If you are new to Traveling Tea, check the “About Traveling Tea” page for some info about our origins. What I want to tell you here is how I go about letting you know what is going on with Traveling Tea.

Personally, I hate being inundated with emails and am very sparing about who I let send me text messages. I am a firm believer in treating others the way I want to be treated. So, if you sign up to get texts you will get (at most) 1 per week, and in reality you will be lucky if you see as many as 8 in a years time. If you sign up to get emails, it will likely be even fewer.

I try to post here occasionally and to somewhat more frequently update the “Comings and Goings” page. Somehow I do manage to communicate a bit more in March/April/May and October/November. [Jan-Mar I am too busy completing inventory valuation and getting taxes done, and summer – I don’t know my excuse].

I also seem to spend a LOT of time keeping the shopping site updated and current with what is in or out of stock. We get new teas and teaware from time to time all year long and it takes a fair bit of time and energy to keep up with. New teas mean creating new labels and updating menus and brochures. [And I Love that I can do this and plan to keep doing it for many many more years – if you want me to.]

I do post on Instagram (as TravTea) more frequently than anywhere else (and sometimes that feeds through to the Traveling Tea Facebook page). [When Lori is working the shop she will often send me a photo of a tea she is sampling that day and sometimes I can get it posted to IG in a timely manner].

If you want to know something specific or more immediate – please feel free to email me at info@traveling-tea.com, come by, or call the shop and leave a message (if I’m not there). If I am there, chat me up. I love hearing what you are up to and sharing what’s new.

In the past I used Mail Chimp to communicate and I was able to do it somewhat frequently. Unfortunately since Intuit bought the program they changed their cost structure last year and I can no longer afford to send emails from there. That is the primary reason you have not received any emails this year – because I have been in a quandary deciding whether I should pay up and proceed or not.

I have now decided. All future emails will be coming from Square – as I am Already paying for that service built into everything else I use there. I hope this will be okay with the vast majority of you. It is not a decision I take lightly.

I did have someone help me with emails a few years ago, and while it did help me to communicate more frequently, (sadly) it took almost as much of my time to input, review, and approve communications as it would’ve for me to do it myself.

We are managing to do okay (business-wise) via word of mouth – enough of you return again and again, and share our existence with friends and family – and for that I am Very Grateful. [See my Anniversary post here}

Note: I do I NOT use Facebook messaging as I find it to be inconsistent and unreliable as a means of communication for me, so please do not feel ignored if you messaged me and I did not reply. (I probably have my settings wrong, but there we are.)