More Is Not Better: How To Balance Freshness and Turnover for Small Tea Companies

This page highlights a business mistake that I see dozens of small tea businesses, mainly small tea shops and tea houses, making. This is carrying too many teas. But beyond just recommending small companies to carry fewer teas, I also want to provide deeper advice about how to effectively manage your stock of teas when you have a small turnover. This advice comes both from my experience as a tea shopper, my experience working with tea businesses through RateTea, and my past experience working in retail establishments -- many of these issues are the same for any business that sells perishable goods.

I will be the first to admit that I love a good selection. My favorite tea company, Upton Tea Imports, has a huge selection (currently over 480 teas), but selection is always less important than other factors, including quality and price.



Above is a picture I took this past October, in Cups and Chairs Tea Shop in Philadelphia, which I reviewed in that earlier post. This photo shows 61 teas, in glass jars. The actual tea that is used for brewing or for sale is stored in airtight, opaque tins, but these small samples are exposed to light in this bright storefront, leading them to degrade in color and aroma.

Given the relatively low traffic in this store, I can't help but wonder how much turnover in the teas this company has. I strongly suspect that this store may be incurring losses associated with carrying more teas than can be justified by its level of traffic, as I explain below.

You need a high turnover to justify a large catalog:

The main problem with a large catalog is freshness. Tea does not stay fresh indefinitely. A higher turnover can justify a larger catalog, because more of your company's teas will sell out, and you can keep them fresh by frequent restocking with fresh batches.

Offering a huge selection of teas for sale might initially excite people, but, once those initial batches of tea go stale, you will either be faced with a large loss from products you did not sell, or a dying business as you fail to impress people with your stale tea. Tea that is not fresh is not going to keep people coming back to your store, and it's not going to attract die-hard tea enthusiasts who are likely to do some free work for you, promoting your business. In order to retain customers, you need high-quality tea.

Balancing selection and freshness when you have low turnover:

If you run a small tea company and are struggling with low turnover, there are several things you can do to achieve an optimal balance between selection and freshness of your teas:

• Put more care in choosing which teas to sell, so that you can get the most mileage out of a smaller selection. I offer detailed advice on this topic in my recent post about choosing which teas to sell.
• Throw out stale tea rather than selling it. While this results in a short-term loss, it avoids the negative results of selling stale tea, which can turn customers away and result in permanent or long-term losses.
• Use sales and deep discounts to sell tea before it goes stale - If you find yourself stuck with a batch of something that is not selling, put a deep discount on it so that it sells out, and try to empty it out of your stock before it goes stale. This allows you to recover some of the loss, without disappointing a customer with stale tea. Discounting can sometimes also draw in new customers hunting for a bargain.
• Highlight teas that are not selling before you need to discount them - If it looks like you are going to end up with a batch of tea that you might be tempted to discount, try highlighting it in your store or catalogue. There was probably a reason you chose to carry it in the first place, so it is likely that if you draw attention to it so that your customers buy it, someone will enjoy it.
• Order smaller quantities of each tea, so that you can order more frequently even if your turnover is low. This also minimizes any losses from throwing out or discounting stale tea. Although smaller quantities tend to cost more, you will tend to save money if you manage to keep your orders close to the amount you actually sell. If your wholesaler doesn't sell in quantities small enough to work for your constraints, find a source that does; the smallest shops, and tea rooms, can even consider buying some tea from a company that focuses on retail, as these tend to offer smaller quantities. Keep in mind, you can sell teas from a variety of different sources.
• Rotate and vary selections rather than keeping your whole catalog in stock at all times. This allows you to provide greater variety to your customers, without incurring the greater costs of keeping more teas in stock. You will notice that even many companies with a large selection, like Upton, frequently vary their offerings.
• Be okay with selling out of less popular teas - If you are effective at managing your catalog, you can effectively avoid almost all waste. Throwing out tea, selling stale tea, or offering a deep discount, are all generally worse outcomes than temporarily selling out of a product. If a product is popular, you can keep it both fresh and continuously stocked. But if the product is not popular, people will be much less likely to miss it while you restock. Estimate the amount of tea that people are buying and then under-stock the more esoteric teas to avoid waste. Focus on keeping your popular teas stocked, and always having enough of a selection to keep your catalog interesting, and you'll be fine. In some cases, under-stocking teas could even impress customers because they may be more likely to perceive a tea as rare or difficult to obtain. And tea connoisseurs will understand and appreciate that you don't over-order because you value freshness and and want to keep your waste to a minimum.

I'd probably still discourage a small tea shop, tea room, or tea bar from selling as many as 61 varieties of tea, unless they had an exceptionally high turnover. The Ten Ren store in Chinatown in New York can get away with this. A small tea shop in a small town, or even a small tea shop in a peripheral part of a medium-sized city, probably cannot. But, if you are clever, you can find ways to achieve both selection and freshness. The same goes for small online companies: if you have little sales volume, don't carry hundreds of teas, because you won't be able to keep them both fresh and in stock.

