Tuesday, July 3, 2007

Tea Experience Digest - w/ update

I am not happy about having to write this, but I must retract my earlier, well-intentioned recommendation of this magazine. After subscribing in the summer but never receiving an issue, I have made several e-mail requests and phone calls regarding my subscription. No response. In October, I visited an Atlanta tea room and saw stacks of the Spring issue still sitting on the counter. If there was ever a Summer issue, I didn't see it on the web site. (Over the summer, I called their office and was told they ran out of copies but my Fall issue would be arriving soon.) The cover of a Fall issue is now posted on the web site (11/10/07), but I have not received one and TED has chosen not to reply to my several efforts seeking an explanation. I have since learned of other readers around the country who have not received their magazines either. Because of my bad experience with Tea Experience Digest, I want to make sure others don't make the mistake I did in subscribing.


A couple of years ago, I began to see The Tea Experience Digest in tearooms around the Atlanta area. I liked that it was digest-sized (small enough to tuck in a purse), and that its quarterly issues featured listings of tearooms on a regional basis. Because I seemed to always get a copy for free at tearooms that were giving it away (the cover price is $3.95), I never actually purchased a subscription.

Perhaps a year had gone by since I last saw a copy, so I was happy to take home the latest edition from the World Tea Expo this year, handed to me by the smiling, energetic editor herself. And I have to say, I am pleased with the direction she has taken her book. In the Spring 2007 issue I learned about tea events scheduled around the country, tea products which benefit breast cancer research (the editor's letter gave a heartfelt nod to friends and family with breast cancer), a tea trivia quiz, upcoming tea tours, chocolate flavored teas (I'd like one of each, please ...), new tea products (Dove has a Cucumber and Green Tea Body Bar? WHY aren't they advertising this product in the dozen women's magazines I read?), spas using tea, bath teas, and there's plenty more but that's enough to whet your appetite!

This issue features tea rooms and retailers in the Northeast USA, and the back of the book includes the Tea Yellow Pages ("Largest Tea Yellow Pages in the World"). Interested? A four-issue subscription is $14, and you can find more info at teaexperience.com.

6 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for taking the time to review our magazine. Also thank you for your kind comments. We are thrilled that you find our content useful and timely. I agree wholeheartedly with your comment "why aren't Dove, Glade, etc advertising these great tea-based products?" Bath and Body Works had a fabulous White Tea & Ginger body scrub for years. B & BW corporate office told us they were discontinuing the product as since it was not one of their top sellers.....!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, Susan, and thanks for visiting!

    That's incredible (and so unfortunate) that Bath and Body Works doesn't realize the tea products should be HEAVILY promoted. I was in one of their stores just the other day and left empty-handed because I didn't find the products with tea ingredients I had purchased there before. Maybe I'll work up some blog posts about favorite tea products!

    Angela

    ReplyDelete
  3. I ordered my back issue of Tea Experience back in 9/07 and have yet to ever receive my copy for which I paid for.

    I believe this occurred while the magazine was still under its old management; but I wrote the owner repetitively and even managed to get her on the phone once, where she proceeded to inform me that she had sold out. She offered to inform the new owners of my dilemma; but I never heard word one. I suspect she did not honor her word.

    It is not that $4.00 or so is a big deal, it is not. It's the principle that she didn't provide a product for which I paid through PayPal originally. That's stealing; is it not?

    ReplyDelete
  4. I too was bilked in my subscription... a Canadian subscription at that, so the price (i.e. my loss) was that much higher. No response to a year's worth of emails and phone calls. I paid with Paypal and have all my records but this publisher has shown absolutely no interest in resolving this issue.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It was nice to fine your comments as this morning I tried the Tea Experience digest website and several numbers in an effort to subscribe. Had no success with any of them.

    I take it that this useful little magazine is no longer being published????

    ReplyDelete
  6. Susan Yachiye McKeen of Tea Experience Digest sold many of us magazine subscriptions she then chose not to fulfill (I have a file folder of unhappy customers of hers who read this post and shared their stories with me). She didn't answer phone calls or e-mails requesting a refund, and official complaints to the Better Business Bureau didn't get resolved either. Please be aware of her "track record."

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for taking time to leave a comment! It makes my day to hear from readers!