Tea This Week — October 19, 2026
Deals
Checked this week (all seen on 2026-10-19, directly on each shop’s own site).
Last Monday we called it the quietest deal week we had logged. One week later the opposite is true, and for the reason we predicted: the 2026 autumn stock has landed, so last season’s shelf finally needs clearing. Seven Cups has put eighteen teas on sale at 20–25% off, and Old Ways Tea’s 2026 Wuyi black teas — the restock we have tracked as “arriving soon” for six straight weeks — are now in the cart.
If you have been waiting out the autumn lull, this is the week it ended.
Seven Cups — the Year End sale lands: 18 teas at 20–25% off
Year End Teas is Seven Cups’ annual clear-out of the previous harvest, and it went live with eighteen teas. Seventeen of the eighteen are in stock. The shop explains the logic on the category page itself, which is more honesty than most clearance pages offer: “We put all of our previous years tea on sale at a discounted price. It doesn’t mean that the tea has gone bad. In fact, some of the teas have very long shelf life. Green tea is the most volatile, and has a shelf life of about 18 months.”
All prices below are the smallest size (usually 25 g); larger tins scale up from there.
The shape of this sale tells you what to buy. Ten of the eighteen are wulong — five Wuyi rock teas, two Anxi tieguanyin, two Dancong — and roasted oolong is the category that loses least to a year in storage. A 2025 Laocong Shuixian or Tie Luo Han at $16.40 is very close to a free lunch: the charcoal roast is the preservative, and many drinkers prefer these teas with a year of rest on them, once the roast has settled and stopped reading as raw fire.
The three greens are the opposite case. Seven Cups’ own 18-month figure means the 2025 Bi Luo Chun and Yun Wu are roughly halfway through their useful life. They are still good tea at 25% off, but drink them this winter rather than putting them away.
If you buy one thing here, make it the five-tea Wuyi rock run — Laocong Shuixian , Tie Luo Han , Xiao Hong Pao , Rougui and Shuixian — about $76 for all five at the 25 g size. That is a proper side-by-side education in yancha cultivars for less than the price of one competition-grade cake, and the cultivar differences are far easier to taste when the roast level and the year are held constant.
Two more teas are discounted outside the Year End category, and both are out of stock: Zijuan Hong (Purple Leaf Yunnan Black) at $17.33 from $24.75 — 30% off, the deepest cut on the site — and Yiwushan 2020 sheng at $15.80 from $19.75. Watch-list only.
Old Ways Tea — the 2026 Wuyi blacks finally arrived
Six weeks of “black teas should arrive soon” ended this week. Three 2026 Tongmu black teas are now listed and in stock on Latest Teas :
| Tea | Origin | Per gram | 25 g (5 × 5 g) | 5 g sample |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Masu Old Tree Black Tea 麻粟老枞红茶 | Tongmu, Masu | $0.63 | $18.10 | $5.51 |
| Masu Smoked Black Tea 烟熏小种 | Tongmu, Masu | $0.49 | $14.10 | $4.29 |
| Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong 正山小种 | Tongmu | $0.40 | $11.50 | $3.50 |
Nothing here is discounted — this is a restock, not a sale — but it is the arrival we have been telling you to wait for. Old Ways sells only from their own family’s Wuyi farms, which is why their calendar runs later than everyone else’s and why their Tongmu material is hard to match at the price.
Two things worth noting. First, the 2026 Masu Old Tree is $0.63/g against $0.58/g for the 2024 — about a 9% rise, which is the going rate for Tongmu this year rather than anything unusual. Second, the shop’s own note on the new Old Tree says “this year’s roast is a bit more prominent and is well suited to the energy of this tea” — so if you have the 2024 in your cupboard, the 2026 is not a straight repeat and a side-by-side is the interesting purchase.
The genuinely low-risk move is the $3.50 5 g sample of the Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong. Unsmoked Tongmu souchong is the original red tea, and most people have only ever met its smoked descendant. Three and a half dollars to correct that is the best value we have listed in weeks.
Free US shipping over $80 is still the standing offer.
