A Tea Addict's Journal

Local selection

September 10, 2008 · 16 Comments

This is my local selection for tea — at a decent grocery store around here.

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Nothing to write home about, obviously, and nothing, I’m afraid, that I might even consider getting. I messed up the setting for my camera, but I think in some ways the overexposed and rather awful lighting sort of complements the teas nicely.

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16 responses so far ↓

  • Anonymous // September 10, 2008 at 9:47 pm | Reply

    Don’t you have enough tea already? :>

    Don’t make me send some more samples out there!

  • mulcahyfeldman // September 10, 2008 at 11:03 pm | Reply

    Looks like a typical Arkansas grocery store! You must continue on your quest to educate Americans about tea. We want to know! And we can’t find it at the local grocery. Eileen

  • Phyllo // September 11, 2008 at 1:06 am | Reply

    Ricola makes tea?!?!  Cough drop taste?

  • MarshalN // September 11, 2008 at 1:06 am | Reply

    Phyll — I was wondering the same thing when I saw Ricola….

  • Wesli // September 11, 2008 at 2:30 am | Reply

    *Hangs head in national shame*

  • MANDARINstea // September 11, 2008 at 10:02 am | Reply

    Running down to my local CVS and WholeFood to take picture now! This is Crazy!! Should we held a Photo Contest for such subject? Winner drink all those tea bags : P

  • sherabch // September 11, 2008 at 11:32 am | Reply

    I’m in. I already had a pic taken in WholeFoods tea section…. I’m posting it to my blog now. Actually, not all the tea bags are bad. Some, like Ineeka, have some pretty sophisticated inventions that make you feel better. Well, I’m not a fan of teabags. Just have to say, a tea bag is at least better than something I just saw on the TV comercial: “Green Tea Burners” and Green Tea fat burning gum or something like that. oh…. stop that chewing face!

  • Phyllo // September 11, 2008 at 11:42 am | Reply

    Toki — Haha!  Do you think they’ll let me set up a tripod…maybe umbrella flash units and a sexy model, too, in the store?  Hey, it’s a photo *contest*, right?

  • MarshalN // September 11, 2008 at 11:52 am | Reply

    Green tea burner!?

    Reminds me of those oolong for life ads I see online…

  • mulcahyfeldman // September 11, 2008 at 1:51 pm | Reply

    Actually, there might be some loose Twinings lurking in the photograph at the right. I’m in Florida now and the Whole Foods here has less of a selection than it has had in the past. There isn’t much of a selection anywhere here or at home in Arkansas. Grocery store tea is pretty much the same all over although on the whole (except for Whole Foods, pardon the redundancy) the selection is much better than it was 10 years ago. For now, I usually head for the nearest Asian market and generally can find something acceptable (although I worry about age and storage conditions) but then I’m a worrier. I almost always pack some loose tea when I travel. I forgot this time but Michael, Winnie and Dae saved me from a tealess fate and sent me some nice ones. Thank the powers that be for The Tea Gallery. And by the way, when in the Big Apple, I’ve learned to steer clear of that tea salon in the Chelsea Market. I think it might actually be called T Salon. The employees there know little of their stock and don’t seem to care to learn. I asked the manager some questions about some of their teas and she was downright rude. I purchased something there called Kudin Needle which they told me was green tea. It wasn’t. I think it is actually a Chinese herb for medicinal purposes and it was perhaps the bitterest substance I have ever tasted. Samples, anyone?

  • Anonymous // September 11, 2008 at 5:33 pm | Reply

    WOW! Looks like my local Super Walmart where I normally shop for groceries. But what a fun post, I think I may have to do the same for comparison.

  • MarshalN // September 11, 2008 at 5:39 pm | Reply

    In some ways it’s very telling the number of “Green Tea” there are….

    One can only imagine what’s actually in those bags.

  • mulcahyfeldman // September 11, 2008 at 8:34 pm | Reply

    Marshaln, you must continue on in the journey to educate the uneducated on the wonderful milieu of Wuyi and Puerh teas. The “health” information out there seems to indicate that the two are equal to green tea for health benefits and perhaps more so for Puerh because of the abundance of healthy microbes, yogurt in a tea cup so to speak but maybe better. I know this isn’t your primary agenda but maybe it can be a sidebar. By the way, what is that flag-like thing hanging down in the middle of the display? A collection of tea balls? For tea bags? Eileen

  • djn7304 // September 12, 2008 at 4:46 pm | Reply

    Interesting how the Luzianne brand here is marketed as “Salada” there, but Lipton is still Lipton.

  • MarshalN // September 12, 2008 at 4:50 pm | Reply

    @djn7304 – 

    Luzianne?

  • mulcahyfeldman // September 12, 2008 at 9:00 pm | Reply

    Luzianne is the cajun (Louisiana) version of bagged black tea resembling Lipton but perhaps more popular in the South. There may be a loose version (as there is for Lipton) but I didn’t know it was interchangeable with Salada in some geographic areas. Interesting. By the way, many of us got our tea start in the very stacks you photographed but we’ve found our way to better tea by trial and error and through blogs such as your own. Eileen

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