Where to buy Organic Chinese tea?

[Bakkoi]

I'm looking for places online that sell very high-end organic Chinese tea, particularly oolong and greens other than Dragon Well. I am willing to pay top dollar if it's a reputable vendor.

I tried to use the forum search to find other similar such threads, as I'm sure I'm not the first person to ask this, but I haven't been able to come up with anything.

[iannon]

Teaspring is fairly solid..dont think they have any organic LJ but they do have probably about a dozen other chinese teas that are Organic

[procarel]

I have purchased dragonwell and silver needle white tea from Twohillstea. They claim that their tea is organic. I don't know if that is true or not but I have enjoyed the tea that I have purchsed from them. The quality and price is very good.

[JRS22]

Seven Cups sells high end Chinese teas and many are marked as organic. The owners are a married couple. The wife is from China and has extensive training in tea growing and brewing. They travel to China to purchase tea and know their sources. They don't yet have a full complement of 2011 teas yet though.

[DoctorD]

Teaspring is good, as is Seven Cups, but don't overlook yunnan.sourcing.com, unless "high end" = " high price." Puerh is their big thing (and ain't mine), but they have several dozen greens and oolongs on offer, most if not all organic, and the half-dozen greens I've sampled have been remarkably good. Prices are reasonable to the point of being embarrassing.

[Winnie_ther_pu]

Totally agree. I just tried Yunnan Sourcing's Organic Bi Luo Chun and it is really good and packs a punch. I was steeping it with the amount of leaf that I would normally use and it was too much. The guy at YS told me use 1/2 as much and it was GREAT! And it was only $9.90 for 150g of fresh green! I can't even find stale good tea for that much in Seattle.

[meatyard]

Take a look at Tea Trekkers list of organics from black to Pu-erh with greens & Oolongs in the middle.
http://www.teatrekker.com/shop/organic-tea/

[woozl]

Take a look at Tea Trekkers list of organics from black to Pu-erh with greens & Oolongs in the middle.
http://www.teatrekker.com/shop/organic-tea/

+1

[sherubtse]

Seven Cups sells high end Chinese teas and many are marked as organic. The owners are a married couple. The wife is from China and has extensive training in tea growing and brewing. They travel to China to purchase tea and know their sources. They don't yet have a full complement of 2011 teas yet though.

+1

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[sherubtse]

Teaspring is good, as is Seven Cups, but don't overlook yunnan.sourcing.com, unless "high end" = " high price." Puerh is their big thing (and ain't mine), but they have several dozen greens and oolongs on offer, most if not all organic, and the half-dozen greens I've sampled have been remarkably good. Prices are reasonable to the point of being embarrassing.

Yunnan Sourcing seems to be an interesting company. I presume that because they source (all?) their teas from Yunnan, they are cheaper than those whose origins are more conventional areas.

I have seen a similar occurrence at a local tea store, which sells whites from Sri Lanka. As a result, their price is substantially lower.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[JRS22]

+2 on Tea Trekker. All their teas are available in 14 gm sample sizes. Also, for those of us from the USA, they're "local", so shipping is faster than orders from China. Jing is one of my favorite sources, and they ship quickly, but by the time I receive the tea I feel like it was a gift!

[sherubtse]

+2 on Tea Trekker. All their teas are available in 14 gm sample sizes.

Yes, the fact that a company sells tea in sample sizes (even if they cost a bit more than they would on a pro rated basis) is a real plus for me too. I have too often bought 50 - 100 grams of tea that I later discovered was not to my liking.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[Poohblah]

Yunnan Sourcing seems to be an interesting company. I presume that because they source (all?) their teas from Yunnan, they are cheaper than those whose origins are more conventional areas.

I would consider Yunnan to be a "conventional" tea growing area. Tea is one of the most popular crops in Yunnan, along with tobacco and rice. Maybe Yunnan doesn't grow as much tea as, say, Jiangsu province or Fujian province, or maybe Yunnan doesn't have as many name-teas as the famous mountains of Fujian. I don't know if both these things are true, but even if they are, then I would still say Yunnan is a "conventional" tea-growing area. Tea has been growing in Yunnan for centuries. Certainly it is more conventional than Hawaii or new Zealand, where there have just recently sprung up some tea farms, or even India, where tea was not cultivated until the British arrived.

P.S. Yunnan province is best known for Pu'er cha, hailing from the town of the same name, and as you can probably tell, Pu is the most popular tea sold on Yunnan Sourcing.

[sherubtse]

Yunnan Sourcing seems to be an interesting company. I presume that because they source (all?) their teas from Yunnan, they are cheaper than those whose origins are more conventional areas.

I would consider Yunnan to be a "conventional" tea growing area.

You are of course correct: Yunnan *is* a conventional tea growing area, but not for all the types of tea listed on the Yunnan Sourcing website. Usually, and for most people, Yunnan is known for the puerhs, not for such teas as greens, & whites. Hence, in my view, it is a non-conventional area for those teas.

Of course, a wide range of teas have been grown in Yunnan for many years, but the area is not the place from which most tea drinkers usually source their non-puerhs.

In fact, I think that some traditionalists would even argue that it is incorrect to label teas from Yunnan as green, white, etc. due to the nature of the cultivars located there.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[Winnie_ther_pu]

Though I may have agreed with the criticism of Yunnan teas other than puer several years ago...nay, even ridiculed someone for trying them, these days I would give pause. Whereas all teas made 4 or more years ago in Yunnan tasted (regardless of their name or style) like puer, these days they range anywhere from drinkable to excellent. I would consider some of them 'elegant fakes' when I taste something of the tea that they are designed to mimic in them.

How anyone could argue,

that it is incorrect to label teas from Yunnan as green, white, etc. due to the nature of the cultivars located there.

is beyond me. I might agree with someone who said that a bi luo chun from Yunnan is not really BLC, but that is as far as that argument can logically go. Green, oolong and black classifications are based on oxidation, not location. White is based on the age of the leaf and the lack of kill-green.

It is a non-conventional tea area for many of China's famous teas, but these days produces better teas than some of the lower/middle grades from the conventional areas.

Yunnan Sourcing teas are cheaper because they don't over-charge as many companies do, they ship from the source, and YS completely abhors speculative tea sales. That, and the high quality of practically everything I get from them, is why I enjoy their greens.This year the Pure Bud Bi Luo Chun is AWESOME. I describe it as 'tea-hair juice'

This topic is great. I am looking forward to trying tea-trekker, too!