TeaChat

well they sent me my refund for shipping the day that I emailed them so good on that

But...how long does it usually take for an order to arrive from them?
On the website it says

Shipping methods India Speed Post (15 Days Delivery) is an extended service from Postal Department of India. They have a tie-up with different International Postal services and promises to deliver within a span of 7 - 14 days.

How long have you all waited for your thunderbolt orders?

Where are you located? It usually takes 3 days for it to be delivered to Thailand but we are close.

Wow just 3 days you are so lucky
Im in south east USA so I expect 2 weeks...
Hope customs didn't snag it

Got my teas from thunderbolt today, it took 12 days to sweden. The customs had open one of my bags though : (

Amazing teas btw

Just placed an order with Thunderbolt. I've ordered from (and been very happy with) Tea Emporium in the past, but waited too long this year and now the Castleton Moonlight is sold out there. Interested to see how my first experience with Thunderbolt goes.

shah82 wrote:Lochan tea is best for budget, if you just want good enough Darj. Tea Emporium and Thunderbolt are on another level, tho' cheaper than euro outlets, that's for sure...

For sure?
Please have a look at www.teekampagne.de. They sell pure and authentic Darjeeling tea even cheaper. 8€ for 250g.

man.. $60 min order from thunderbolt for free shipping? sigh. Anyone willing to buy $60 worth of whatever at your choice and sell me $20 worth + ship to me?

Finally!
Tea arrived yesterday but mail man has the knock of a ninja so now I need to go to office to pick it up

Today marks one month since the day I placed my order
Why so long? we shall see when I pick up the package.
I'm betting it is worth the wait though

stainless wrote:man.. $60 min order from thunderbolt for free shipping? sigh. Anyone willing to buy $60 worth of whatever at your choice and sell me $20 worth + ship to me?

Let me check out the order and get back to you k, u are in US right?

churng wrote: Let me check out the order and get back to you k, u are in US right?

Canada actually.

From the packaging/stamps/labels it appears that my tea took about a week to pass through indian customs
From there it took another 14-16 days to arrive. Nothing was opened so I am very grateful

Some first impressions...
-leaves are smaller then I imagined, those photos are really zoomed in
-Arya diamond 2nd flush is very clean in appearance and feeling
-so many things remind me of oriental beauty in the 3 I have tried so far
-generous sized sample (20g) of one of their higher priced first flushes 2011
-enjoy looking at the jungle of multicolor wet leaves

Package from Lochan arrived in literally 3 days. Fedex opened one package (thankfully it was the free masala chai). For the price, I would say it is pretty decent. I picked up two first flushes, a sourenee estate and the thurbo estate.

churng wrote:These 3 I am considering to order from.
In paticular thunderbolt and tea emp.
I saw the packaging pics Victoria posted about tea emporium and they look fantastic. But then I look at the pictures of the leaf and they mostly do not look as whole as thuderbolts.

Does anyone have a preference one over the other? Care to say why?
My guess from browsing websites is that lochan is not as good as these 2. Has their website design fooled me?

I have tried getting my teas from Thunderbolt and DarjeelingTeaXpress. I find both their teas real good though the DarjeelingTeaXpress' level of service is way better!

...how so?

While ordering, I had some additional inquiry and chatted with their live customer support which immediately helped me and sorted my issue. Next time, their customer support live chat was not online, so I left a message and a member of their support team got in touch with me promptly and solved my queries. I am fan of their vacuum packaging - preserves the freshness.