Oh, Premium Teas and Coffees, Where Art Thou?

As globalization bestows its curses and blessing upon our tiny little world, many people are finding that it has been much easier to find specialty food and beverage items. The problem with this, for many people including myself, is the fact that getting speciaty items doesn't usually feel so special. For coffee, we can go to Starbucks and get premium roasts from around the world. For tea, most of us can go to the local Teavana for premium loose-leaf. I'm certainly not trying to insult these companies...I shop at Starbucks and Teavana
for most of my tea and coffee needs, and I am always impressed by the knowledge and friendliness of the associates. Heck, I even worked for Starbucks for a little while. With this being said, it still feels good every now and again to do business with lesser known, less commercialized establishments. That is why I've put together a list that I think you will benefit from. This is a list of tea and coffee stores that are accessible on the internet. I've tried to include as many "local" type stores as possible.

http://www.specialteas.com/

Special Teas offers many varieties of the best traditional teas, as
well as a great selection of herbal infusions, rooibos, spice teas

http://www.teaspring.com/

This website offers some really great yellow teas, which are difficult
to find and are often miscategorized as green teas. Usually, yellow
teas are very much like green teas, but are made in such a way that
they have a softer taste.

http://www.annateashop.com/index.html

A little tea shop in Liberty, Missouri, the selection is not
astounding, but it seems like a great and affordable place to get
your everyday teas.

http://www.thelondontearoom.com/

A tea room based in St. Louis that offers a nice little selection of
teas, some with names quite worthy of British whit such as
"The Naughty Vicar".

http://www.enchantedforrestteas.com/

Tea shop based in Alaska. Very cool website...seems very homey =).

http://www.orleanscoffee.com/

Based in the unlikely place of Kenner, Louisiana, this website
carries a large selection of coffees around the world.

http://www.cafferoma.com/

The focus is mostly on Italian coffee here, but who's complaining
about Italian coffee? It is a family owned and operated business
in San Fransisco and all the delicious blends can be bought by the
pound and sometimes, the half pound.

http://www.geishacoffee.com/

Located in Florida, this website has a great selection of specialty
coffees...some I've never even heard of! They also offer organic and estate
coffee.