If you want some inspiration, in the form of examples of companies stocking fewer teas, I'll point to Little Red Cup, Chan Teas, and Min River Tea Farm. These three companies have taken a more minimalist approach to their catalogue, probably in large part due to the constraints discussed in this post. Even having never tried any of their teas, I'd be more likely to guess that their teas are higher in quality than other similarly small companies with huge catalogs.

What do you think?

What are your experiences with tea shops and online tea companies? Are you often turned off by companies that display a huge selection but below-average quality or freshness? What do you think the optimal amount of selection is for a small brick-and-mortar store? And if you run a tea business, whether one with a storefront, or a strictly online or mail-order store, how do you deal with these issues? Do you find the advice offered here to be useful and the reasoning valid?

TeaChat Discussion of Extra Dried Tea, and TeaVivre's Xin Yang Mao Jian

This post is in reply to a thread on the TeaChat forums, titled Extra Dried Tea. This thread begins with a poster, beachape, who wrote about friends they had in the Huangshan area of Anhui province in China; the discussion is about green tea:

...They told us that the secret was that they dry the tea more than usual when they prepare it. Most tea for sale is about 80% dried upon sale/packaging. They dry theirs as much as possible, which makes the tea very brittle but preserves well. Such brittle tea would not be good for sale, and producers prefer to have more water weight to gain a better profit...

There is then a reply from edkrueger who writes:

...I think the "extra dry" sounds like "properly dry". And a lot of products nowadays are not dry enough...

Chip, who moderates TeaChat, then chimes in:

Playing devil's advocate ... the drier the leaf, the more it is going to want to absorb surrounding humdity/moisture/aromas ... odors? Is this a logical conclusion? So, I would think the best storage of such tea would be paramount ... and even then, once open ... drink up!

I find this discussion interesting, in large part because I don't have enough knowledge or experience to say which, if any, of these lines of reasoning are accurate. Please chime in in the comments if you know about any of these things, and know which of these rationales are more or less valid, and can explain why.

My experience with TeaVivre's Xin Yang Mao Jian:

Recently I sampled a tea, Xin Yang Mao Jian from TeaVivre. I liked this tea very much; it was a bold, brisk, bitter green tea, darker, and fruity, with an intense aroma and flavor. I gave the tea a very high rating, 93/100. I also shared it with Evan of Pluck Tea, and we both enjoyed it; I enjoyed it even more with his brewing of it, as I find Evan to be considerably more skilled at preparing green teas than I am.

Here is what the leaf looks like now:



An interesting twist: the mao jian goes bad very quickly:

I wish I had photographed this tea up close right when I opened it, because I think it looked slightly different. It looked very wiry--so much that I posted a reply on the thread above remarking that this particularly tea was more thin, wiry, and brittle than I would expect for this style, and wondering if I had a batch of drier-than-normal tea. It's hard for me to know, however, whether the tea changed, or whether I've simply gotten to the bottom of the container, where the pieces seem to be both larger, and more broken. It's a simple fact of physics that when shaking a tea about, the smaller, denser pieces will tend to accumulate at the bottom, and the lighter, more wiry pieces will tend to stay at the top. This tea was relatively loosely packed, so as to keep the leaf intact, so I can see the settling explain the difference I observed between the beginning and the end of this small batch.

But, regardless of explanation, I found that, about a month and a half after opening the mao jian green tea, when I got to the bottom of the container to consume the last several cups worth of the tea, it began to acquire "off" aromas, and these aromas were so unpleasant that I ended up pouring off the last cup that I brewed. I have little interest in brewing up the remaining few cups worth.

Granted, this is a tricky tea to brew. Even when it was right out of the container, I found that it had a narrow range of temperatures that produced good results, and it would be dramatically bitter if the temperature were too high, and quite bland if it were too low. I also found it performed better with Gong Fu style brewing, and was trickier to produce good results with using western-style brewing. But when I got it right, it was very good--good enough that I gave it a 93/100 rating.

Either the tea has spoiled somehow, or the leaf that settled to the bottom of the container has characteristics that I find objectionable. The remaining leaf smells strong, but no longer smells pleasing to me. There are also strong vegetal tones which were absent in the original aroma of the dry leaf. The remaining dry leaf now smells a lot like asparagus to me, and the brewed cup is now substantially more bitter and astringent, even brewing at lower temperatures.

I was careful to store this tea in a clipped bag inside an airtight tin. The inside of the tin even smells a bit off now.

Interestingly, I stored two other green teas from TeaVivre the same way, their Huang Shan Mao Feng, and their Chun Mee, and both of these teas have stayed fresh very well. The Mao Feng in particular tastes just as fresh as the day I opened it, and if anything, has come to taste a bit better to me.

Do you have any explanations?

I'd be curious to hear anyone's explanations about this phenomenon. I also would like some critical feedback on the original thread...and I'm curious if you think there is a relationship between these two things, or if you think they are unrelated.

