I've never thought of Upton and Specialteas as "upscale". True, they
have better stuff than you'd find at a grocery store, but not nearly
the quality (or prices) you'd find at In Pursuit of Tea, Imperial Tea
Court, or Silk Road Teas, to name but a few.

I'm of the thinking that Specialteas and Upton are very good
compromises between the "bankrupt-yourself" upscale sites and the
generic stuff in grocery stores.

BTW, I hear that Specialteas is far better with green, but Upton
specializes with black tea. DON'T get any of Upton's samplers (you can
find my full rant on the Google r.f.d.t archives). In short, the tins
are horrible, it's too much tea for a "sample", and the teas are not
always representative. Check out
http://www.normbrero.com/cgi-bin/vie....cgi?pageId=10 (in fact,
check out that entire site).

Have fun,

ZBL

Gregory Allen-Anderson > wrote in message >...
> Volfie "I got your nose!" Jackson wrote:
> > Are there any online sites that you use for buying loose tea? I'd just like
> > orange pekoe without the bag, thanks. We used to be able to skip across the
> > border to Canada to buy Red Rose but it's getting harder and harder to find
> > it in the loose form.
> >
> > Any good sites online will be appreciated.
> >
> > Giselle
> >
> >
>
> People have given you a couple of suggestions for upscale teas online,
> so I won't add to that. But I did want to mention that if you are not
> looking for hi end tea, just grocery store type loose tea, you can
> probably find that in pretty much any size city by going to an 'ethnic'
> food store. Indian or middle eastern stores are likely to have black
> tea, and asian stores green tea. These won't be nearly of the quality
> that one can get from Uptons or Specialteas, but they can be quite
> servicable, a lot cheaper, and no waiting.