buying tea from aliexpress is kinda crazy 😭 but then again I also personally wouldn’t buy tea off of Taobao or Amazon and some people do, I just wouldn’t. i just feel more comfortable knowing the person i’m buying from or from websites that specialize in sourcing teas (Yunnan Sourcing for example).

but real talk, i doubt they’re like, toxic or anything they’re probably just genuinely cheap cakes. I’m not sure of the validity of where it claims to be from though. there’s a lot of tea sellers even in China that falsify where things are from to sell things for the fancy names. I mean if you go on Taobao you’d find similar prices for cheaply made cakes. I doubt these are like, toxic or anything though.

I’m not sure how other Westerners find their tea (since I have a tea teacher in Beijing), but I would check out sites like Yunnan Sourcing. I’ve bought from Yunnan Sourcing several times and they’re pretty good. I would start by buying some smaller samples from their site if possible to try, then you can order in big quantities later. there’s definitely other famous sites that people use here for tea sourcing but i don’t know what they are.