The poet they probably shouldn’t have sent. I watch anime and am sometimes accused of reading books. I'm writing a long gay giant robot story in verse—probably this millennium's best yuri mecha epic poem, through lack of competition.


'Now praise those names on tombs of steel engraved | And toll this rotting country’s countless bells.'


smallcreature
@smallcreature

There was this thread a while ago that was full of recommendations, but it looks like these shops are mostly american, and i'd like to avoid shipping fees. I've stumbled upon a few UK-based shops that look nice, but I would also like to avoid getting charged extra for customs.

Ever since getting hooked on loose leaf tee I've mostly been buying from two french places:
Lu Shan (french language only) has a small but very qualitative selection. I've never been disappointed by anything I bought there, even though I only buy their lowest price-point teas.

Unami (french and english available) has a shop near me, which is handy, but their catalogue is very large and I don't always like the quality of their cheapest stuff (which is about the same price as the cheapest tea at Lu Shan). Their blends and flavored tea are also pretty mid.

So basically Lu Shan is great but I feel like I will soon have tasted everything from there that I can afford, and Unami is a bit hit-or-miss. I'd love to expand my list of tea shops, if anyone has any recs!


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in reply to @smallcreature's post:

I have been obsessed with Whittard's hot chocolates for about 15 years now, and all of the coffees and loose teas I've tried from them have been very good too. They ship worldwide but I don't know if they have any warehouse outside the UK (they used to have a lot of shops throughout Europe). If they don't you'll get hit with import fees from orders over £30 😕

Tealyra has very good single origin teas, although they're quite expensive. Palais des Thes has some really nice blends, and also some decent single origin teas. Bird and Blend run a bit sweet and gimmicky for me, but their advent calendar of tea is the best imo. (Mostly cause that's when you kinda want sweet and gimmicky. Their sticky chais are also very good.)

Thanks! I'm not a "sweet and gimmicky blends" kind of person, mostly because blends with strong smell/taste tend to give me an allergy-like reaction (I'm thankfully immune to a good earl grey or chai massala though), but I'll keep it in mind! I only knew Palais des Thés for their blends, but looking it up it seems they have an interesting selection of single origins, I'll have to try that out sometimes. Also they sell infusions of wood??? I love a good woody taste so this might be my cup of tea (pun intended)