One Customer’s Real Taste Test

One of our longtime customers, Larry, sent us a note last week that we can’t stop thinking about. He’d run out of Tea Rebellion tea for a few days, picked up a well-known tea brand instead, and then came back to his Forever Spring Oolong the next morning. His words:

“The stuff was too sweet — cloying. Losing all flavor after the first infusion. Kind of gross, actually. Then I got back to my Forever Spring — wow! Terrific. The difference between the two products couldn’t be more dramatic. One was great. One sucked.”

We were glad to hear it — of course, it confirmed exactly why we founded Tea Rebellion in the first place: getting pure, bold, single-origin loose leaf tea that already tastes amazing the moment it leaves the partner farm.

Larry then asked something we’ve been sitting with ever since: whether we think appreciation for tea quality — and people’s ability to actually taste that quality — is evolving. He pointed to coffee as a comparison, where the revolution in quality and perceived quality has been building for 20 or 30 years now.

We do think it’s evolving. But not everyone has developed a palate for tea in its original, pure, unaltered form yet — and not every tea drinker brings that same sense of inquiry and adventure to their cup. That’s okay. It doesn’t happen all at once.

Interestingly, we think matcha is playing a real part in that shift — it’s pulling people’s attention toward origin in a way that’s genuinely encouraging.