Newsletter Archive Dec. 24, 2021

Behold! Some golden rays of light in the longest nights of the year: Golden Buds, Golden Peacock, Golden Guanyin, and Golden Leaf are featured this weekend.

These black, green, and wulong teas are united by their names and glittering color, but widely different from each other. Flavors span peppery cacao, sweet chestnuts, and heady gardenias – there’s a cup of cheer in here for any of us.

Now that we’ve hit the final week of the holiday season, accolades are due to some unsung partners in our supply chain.

We raise a toast to the folks delivering our packages, the US Postal Service in particular. These folks rarely get talked about, and when they are, it’s usually because something has gone wrong, is going wrong, or has the potential to go wrong. But, wow, they’ve really impressed us these last few weeks.

Back in October, we were warned to move any holiday shipments right away, or they would never get there on time. With memories of last year’s gridlocked system still fresh in our minds, we set shipping deadlines extra early to remove as much risk as possible for our customers. Our shipments went out with a prayer to Saint Gabriel from John and a petition to Guanyin from Zhuping.

Remarkably, whether by the work of saints, bodhisattvas, or human adaptability, things have gone well. Shortages from import delays farther up the supply chain notwithstanding, goods have moved with few delays. Some deliveries even surprised us by showing up ahead of schedule. All this in spite of a record high volume of packages and a global crisis that persists as challenging and precarious as ever.

We often talk about how it takes a whole ecosystem and a whole culture to make any given tea. Lest we forget, it takes a whole chain of workers to deliver it too. As fraught with challenges as this year has been, we also want to celebrate this world’s incredible capacity to adapt.

Wishing everyone a joyful solstice and merry Christmas this week.