One thing about tea-as-a-business that stressed me out was the question of how to handle situations where I’ve found a truly exceptional tea, and I want to share it with people, but I have no wholesale access.
If people are at a tea shop, and taste something they really like, they’re often disappointed if they can’t take some home for themselves. So, do I buy a large quantity at retail price, and then just sell it at a loss (or break-even point)? What if nobody does end up buying it? Then I’m left with a huge amount of a tea I can’t drink fast enough… It takes up budget, space, and caffeine-consumption capacity I could have devoted to something else.
To be honest, that’s one reason I ended up focusing almost exclusively on aged and ageable teas. I mean, also that I love aged teas — I probably love them most of all — but there are good seasonal teas, as well!
I drank a mind blowing Qímén in (I believe it was) 2012, in Paris. It was the Roi du Keemun1 from Mariage Frères, and it remains one of the formative tea experiences of my life. It was an almost too-rich brew; one that could make you feel a little funny in the head, like you’d actually eaten something so custardy and dense that you need to lie down for a little bit.
I subsequently ordered a second batch of that tea, from another harvest several years later, and — very sadly — it did not repeat its former glory. But that first one was so good, and so memorable, that I want to keep trying; maybe someday the stars will again align…
If that does happen (and, really, even if it doesn’t; it’s still a spectacular hóngchá), I want to be able to share the experience with you. (And to do so with no pressure for either of us to consider my so-called bottom line. : )
- “Keemun” was a popular transliteration from pre-Pinyin times — it’s still probably the one that’s most widely used, but you’ll see all sorts of things, most of which are not very accurate. 🤷🏻♀️ ↩︎