Transparency in the Tea Industry

[sherubtse]

Here are a few articles from Verdant Tea on transparency in the tea industry:

http://verdanttea.com/transparency-in-t ... water-air/

http://verdanttea.com/transparency-in-t ... -of-labor/

http://verdanttea.com/transparency-in-t ... -shipping/

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[William]

Nice articles, thanks for sharing!

[Chip]

Very interesting and ... tea for thought.

[bonescwa]

Transparency... that's rich, coming from them. But good information

[hopeofdawn]

Transparency... that's rich, coming from them. But good information

Why do you say that? I've personally found Verdant's teas not to not taste nearly as good as their reviews make them sound, but I've never seen any reason to doubt the veracity of their sourcing ... have you heard different?

[BW85]

Nice explanation of the whole process.

I think it's a little too presumptuous though when he said verdant has the freshest teas in the world... The article is most likely aimed at newer tea drinkers in the US so of course he's not going to mention anything about all the online vendors in China/Taiwan/Japan and elsewhere who would have fresh teas without the same export expenses, thus better prices for the same quality. Plus freshness only matters with certain teas.

I've personally never been impressed with there tea. I think it's marketed as more than it is. Granted, in terms of US based vendors they're not horrible... A lot of garbage gets sold in the states, as I'm sure it does everywhere

[kyarazen]

if i didnt remember wrongly in the 2011/2012 zhong guo cha jing, a government driven publication, it was published that minus all human and labour costs, distributor profit networks, the actual cost of the tea is about 10% of the price to which it is purchased in the domestic market.

and considering that prices overseas are about twice or thrice of that of the domestic market, this brings the margin even wider.

food for thought

[bonescwa]

Transparency... that's rich, coming from them. But good information

Why do you say that? I've personally found Verdant's teas not to not taste nearly as good as their reviews make them sound, but I've never seen any reason to doubt the veracity of their sourcing ... have you heard different?

Their nonsense marketing and complete denial of a profit motive. It was more prominent a couple years ago.

[bonescwa]

http://teacloset.blogspot.com/2012/06/2 ... s.html?m=1

[hopeofdawn]

Ah, that's probably why I hadn't heard that before--I don't drink puerh or buy aged teas, for the most part.

[mcrdotcom]

Whatever about the little scandal from a few years back, their tea is in general quite nice and the tea of the month club excellent value for what you get. I'm not a fan of the over done taste descriptions but I've always felt that stemming from a genuine passion for tea, especially watching David's first videos on YouTube before Verdant kicked off!

Their tea isn't amazing quality, but it's more than drinkable and enjoyable, and they have some interesting buys as well (Loashan green and black for example). Perhaps people can be a little too unforgiving

I think the articles are interesting and certainly aimed at American tea drinkers, and to be fair, they probably have some of the fresher teas in America... As they do a lot of business with fresh TGY and green tea this is a major issue for them!

[hster]

It's not worth my effort to go into detail but their puerh selections are still overpriced:

2006 Yongming Sheng 1oz $12= $151 cake (357g or 12.5oz).
2010 Shu puerh 1oz $8=$100 cake making it more expensive than 2010 Menghai Golden Needle White Lotus ($80)

Why beat a dead horse. If people want to pay such prices- good for them for supporting someone's dream.