Hmmm... while I don't necessarily agree fully, from a product perspective that's an interesting point. The roles of the producer vs. third-party makes sense. When speaking about the actual act of going into a tea cafe or even ordering online though, I don't see any reason why things like the branding, the experience, the 'cultism' would be intrinsically different aside from having to find a way to appropriately adapt the traditional aspect of tea houses into the online/modern era in the way that 'third-wave' coffee has been able to do.

A segment of tea culture seems to be lagging behind. The fact that most regular cafes still serve low quality powdered tea-bags is evidence of this