Flingin’ Poo

So, I am bored on a rainy Saturday and decide to fire up the AppleTV and watch a few podcasts. I ran across the Seven Cups Fine Chinese Tea Podcast. There are 9 on the iTunes Music Store and 27 on their Web site – I watched them all. Production quality is lacking, but they are very informative. This led me to their web site.

Website

Though the site design is only a year old, it feels a bit dated. Navigation can sometimes be difficult since the nested menus often disappear prior to selection. That said, you can always click on the top level navigation and the nested links will be shown as a list on the left hand side. Though the site is not really disorganized, it feels disorganized which says something about the design.
Clicking through the site will give you an education on tea, like no other tea site I have found. These guys know tea! From their blog, to their forum, to their informative podcasts, to their tea tours, these guys mean to educate.

Clicking on the Tea Shop link brings you to one of the finest online tea shops I have found. Yea, there are others that look slicker, but not many have the teas, not only broken down by type (green, yellow, white, etc.), but broken down by location, as in providence. These guys want you to know where your tea comes from! They not only provide a description, but they show the year it was made, when it was harvested, the tea master, picking standard, brewing vessel, brewing instructions, and number of infusions you should expect. They have even gone through the trouble to figure out the best way to photograph the tea so the detail and color are an excellent representation of what you get; if they could only work out olfactory representation, that would be epic.

The ordering process is strait forward. The only complaint about the ordering process is that you need to sign up for an account, you can’t just purchase as a guest. Even this process was mostly painless and did not cause any issues with shopping cart. They accept all major credit cards as well as PayPal – Bonus!

Communication

Dec 23, 2008: Moments after registering for the site and then placing my order I received a registration confirmation and in a separate email my invoice confirming my order was being processed.
Dec 24, 2008: The next day I received an email confirming 2nd day air shipment, including a tracking number. Now I understand it is Christmas and this is not really a fair time to test the delivery speed of ANY company, but I actually received it a day earlier than UPS stated. Win!

Packaging

The box came well packed. Each tea was packaged in a resealable foil bag. The two samplers I purchased were also packaged in resealable foil packs and then placed together in a larger paper package. Each foil pack has, what appears to be, an ink-jet label on the front with the name and weight of the tea, and a generic label on the back containing brewing instructions for each type of tea. Simple strait forward no frills.

Product

I purchased the following teas:
Rock Oolong Tea Sampler

1. Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) Light Roast Rock Oolong 10g
2. Shui Jin Gui (Golden Water Turtle) Rock Oolong 10g
3. Imperial MeiZhan Light Roast Rock Oolong 10g
4. Premium Rou Gui Rock Oolong 10g
5. Lao Cong (Old Bush) Shui Xian Rock Oolong 10g
6. Eight Immortals (Organic) 10g

Famous Chinese Tea Sampler

1. Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) Medium Roast Rock Oolong 10g
2. Jun Shan Yin Zhen (Silver Needle) Yellow Tea 10g
3. Shi Feng Long Jing (Shi Feng Dragon Well) Green Tea 10g
4. Imperial Huangshan Mao Feng Green Tea (Organic) 10g
5. Imperial Bi Luo Chun Green Tea 10g
6. Spring Dawn Keemun Black Tea (Organic) 10g

2008 Jasmine Pearls Scented Tea
2008 Meng Ding Huang Ya (Yellow Buds) Yellow Tea
2008 Da Hong Pao (Big Red Robe) Rock Oolong

The tea arrived in great shape. The 2008 Da Hong Pao, which is the first one I have gotten into, arrived with very few fannings – not bad for cross country shipment. I will be reviewing each tea as I get to them and posting links to the reviews in this post, so stay tuned.

Summary

Seven Cups is an excellent tea purveyor. Their site is very informative, but could use some interface redesign. Their selection of tea is outstanding – something for every budget. I have seen their podcasts and know that the retail store carries a lot of tea-wares and wish their online store was equally diverse. On a side note, I would be great if they would continue churning out podcasts – the ones they have done so far, though “low-budget” have been informative.
Checkout is mostly painless, but I feel you should be able to buy tea without “signing up” for an account. That said, I am glad I have an account because it is very likely that I will be doing business with them in the near future.

UPDATE 1/29/09: On Jan 22nd 2009, Seven Cups launched a site redesign. It is mostly cosmetic, but it makes it a bit easier to navigate the site. Drop-down menus now work as expected. I did run into some issues with the shopping cart dropping items when I tried to order. I tried to replicate the issue and have, so far, not been able to duplicate the it so perhaps it was a fluke.

Rating should be updated to 4.75. I am giving them a 4 for the web site because though it has been updated, I still feel that the site is a bit cluttered; looks nicer, but still a bit cluttered.

Since I am updating this post, I would like to add that they, more specifically the owner Austin, take great pride in their product and Internet presence. Their customer service and follow-up are exceptional. I have had several email exchanges with one of the owners (Austin) who seems down to earth and interested in developing relationships with his customers – great for repeat business.

Since this post I have purchased 3 more Puer’s and another 50g of 2008 Da Hong Pao (Literal Translation: “Andrew’s brand of Heroin”). I have a series of reviews I am preparing, but I am also working on a new site to host my tea reviews, will post a link when it is up.