A Steepster Cleanup Initiative

There’s a discussion about it on the first page, near the bottom.

Oh I am so sorry, I haven’t noticed

I did this one today. I was considering changing the company name to lowercase to match their branding (white2tea). Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

I think that’s fine. I do the same with DAVIDsTEA.

I have one to add if this is the right place. I created this one, but I didn’t realize that teas from Steven Smith Teamaker usually have the blend number as part of the tea name until another page was created with that bit added.

https://steepster.com/teas/steven-smith-teamaker/95890-black-lavender-duplicate

Thanks, I deleted it.

Thank you!

I’m guessing the loose photo is the incorrect one. Removed it and the duplicates.

AJ, you are correct and thank you!

Yes – all one company/wholesaler :)

I saw some teas from MlesnA brand there… maybe it should be under MlesnA then? As for me… sure thing, but what are you others thinking?

I saw some that mentioned MlesnA too, and was confused…

Those softwood chests I have seen only from MlesnA; and I think they have (had?) lots of teas sourced from them, including very favourite Monk’s Blend or Canadian Ice Wine Tea — hmm, no idea if those should be there or there.

I have no idea which is the parent company… This might take some poking/discussion. People do buy from both headers, so either listing on as an “alternative name”, or having both…

I am unfamiliar with Metropolitan Tea company, but I think as long it is picture with MlesnA, it should be MlesnA.

I just finished moving a few teas from Mlesna Tea and Mlesna (something in Latvian) to MlesnA.

Metropolitan Tea Co. is a wholesaler of tea and tea blends to other tea shops, Martin. That is, smaller (often independantly owned or “mom and pop” shops, though sometimes larger chain-style shops as well) purchase the blends from Metropolitan, then resale them as “their own” (in their own packaging, sometimes with new copy writing or a changed name for the blend). Some people on Steepster, when they know a tea blend is from a particular source, prefer to log it under the direct source (I’m one of those folks; if I know with certainty a tea is a Metro Tea Co. blend, a Dethlefsen & Bach blend, etc., I prefer to put it under them, and not the tea store where I bought it). Most other folks on the site tend to log the tea directly under the shop where they bought it (either because they are unaware of the wholesale blends and their sources or just prefer otherwise).

Yup, personally I like to log those teas under the company that sells them. I like having the record of which company is selling from what wholesaler as well as each company’s chosen copy/marketing/etc. Most wholesalers do not sell direct to the public, also, so having the record of where those blends can be purchased could be helpful to people (though the average consumer likely isn’t aware of the use of catalog blends/wholesalers), and every individual company is going to handle the storage of their tea/minimum sell amounts/pricing/etc differently – or, at least, that’s my thought process. I also feel like it takes away both potential positive and negative feedback for companies to not capture reviews under the company – even if it’s catalog tea.

That said, I also feel like there’s value in having the teas directly under the wholesaler as well for people who want a consolidated list of what teas are available from which wholesaler or what blends/teas are catalog – and I can understand why on a personal level someone wouldn’t want all their tasting notes for what is, essentially, the same tea spread across multiple company profiles.

Personally, I think the best practice would be to leave the wholesale company listings up – but also leave the individual company pages up for wholesale blends. It seems too much value would be lost from removing either.

It’s hard decision to keep it in one company; I think both have its value. So, I guess no removing for sure. But it can be quite confusing (as for example MlesnA teas from Metropolitan Tea Co.) and I somehow feel it should be under MlesnA instead of Metropolitan Tea Co.

But of course… it can be there (in Metropolitan Tea Co.), as it is more familiar to Canadians.

So, I guess best solution would be keeping both and let users use wholesaler or actual producer as they want to. I don’t see a flaw in it, maybe one day to have both tea pages connected somehow. For example in tea producer tea page with link to its wholesaler.

I’m with Roswell. Even if I know who their wholesaler is, and Metropolitan is one of the easiest to spot, I will always put it under the company I actually purchased and tasted it from (most of the wholesalers I know and have worked with aren’t even listed on Steepster, and don’t sell to the public, so my entries would be orphan listings). It serves to give that company an identity on Steepster, both as a reseller of that wholesaled tea for people trying to figure out where they can get it, and to bring light to the company itself. Plus: Roswell brings up a great point about storage company to company, not to mention any ‘adulteration’ companies might make to tea. Steepster would be a LOT different if everything got pushed under their original wholesalers or even their original factories (especially aged teas! Which specifically vary seller to seller based on their storage preferences). I prefer to bring attention to the independent tea company.

In the future, it would be great to have a separate identity of wholesalers/retailers on Steepster. Specifically a link/hierarchy system where you could tag the wholesaler a tea listing is using. But that’s a far-future idea.

Keeping them split will make sure that independent companies don’t get overlooked and can still have a presence on Steepster, and will help prevent the constant generation of ‘orphan’ listings as new members constantly try to ‘re-add’ teas from their mom-n-pop shops.

By the looks of it, it seems like the majority of Metropolitan’s main teas are blended specifically for them by MlesnA and not carried by MlesnA normally. Dorian Grey, for example.

I’ve been thinking that too. I kept meaning to propose either a thread, or some streamlined other system. I feel like mods maybe need a spot to discuss yes/nos so we’re not all throwing things to the wind… I’ve already been poking and updating company information (and have questions for the filepicker for admin), and adding a lot of “misspellings” to hopefully cut back on a lot of future orphans.

Yeah I saw a lot of that for other puerh companies too… :(

I think a great thing for the future would be to have the ability to add Factories. It could be lumped into the same ‘idea’/extra information/‘blender’ concept as adding individual creators to Adagio Custom Blends. But that’s definitely an ‘in the future’ idea… Right now it makes searching for Yunnan Sourcing specifically a bit tricky.