Tea This Week — October 12, 2026
Deals
Checked this week (all seen on 2026-10-12, directly on each shop’s own site).
This is the quietest deal week we have logged. Across eight shops and roughly 1,400 listings, the number of teas whose price moved since last Monday is zero. Yunnan Sourcing’s nine markdowns are the same nine, at the same prices. Tea Drunk’s one markdown is the same one, still sold out. Red Blossom and White2Tea are at zero discounted items for the sixth straight week.
That is not a failure of the week — it is what the calendar does. The autumn restock is still arriving, and shops do not discount inventory they just paid for. The useful reading this week is in what is landing, not what is falling.
Yunnan Sourcing US — markdowns frozen, 2026 stock still filling in
The On Sale Now page holds at sixteen products. Nine are genuinely discounted, and all nine are identical to last week:
| Tea | Vintage | Size | Was | Now |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Imperial Grade Jin Jun Mei, Tong Mu Guan | Spring 2025 | 50 g | $14.75 | $11.00 |
| Wu Yi “Golden Peony Varietal” | Spring 2025 | 50 g | $14.00 | $12.00 |
| Purple Needle Black Tea, Jing Mai | Spring 2025 | 100 g | $13.00 | $11.00 |
| Yi Wu Wild Arbor Assamica | Spring 2025 | 50 g | $11.75 | $10.00 |
| Feng Qing “Golden Pekoe #100” | Spring 2025 | 50 g | $11.50 | $9.50 |
| Tong Mu “Hua Xiang” Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong | Spring 2025 | 25 g | $9.75 | $8.25 |
| Imperial Yixing Hong | Spring 2023 | 25 g | $7.50 | $5.00 |
| Robust Yunnan Black Tea Sampler | Spring 2025 | — | $52.00 | $42.00 |
| Lincang Dian Hong Sampler | Spring 2022 | — | $44.00 | $36.00 |
What did change is the shelf underneath them. Four of these teas now list a Spring 2026 variant at full price next to the discounted older one, on the same product page: the Purple Needle (2026, 100 g, $13.00), the Yi Wu Wild Arbor (2026, 50 g, $11.75), the Feng Qing Golden Pekoe (2026, 50 g, $11.50), and the Hua Xiang Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong (2026, 25 g, $9.75). The Lincang sampler gained a Spring 2026 edition at $44.75, and the Imperial Yixing Hong now offers 2026 and 2025 side by side at $6.50 while the 2023 sits at $5.00.
This is the clearest version of the pattern we flagged last week, and it is worth stating plainly as a buying rule: on Yunnan Sourcing, the discount lives on the variant dropdown, not the product. Two listings for the same tea can differ by $2 and one harvest year. If you land on a product page from the sale collection, check which vintage is preselected before you add to cart — the default is not always the discounted one.
The standing offers are unchanged: free gifts and BOGO in five tiers starting at $45, and free US shipping on $75+ , with the threshold measured after any discount code.
Seven Cups — a Weekend Specials shelf, but no markdowns on it
Seven Cups is featuring a six-tea Weekend Specials selection, and all six are aged shu pu-erh — an unusual bit of curation in a season when everyone else is pushing fresh harvest:
| Tea | Form | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Ma Guo Tou (Caravan Leader) 2012 | 400 g shu cake | $133.00 |
| Jinggu Shu Xiao Fangzhuan 2013 | 100 g shu brick | $26.00 |
| Jia Cang (Home Store Puer) 2012 | loose leaf | $16.00–$154.75 |
| Run Lin (Rainy Day) 2005 | 400 g shu cake | $25.00–$240.00 |
| Tai Lian Fangzhuan 2004 | 250 g shu brick | $119.00 |
| Gongting (Palace Puer) 2012 | loose leaf | $23.00–$226.75 |
Two caveats, and they matter. First, “special” here means featured, not reduced — none of the six carries a struck-through price, so there is no discount to claim. Second, three of the six are already out of stock: Run Lin 2005, Tai Lian 2004, and Gongting 2012. The three you can actually buy are the Ma Guo Tou, the Jinggu brick, and the Jia Cang.
Of those, the Jinggu brick at $26 is the one we would point a newcomer at. A 100 g brick of thirteen-year-old shu is a low-stakes way to find out whether aged ripe pu-erh is for you — small enough that a miss costs less than a restaurant lunch, old enough to have shed the damp “wo dui” pile-ferment note that puts people off young shu.
One honesty note: Seven Cups’ category pages returned identical content for three different category URLs when we checked them this morning, so we could not verify the full contents of their New 2026 Teas listing. The six teas above are what the site actually served, and each was confirmed on its own product page. If you are hunting their fresh 2026 oolongs, browse the site by hand this week.
