About

Welcome to Anheituan (安黑团) — a semi-serious tea project built on top of an obsession for Anhua Heicha (安化黑茶) in general and Qianliangcha (千两茶) in particular.

The teas listed on this site are extras from group buys I’ve participated in. These are typically conducted through WeChat groups (often run by vendors who additionally run a “normal” storefront on the major Chinese online shopping platforms). Instead of coordinating interest in advance like before, I now buy a bit extra and offer it here — for anyone who’d like to join in after the fact.

This is mostly:

To make the group buys easier to organize on my end
To avoid flooding #group-buy in the CommuniTEA Discord
And to help convince my wife that my tea hoarding is a legitimate operation

It is also more practical due to the fact that these buys are sometimes announced mere hours (or, more commonly, a couple days) before the sale happens, often too short notice to coordinate with others in advance.

Are there smaller samples available for purchase?

Usually not. That would be tricky for me to handle logistically — and would require raising prices. I get that committing to a full slice or brick can feel like a lot, though.

Am I making a profit from this?

Possibly — sort of. The teas are not listed at my own cost — there is a markup to help cover:

Storage fees (some teas will probably linger in the warehouse for a while)
The risk of teas not selling at all (I expect this to happen)
Transaction fees (Stripe/PayPal/WeChat/Alipay service fees, currency conversion, etc.)
Domain cost (though those are minimal)
Probably other stuff I haven’t factored in (because there always is)

So yes, there’s going to be a buffer built into the prices to try to mitigate the risk of me operating at a loss.

Is this just dropshipping?

Not really. In most cases I will need to buy the teas first, before anyone’s expressed interest.

If something sells out and you ask about it, I might be able to get more from the source. In that case I guess it’s more like dropshipping. But I expect that to be the exception, not the rule.

Is this just a long-winded way to justify gatekeeping my sources?

That’s for you to decide, charitable reader.

— Balthazar