Our Tea Buying Checklist (the Five Things We Look for When Sourcing)

Every few weeks, someone emails us asking if we'd like to carry their tea. They're usually a small tea grower, sometimes a tea importer, occasionally a tea blender. They send us samples. We taste the samples against our existing catalog. About 1 in 10 makes the cut.

This is the inside view of how we decide which teas make our catalog, the five things we look for in every tea we consider, and why most submissions don't make the cut.

Why we have a checklist

A catalog is a commitment. Once we add a tea, we're responsible for:

• Reordering it consistently. Customers who like the tea expect to be able to buy it again. We can't drop it after a season.
• Describing it accurately. The tasting notes on the website have to match the cup the customer gets at home.
• Stocking enough inventory. Running out of a popular tea is one of the worst customer experiences we can create.
• Pricing it appropriately. The price has to cover our costs and the importer's costs while staying competitive with the specialty market.

So we don't add teas casually. We taste, we evaluate, we compare to what we already have, and we only commit if the tea meets all five of our criteria.

The five things we look for

1. Distinctive cup character

The first question we ask: does this tea taste like anything in particular, or does it taste generic?

• Distinctive. A first flush Darjeeling with a clear muscatel note. A roasted oolong with a specific roasted-fruit character. A Sencha with a defined umami sweetness. These teas have a specific thing they're good at.
• Generic. A green tea that tastes "green-tea-like." A black tea that tastes "black-tea-like." A white tea that's just slightly sweet and floral without a defined character.

Generic teas don't make the cut. We can already buy a generic green tea, a generic black tea, a generic white tea. Adding another generic tea to the catalog doesn't expand what we offer.

Distinctive doesn't mean obscure. A distinctive tea can be a familiar style — a Ceylon breakfast black, a Japanese Sencha, a Chinese dragon well — as long as the specific cup character is clear and identifiable.

2. Quality at our price point

The second question: is the quality worth what we'd have to charge for it?

• At $15-20 per 100g. We need a tea that's noticeably better than what's available at the supermarket. The quality bar is "specialty-grade."
• At $20-30 per 100g. The tea should be exceptional. Cupping score should be 85+ on the Specialty Tea Institute scale.
• At $30-50 per 100g. The tea should be a single-origin, single-lot, often single-day-harvest. These are the teas we taste and think "this is the best of its kind I've ever had."

Most of our catalog sits in the $15-25 range. A few teas are $30+. Nothing is above $50 because we don't have the customer base for ultra-high price tier pricing.

The cost we pay the importer has to fit the price we'd charge. If a tea costs us $40/lb to buy and we need to sell it at $25/100g, the math doesn't work. We pass on the tea.

3. Distinct from our existing catalog

The third question: would this tea be redundant with what we already carry?

Our current catalog has:

• One Japanese green tea (Sencha).
• One Chinese green tea (Longjing-style).
• One matcha.
• One oolong (a roasted style).
• One black tea (a Yunnan Dian Hong).
• One herbal (hibiscus berry).
• One flavored fruit tea (mango treat).
• One white tea.

If someone submits a new Japanese green tea, we already have one. Unless the new submission is dramatically better, we pass. If someone submits a Sencha from a different region, we taste it. If it tastes notably different from our existing Sencha, we might add it. If it tastes the same, we pass.

The principle: every tea in the catalog should give the customer something they can't get from another tea in the catalog. If two teas are interchangeable, we only need one.

4. Supply chain reliability

The fourth question: can we get this tea consistently for at least a year?

• Single-lot teas. Beautiful, but they run out. We won't add a single-lot tea unless the grower has committed to producing it again next year.
• Seasonal teas. First flush Darjeelings, autumn flush high-mountain oolongs, etc. These are inherently seasonal. We add them if the customer understands they're seasonal and if the importer can guarantee supply for the season.
• Year-round teas. Ceylons, Assams, most Senchas, herbal teas. These should be available year-round. If a year-round tea is sometimes available and sometimes not, we pass.

We track our reordering rate. If we run out of a tea more than twice in a year, we either commit to buying more inventory or we drop the tea. Running out is bad for customers and bad for our reputation.

5. Sustainability and farmer relationship

The fifth question: do we know and trust the people who grow this tea?

• Importer transparency. Our main tea importers have direct relationships with growers. They visit farms regularly. They can tell us the grower's name, the cooperative structure, and what the grower needs.
• Direct cooperative visibility. For a few teas, we've visited the cooperative ourselves. We have a direct relationship with the people growing the tea. These teas have a special place in our catalog.
• Sustainability practices. We don't require organic certification (most small tea growers can't afford it), but we ask about pesticide use, water management, and worker treatment. Most of our tea importers can answer these questions.

If the importer can't tell us where the tea comes from or who grows it, we pass. If the grower uses practices we'd be uncomfortable with (we've passed on a few teas over labor concerns), we pass.

We don't claim "direct trade" on our packaging because we don't buy directly from growers. But we work with importers who do, and we describe those relationships as specifically as we can.

Why most submissions don't make the cut

We get samples from 20-30 tea growers and importers per year. We add 2-4 teas per year. The submissions that don't make the cut usually fail on one or more criteria:

• Generic cup character. The tea is fine but doesn't taste like anything specific. We already have a tea like this.
• Quality doesn't justify the price. The cup is good but not good enough for what we'd have to charge. A $15 tea that tastes like a $10 tea doesn't make the catalog.
• Redundant with existing catalog. The tea is interesting but overlaps with a tea we already carry. Adding it would be a duplicate.
• Supply chain uncertainty. The grower is small or the importer is new. We can't guarantee consistent supply. We pass and ask them to come back next year.
• Farmer relationship is unclear. The importer can't tell us where the tea comes from. We pass.

The most common reason for rejection is criterion 3 — redundancy. We already carry good versions of most tea categories. New submissions need to be distinct from what we have.

How we taste submissions

When a sample arrives, we go through a specific process:

• Blind taste. Three of us taste the sample without seeing the label. We each write our own cupping notes independently.
• Compare to existing catalog. We brew the sample alongside similar teas in our catalog. Does it stand out?
• Re-taste at 7 days. Fresh samples can taste different after they've had time to rest. We re-taste at 7 days.
• Discuss as a team. All three of us share our notes and decide together.

If the tea passes all five criteria, we add it to the catalog. If it passes four out of five, we ask the importer for clarification on the failing criterion before deciding.

How customers can use this checklist

If you're buying tea and trying to figure out whether to add it to your home rotation, the same five questions apply:

• Does it taste like anything specific? Distinctive or generic?
• Is the quality worth the price? Compare to what you already drink.
• Is it different from what you have? Would you drink this instead of something else, or in addition to?
• Will you be able to buy it again? Single-lot or year-round?
• Do you trust where it comes from? Can you ask the seller about the grower?

A tea that passes all five is a tea worth keeping in your rotation. A tea that fails one or more is a tea to drink occasionally rather than commit to.

Brew slow. Sip slow. — and if you've been considering adding a new tea to your home rotation, the five criteria above are how we decide. They work for customers as well as they work for us.

P.S. If you want to read about how we cup coffee and tea together when we're sourcing, how we taste-test new coffees walks through the cupping process. And if you're curious about the operational side of running a small catalog, our holiday shipping deadlines covers the timing behind getting teas from importer to your door.