SAL: remarkable service!
 

I just bought a bunch of nice Yixings and two cakes of a wonderful
12-year-old green Pu-erh (best I've had yet, except for a bit of $5000/lb
imperial ambrosia) from James at Pu-erhtea.com. (Pretty remarkable service
there, too, not to mention the tea.) Since I needed the pots for gifts, I
opted for the mid-price SAL option. I expected 5~6 weeks delivery, plus a
possible delay in customs.

In the event, I think the time from e-mail order to delivery was about 19
days. Did I just get lucky, or is this typical? I've had slower deliveries
from California, at twice the shipping cost.

-Besotted in Boston

I think SAL is nothing more than connections and customs. My fastest
from Kunming is 21 days. I remember one from a coastal port of around
10 days. When I order other commodity from Europe I send it by Surface
for half the price of SAL. It takes six weeks for an order from
Germany. Stuff from Europe is just as expensive as stuff from China.
Next time I'll select ChinaPost Surface and let the puerh age on it's
way over. Also be sure your dates are from post and not order. For
some reason my postal carrier is now removing the ChinaPost custom
declaration with shipping address,cost,date,etc. Guess I'll have to
talk to the PostMaster and find out why.

Jim

Dog Ma 1 (reply w/o spam) wrote:
> I just bought a bunch of nice Yixings and two cakes of a wonderful
> 12-year-old green Pu-erh (best I've had yet, except for a bit of $5000/lb
> imperial ambrosia) from James at Pu-erhtea.com. (Pretty remarkable service
> there, too, not to mention the tea.) Since I needed the pots for gifts, I
> opted for the mid-price SAL option. I expected 5~6 weeks delivery, plus a
> possible delay in customs.
>
> In the event, I think the time from e-mail order to delivery was about 19
> days. Did I just get lucky, or is this typical? I've had slower deliveries
> from California, at twice the shipping cost.
>
> -Besotted in Boston