A Word of Caution – Tea Samples

In the previous entry “It's Good to Sample” I touched on the benefits of tea samples. To ensure that both sides are covered and a more complete picture is presented, in this entry I will offer some of the drawbacks and the negative aspect of samples.

Some of the really bad tea samples I have encountered have been quite horrendous. Tea can easily absorb odors and I have encountered foreign smells of plastic, chemicals and a variety of unpleasantness in the dried leaves. I have stopped getting surprised by what I find in my tea samples. The list including insects, hair, cigarette butts have all made their appearances. – This is not to say these problems won’t surface when placing a larger order of teacakes and tongs but it should be noted that many shops have separate first and secondary storage. The higher risk associated with samples is that some shops can be rather careless when it comes to their secondary storage of tea and this can compromise their tea samples.

It's Good to Sample

 

A collection of samples from a time when I was exploring some online offerings.

Samples can be used to serve many purposes with the most common function being to judge the quality of a tea for determining a purchase. To take this further, for puerh enthusiasts who are interested in the study and exploration of puerh tea sampling provides a cost effective and logistically astute way to widen your experiences and scout the vast puerh landscape. Sampling allows the avid tea drinker to probe the different categories of puerh tea and survey how the landscape can change over time without having to allocate substantial investment to acquire tea in a larger quantity.