Bearsblog: Featured Tea Blog - Focusing on Pu-erh Tea

Today's featured blog is a specialized blog that, unfortunately, I think is easy to overlook, but, once it gets your attention, if you're interested in its subject matter, is impossible to forget. This is Jason's Bearsblog, which focuses mostly on Pu-erh (apologies to Jason, I've decided to spell it this way on my post, for consistency), with only a few sparse mentions of other types of tea. The subtitle of this blog reads Chronicling the obsession, which I think communicates how Pu-erh is a whole world in and of itself.



I am not a die-hard Pu-erh enthusiast. Pu-erh is one of those things that I can see getting into a lot more at some point, but right now, I am a definitive newbie with respect to it. While I do have opinions on (and am sometimes wowed or disappointed by) various Pu-erhs that I'm served, I don't drink much Pu-erh, and don't have much in my cupboard either. I know little more than the basics that one can find on a typical, reliable general-audience website; I even know a lot less than one can find on Wikipedia's page on Pu-erh (which is surprisingly thorough). And my experience with brewing Pu-erh is limited. But I find myself coming back to Bearsblog at random times, as it is one of the best places for Pu-erh on the net.

What I like most about this blog:

One thing I like the most about this blog is that, in spite of being so specialized, it has a lot of material that is relatively accessible. Pu-erh doesn't always seem to be the most accessible type of tea. I have heard the perspective voiced that people who are really into Pu-erh tend not to want to blog about it publicly, because the supply of certain batches is limited, and they are afraid of good cakes getting snatched up. I don't know how much people actually hold or act on this perspective, but I do know that Bearsblog makes the really deep level of Pu-erh knowledge a little bit more accessible. Jason also advertises his meetups, to give an opportunity for new people to connect with die-hard Pu-erh enthusiasts.

There are two pages which I think are incredibly useful and fully accessible to newcomers: the page New to Pu'er? and, for more depth, Pu'er by Appearance: Types & Storage, which I find to be one of the best references on Pu-erh on the net. In fact, if I had to pick a single page as a reference for Pu-erh, to complement Wikipedia's page on Pu-erh, it would be that page on Bearsblog.

Bearsblog is also linked up with other similar blogs and some interesting websites. If you like this blog, you will likely like the other blogs and sites it links to as well.

And on a final note, I think this blog has beautiful close-up photography. I also think that the blog's theme, with the blurry, mostly gray background, is perfectly suited to the subject matter and style of photography. I also like the length and style of the written descriptions of teas that Jason shares.

Do you know Bearsblog?

I'm curious to see how much overlap there is between the people who read my blog and the people who read Bearsblog. I suspect the overlap may actually be relatively small! But, even if you decide not to subscribe to this blog, I think it is an indispensable resource to know about.

Why Loose Leaf Tea Is Not Refridgerated

I received an interesting question through the contact form on RateTea, which I thought would be interesting to highlight here. The question (which I have actually seen posed by others in the past as well) was:

Will tea (loose-leaf tea or tea bags) stay fresh better (longer) if refrigerated?

The answer to this question was interesting to me as it defies a certain type of intuition, but makes intuitive sense once you hear it. People generally do not refrigerate loose-leaf tea. Why? For one, it is not necessary. But refrigerating loose leaf tea, or tea bags, can actually cause it to spoil. Why?

Relative humidity and condensation:

It does not always happen (depending on temperatures and humidities), but the risk of condensation when refrigerating a container of loose-leaf tea is very high. If any water condenses in the container of tea, even a small amount, it will ruin the tea in a very short period of time. Tea keeps for a very long period of time when dry. Once leaves become wet, they spoil very quickly. Even a small amount of cold water will cause the tea to infuse into the water, changing its chemical composition and flavor...and then if the tea leaves sit, they will eventually grow mold and spoil. Even in the low temperatures of a refrigerator, this process will happen much more quickly (a matter of hours and days) than the long time-scales over which loose-leaf tea will stay fresh if stored in a warm, even hot, but dry location.

Condensation frequently happens when you move airtight containers into a refrigerator, because the amount of moisture that air is able to hold changes hugely based on the air's temperature. A typical refrigerator keeps the temperature around 35-38F (1.67-3.33C), whereas typical room temperature is around 72F (22C). Room temperature air holds around three times as much water before becoming saturated. Thus, if you have a container that is over 33% humidity, and refrigerate it in a typical fridge, condensation will probably form. If the humidity is around 50% or higher, or if the initial temperature is higher and the humidity similar, it is virtually certain that there will be condensation. And given that many fridges cool unevenly, sometimes even approaching freezing in some areas (at freezing the amount of water air holds is about 1/4th as much as at room temperature), the chance of condensation in some part of the container is even higher--keep in mind, only some small part of the container needs to form condensation, and the tea will then quickly spoil.

Why risk it? Refrigerating tea is not necessary!

I have added this material to RateTea's page on storing tea as well, which contains a bunch of other tips and resources on how to properly store various types of tea, including discussion of how long tea stays fresh, and how aged teas are best treated differently from most other loose-leaf teas.