TeaViews - A Tea Review Site with Forums

Gingko of Life in Teacup inspired me by a recent post about online tea communities to write some posts about tea communities myself. I decided to start by writing about TeaViews.


Teaviews is a group tea review website. The site has a team of reviewers, and solicits donations from tea companies which it then distributes to its reviewers, in a self-selecting process that pairs reviewers with the styles of tea that they most enjoy. The website has a blog-like format, and is indexed by brand and categories of different styles of tea. It also has a page for each reviewer so you can get a sense of where each reviewer is coming from in their approach of tea. Teaviews also has a tea discussion forum which is open to the public.

Teaviews is a well-established site, with reviews going back to mid-2007, and the forum goes back at least to early 2008. As of writing this post, Teaviews currently boasts 3,436 reviews of 2,539 different teas from 187 brands; currently the site lists 52 reviewers on their site.

What I like most about Teaviews:

• The process of pairing reviewers with types of tea that they prefer leads to positive, enthusiastic reviews.
• The website is attractive and easy to use.
• The number of reviews is extensive.
• The reviewers are independent of any tea company; because the site is not open to the public and is selective about its reviewers, the standard of quality of reviews is consistently high.
• The reviewers are a friendly bunch, and many are active on twitter and other websites.
• Although the forum is not the biggest or most active tea forum on the internet, I find that it is a very friendly place. I also like how the forum is a place where the general public can engage in discussion with the team of reviewers.

I'm a bit crazy in that I like participating in 16 billion different online communities...but if you haven't done so already, I'd recommend checking out Teaviews. I know I have an interest in one tea community website, but I think different sites have different strengths, and I would encourage everyone to look at all of what's out there.