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We live with the internet now
Buying tea on the internet has allowed many to access qualities and selections that they have never dreamed of. Maybe quality that they do not really know.Tea Search
Recently a reader told me he found a source for reasonable price Silver Needle tea and show me the link to an internet shop. I click on it and found out that what is labelled as Silver Needle is actually a White Peony, not even a white tea, but a green tea version. I have taken a screen shot and pasted down here for discussion.
Seriously Mislabeled
Now I do not know whether this shop has mislabeled that on purpose or they were themselves cheated by their suppliers. Either way that is a good example of the importance of you as a consumer need to really understand what you are buying. Why? The benefits and TCM properties of a white tea White Peony and a green version is totally different!Read:&It’s your Dollar
And one big reason: The price and the value you get for your dollar — a green tea White Peony wholesales now for less than 25% of a white tea Silver Needle.There are dishonest merchants out there and there are those who do not know what they are doing. Their sites maybe decorated with certification labels and “Fair” this and “Friendly” that. At the end of the day, it’s your tea intake, your dollar’s worth, and their profit margin.Smart up
Articles in the Tea Guardian may seem long, but the words there are for making you more intelligent as a consumer, and if you want to sell some tea, you better know even more than those words there. -
I think part of this happens because the tea shops themselves may not even know the difference. Case in point, for one Chinese tea seller on eBay with a quite large shop, a “white” Silver Needles was actually a green tea imitation. It looked exactly the same as a white Silver Needles, but with a green tint!
For U.S. buyers: on eBay, for 50g to 100g of white tea, a usual price seems to be in the range of $10-20 USD. Some special aged or premium quality white teas will cost more than this, naturally. But if you are paying significantly less than in this range, it is very likely that you are getting scammed with fake or low quality tea. If you find a reputable Chinese supplier on eBay, then you can have a reliable source of quality tea. Look carefully for a past history of good transactions, and also look for detailed photos of the actual tea leaves.
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Price ranges can be even greater than that and the quality differs so dramatically that what is supposed to be a tea with only leaf shoots can turn into a low grade White Peony. Some people even use African semi-oxidized teas with bits of leaf shoots for the label of white tea. I am amazed at the flexibility of moral level of the merchants and the vulnerability of the consumers.
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