I have similar views: I like that people seem to be caring about tea, though I don't find much to like in this particular shop. Nonetheless, several people who know I like tea have pointed me at them, so Teavana must be doing good marketing, to the extent that people who aren't that into tea think of it as something to recommend when they hear an acquaintance likes tea.

I personally mainly shop mail-order from Upton Tea Imports (http://www.uptontea.com). When I compare their selection and pricing to Teavana's, I don't see a lot of reason I would want to switch. But maybe that's like comparing newegg.com to Radio Shack: not really going after the same market segment.

I like the newegg / RadioShack comparison...it seems rather apt.

I think Teavana promotes a certain lifestyle around their tea, and that's one of the reasons they are rather expensive compared to the competition. Marketing definitely plays a large part: if you are not an avid tea drinker and looking for a gift you're probably not going to know the local places to go (or the mail-order sites to visit).

Love the experience at Teavana until someone talks to me. The sales staff are very pushy to the point where shopping there is uncomfortable.

Same here. It looked like a great place when I first went in, until I got the high-pressure sales treatment, then I decided I'll never go back.

I also found Teavana's teas to be adulterated with unnecessary flavors and ingredients that aren't natural to the tea. I instead prefer to go to their cousin store, Lupicia, which are usually located in the same malls. The difference is that Lupicia tries to preserve the tea's natural flavors instead of trying to "enhance" them with fruity flavors.

I'm not an incredible tea fan, but Lupicia has a special place in my heart, and the customer experience is probably better because Lupicia doesn't pay commissions -- ergo, no need to hard-sell.

I love TeaVana, though I'll admit I mostly order via the website. Their stores do annoy me.

Their stuff is expensive, but it's good. And really how much is expensive tea per glass? 25 cents? Not enough that I care.

And they have all sorts of great mixes. I probably wouldn't order just straight tea there. But the tea quality at TeaVana is much higher than the coffee quality at Starbucks.

If you're ordering online anyway, you might want to give adagio.com a look. I've been ordering from them for a few years and have always been pretty happy.

Even for people not interested in tea, it's worth taking a look at their site. They have one of the nicest, most user-friendly e-commerce designs I've ever come across. It's full of little things like making the tracking information for your orders available directly from the top navigation bar, and it's all presented in a visually pleasing way.

Mountain Tea: http://www.mountaintea.com/ is excellent.

I started drinking tea after reading "A Hacker's Guide to Tea": http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1934051 a couple years ago. That article was written by the guy who ran the Chicago Tea Garden, but he closed a couple of months ago.

I used them until they stopped giving away the tins with the orders. They then promised me a few free tins with the next order, and never delivered, so I gave TeaVana a try.

Honestly I just think TeaVana has better tea, even though I prefer Adagio's website, and the fact that they have decaf green teas.

Unless it's changed pretty recently Adagio stores your password in plain text. If you use the 'forgot my password' link on their login page they mail you your current password.

edit: Just tried it, they still do.

Wow, that's fairly surprising (and disappointing) given how clued-in they seem to be from a UX perspective. Thanks for the heads up.

EDIT:

For whatever it's worth, I just emailed them asking what the deal is here. Hopefully it's something they plan on fixing.

I totally agree. The stores are attractively laid out, and I did manage to get a nice in-cup loose leaf tea infuser, but I disliked my entire experience in the store. The hard sell treatment I got was really unwelcome and the tea itself was way over priced. I won't go in to another one and I don't recommend anyone go there.