Tea Drunk — the same markdown, still sold out
Tea Drunk’s discolored-label Spring 2019 Da Hong Pao 大紅袍 is still listed at $55.00 (was $68.00) for the 32 g box and $23.00 (was $29.00) for the 8 g packet — and still shows sold out across all four variants, a second week running. It remains the only discounted item among their 105 listings. Watch-list, not buy-list.
Everyone else
- Red Blossom — zero discounted items across all 154 products. Banner unchanged: “Free shipping on US orders $100+.”*
- White2Tea — zero discounted items across all 1,047 products. Sixth consecutive quiet week.
- Old Ways Tea — the same sentence for a sixth week: “2026 harvest is complete — black teas should arrive soon and oolong teas later in the year.” Their Wuyi blacks remain the most-delayed restock we track.
- TeaVivre and Verdant Tea blocked automated access again (HTTP 403, sixth consecutive week). Both load normally in a browser — check by hand if either is on your list.
If you are buying anything this week, the honest advice is to buy nothing on sale and instead spend the $26 on the Jinggu brick or the $5 on the 2023 Yixing Hong — two cheap experiments in styles most drinkers skip. The real markdowns will come when the 2026 autumn stock is fully landed and last season’s shelf needs clearing.
Events
Two notes before the list. The October 10 Chocolate & Tea Pairing has now passed. And there is one genuinely new item this week — the first online course with fixed dates we have been able to list.
New this week
- Tea Seeds 茶籽 — Chinese Tea Course (Eastern Leaves) — five Saturdays, October 24 to November 28, 2026, 3:00–5:00 PM CET (9:00–11:00 AM Eastern), on Zoom in English. From €369. The course is built around gongfu cha and twenty teas, and the fee includes the tea samples shipped from Milan with no customs or shipping charge; recordings are provided if you miss a session. Registration is open. This is the most substantial online-attendable Chinese tea education we have found all autumn — note it starts in twelve days, and the samples need time to ship.
- Mahjong Night at NYTS — Friday, October 23, 7:00–10:00 PM, NYTS Tea Studio, 38 W 32nd St #1010, Manhattan. $35 general admission; membership can bring it to zero at checkout. Beginner-friendly, no experience needed — tiles and suits, Winds and Dragons, Chows, Pungs and Kongs, and how scoring works. Tea-adjacent rather than a tasting, but it is the cheapest way to spend three hours in that studio.
Booking now
- NYTS Tea Book Club: The Book of Tea — Saturday, October 17, 1:00–3:00 PM, NYTS Tea Studio. $35 in person, $0 virtual. Okakura’s 1906 classic, tasted against three historical preparation methods: boiled, whipped, and steeped. Re-verified this morning as still on sale. If you are reading this from outside New York, this is still the one to take — it is free, it is online, and it is this Saturday.
- 2022 Wuliang: Gushu Pu’er Comparison Tasting — Sunday, October 25, 1:00–4:00 PM, NYTS Tea Studio. $25 members / $60 non-members. Different leaf material from the same Wuliang mountain area, side by side — a controlled comparison that is difficult to assemble at home. Still on sale.
- Community Engagement Tea — Saturday, October 17: 12:00–2:00 PM at East New York Farms, 620 Schenck Avenue, Brooklyn; and 1:00–2:00 PM at Maggie’s Magic Garden, 1574 Lexington Avenue, Manhattan. Both free.
- Community Engagement Tea — Saturday, October 24, 2:00–3:00 PM, Maple Street Community Garden, 237 Maple Street, Brooklyn. Free.
- Autumn Fundraising Party — Saturday, October 24, 7:00–9:30 PM, Park Slope, Brooklyn. Price still not posted.
- Chinese Tea Ceremony Workshop: Brewing Fenghuang Dancong with Gaiwan — Sunday, November 8, 11:00 AM–1:00 PM, Teasthetic, 89 5th Avenue Suite 701, Manhattan. Price not listed on the organizer’s page.
- Meditation with Tea: A Chinese Tea Ceremony for Stillness — Sunday, December 20, 11:00 AM–12:30 PM, Teasthetic, 89 5th Avenue Suite 701, Manhattan. Price not listed on the organizer’s page.
Tea Arts and Culture still lists nothing for November, and the NYTS calendar ends at October 25 — so the metro-area autumn schedule as it currently stands runs out in under two weeks.
Deals and event details verified on 2026-10-12 from each linked source. Prices and availability change without notice — always confirm on the shop’s or organizer’s own page.