probably mistaken.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

I used Teavana when I first started drinking green tea but quickly found other sources for better quality and more reasonably priced tea. In my opinion, they prices are pretty dear.

You can't beat the good ol' Internet for tea.

Yeah, Teavana was my intro to tea, and they were a great info resource. She spent a lot of time with me, and I got to try some different mixes which I couldn't do online. I really like there Queens of Babylon white tea. But, yeah I think Adagio is where I'll go from now on.

My mom gave me a sampler of their teas, but it was all teas blended with other flavoring agents, which isn't my style. Leave the fruits and herbs and stuff out of mine please (oil of bergamont excepted). As a result I haven't been able to truly judge the quality of their teas. Sounds like I'm not missing too much.

You have to take into account, just like AOS, they have very high overhead costs. These are then passed onto the customer. And they will sometimes find staff members that aren't exactly well informed.

The Mate Vana is very good. Not actual tea leaves, very good flavor. I think it's worth trying.

If you don't like pushy staff, don't visit China!

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big plus one +1 on that Was in Hong Kong pre 1997, what memories of grand capitalism

I can't stand shopping in China - you have to barter for everything, which is exhausting. The pushiness of the staff ("you buy this!") is the least of my worries there I think.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

Hobbesoxon said:

I can't stand shopping in China - you have to barter for everything, which is exhausting. The pushiness of the staff ("you buy this!") is the least of my worries there I think.


Toodlepip,

Hobbes

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Really?

I have spent a lot of time in China and find them to be pretty easy going folks. Saying that, most of my time has been spent in small towns in the middle of nowhere. I don't recall ever haggling over prices and the last time I went shopping my interpreter asked what I had paid for my goods. I told him how much and he said "oh good, chinese prices, mei wenti(no problem)"

My time in bigger cities, I must admit, was slightly more hectic and pushy but not to the point of being exhausting.

China rocks in a sort of weird communist way.

Cheers

Mat

Well, I know of online tea vendors like specialteas.com and adagio.com, but which one would you guys recommend?
And do you guys prefer guywans or yixing pots for tea?

Gaiwan are good for general brewing, yixing are handy for when you know you're going to be drinking a certain tea for the foreseeable future.

I would recommend gaiwan first as it's so versatile and then picking up yixing as you identify love affairs with specific teas.

For online suppliers I've found funalliance.com a good starting place. Jingteashop.com, Teaspring.com and, one that seems to be rather popular around these parts atm, Yunnan Sourcing on ebay are good for a variety of tea. If you've got cash to splash then HouDeAsianArt.com might be worth a look, although a bit of digging at Teaspring or Jing can cost a pretty penny.

We have both a Teavana and Lupicia (http://www.lupiciausa.com) local. My cousin is a tea drinker and he seems to be more pleased with Lupicia. Anyone else heard of the place? Might be West Coast only.

So, i found Teavana at Tyson's Corner (DC/Northern Va). It is a great intro to good tea and great for SWMBO and I to try a variety, some pretty bland, others phenomenal.

I found the staff very friendly and knowledgeable. We got a Chai blend, then I thought "Hmmm some Earl Grey is fairly cheap and must be better than the bags I have" "Oh if you like Earl Grey, Golden Monkey is THE best black tea".

Right next to us, a lady was buying these neat little tea balls--OOOH They flower and bloom, how cool!

So any way, $114 later (but I got a 10% discount ), I have a grand supply of tea (and I'm primarily a coffee drinker but SWMBO likes teabags). I was simultaneously excited and felt swindled, too. Then I get home and see my $50 worth of Golden Monkey and the tiny bit teaspoon worth I'll use each time--Wow this is going to last a LONG time.

So, this morning I'm trying the Golden monkey, it's good. I'm happy and our goal at Tyson's was to spend money (though I thought it would be at LL Bean--post xmas sales and gift cards etc).

I am very happy to see less expensive online options now. I want some Jasmine Pearls, that was really good, too!

R-James said:

I have never shopped there, but from the sounds of it the salespeople are on a commission, or rather un-knowledgeable.

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I stopped by my local shop the other day. I would have to agree with the original post. From my personal experience, the staff was pretty un-knowledgeable and were just stuck on pushing as much product out as possible. Another thing I noticed was the complete disregard for storing tea properly. One of the large scoops that they were using to sort the tea was dripping wet. As most of us know, moisture+tea in storage is a bad thing.

So overall, my experience with Teavana has been so-so.

This thread over on TeaChat might be of interest for those wanting to read an employees account of working at Teavanna.

Wow, they must have really hated me. I spoke with them about tea and tried a few, but did not buy. I just wanted to see what they had.

That's a very interesting story of the ex-employee.

In hindsight I can see so much of the sales strategy in my visit. Even at the time I pretty well knew I was being "sold", but I didn't let them convince me i "needed" a better teapot for $150 (even if the cool cast iron one is what I gravitated towards). Top down selling is extremely common in retail, so I'm not surprised at all about that part of the strategy. What gets me is why they even offer a tea bar if they don't want to sell it

I'm very happy to have tried some good tea there, splurged a bit, and now know a little more of what I'm looking at when I visit online site.

netsurfr said:

I used Teavana when I first started drinking green tea but quickly found other sources for better quality and more reasonably priced tea. In my opinion, they prices are pretty dear.

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Teavana sales reps always were nice and not pushy. They just usually don't know much.

I too started drinking loose leaf tea there. They are pricey and their tea is subpar.

Also they phased out the lower priced green teas. I don't want to pay $10/ lb for tea.

Upton tea has better tea and half the price.