Yunnan Sourcing US — the same nine markdowns, with 2026 cakes landing behind them
Third week running: nine genuinely discounted, in-stock teas on On Sale Now , at identical prices. The Jin Jun Mei at $11.00 (was $14.75) and the 2023 Imperial Yixing Hong at $5.00 (was $7.50) remain the two best lines on it.
What changed is underneath. Six more teas now carry a struck-through price but are sold out, including the first green tea markdown we have seen all autumn — Meng Ding Gan Lu “Sweet Dew” at $9.50 from $12.50 — plus Competition Grade Qimen, Feng Qing “Classic 58”, Wu Yi Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, Purple Bud “Zi Ya”, and the Purple Tea Sampler. Sold-out markdowns are not deals, but they are a forecast: this is where the discounting moves next when stock returns.
Separately, a wave of roughly fourteen 2026 pressings went up on October 8–9 — raw and ripe pu-erh cakes plus 2026 white cakes, most with sample sizes from $6.50 to $11.00. That is the autumn restock completing.
The variant trap we flagged last week is still live, and is still the single most expensive mistake on this site: the discount lives on the variant dropdown, not the product. The Purple Needle, Yi Wu Wild Arbor, Feng Qing Golden Pekoe and Hua Xiang Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong each now list a full-price Spring 2026 variant beside the discounted Spring 2025 one. Check which year is preselected before you add to cart.
Standing offers unchanged: free gifts and BOGO in five tiers from $45, and free US shipping on $75+ , measured after discounts.
Red Blossom — first new tea since April, and it is already gone
Still zero discounted items across all 156 products — a seventh straight quiet week on price. But the shelf moved for the first time since spring: a Jin Jun Mei (Golden Brow) listing went up on October 14 at $6.00, and it is already sold out. A Cerulean Tea Set at $82.00 followed on October 15 and is in stock.
One tea in six months, gone inside a week, tells you roughly what Red Blossom’s Tongmu allocation looks like. If you want their restocks, the mailing list is the only way to catch them. Banner unchanged: “Free shipping on US orders $100+.”*
White2Tea — no discounts, but the Dancong shelf is full
Zero discounted items across 1,004 products, seventh consecutive week. White2Tea simply does not run sales, so stop waiting for one.
What they do have is a nine-tea Dancong lineup listed on October 8 and still in stock: Dancong Oolong Chatou $4.50 , Daily Duck Shit $6.50, Gold Branch $7.50, Moon Bloom $11.00, Sweet Potato $12.50, Black Ant $17.00, Honeyed Pomelo $17.00, Golden Duckshit $18.50 and Duckshit on the Breeze $18.50. The $4.50 chatou — the compressed clumps that form during rolling — is the cheapest honest entry into Phoenix Dancong we know of anywhere, and chatou brew more forgivingly than loose Dancong, which is genuinely useful for a style that punishes over-steeping harder than any other oolong.
Tea Drunk — the same markdown, still sold out
Tea Drunk’s discolored-label Spring 2019 Da Hong Pao 大紅袍 holds at $55.00 (was $68.00) for the 32 g box and $23.00 (was $29.00) for the 8 g packet, and remains sold out across all four variants for a third week. Still the only discounted item among their 105 listings.
Everyone else
- TeaVivre and Verdant Tea blocked automated access again (HTTP 403, seventh consecutive week). Both load normally in a browser — check by hand if either is on your list.
If you buy one thing this week, make it roasted Wuyi oolong from the Seven Cups Year End sale — it is the category that genuinely does not mind being a year old, and 20% is a real discount on tea that was fairly priced to begin with. If you buy two, add the $3.50 Old Ways Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong sample.
Events
The New York calendar refilled this week after running dry, and there is finally a major West Coast date on the board.
New this week
- Fall SF International Tea Festival — Saturday–Sunday, November 14–15, 2026, Second Floor Grand Hall, Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA 94111. Admission from $24 per day; Funcheap lists a $5-off code (FUNCHEAP) bringing it to $19. Tickets via Eventbrite . Admission includes unlimited tastings from 30-plus producers, expert presentations, and a porcelain tasting cup to keep. Hours are listed as 11:00 AM–5:00 PM on the Ferry Building’s page and 10:00 AM–5:00 PM on Funcheap — confirm before you plan an early arrival. This is the largest US tea event of the autumn and the first one we have been able to list outside New York.
- A Taste of the 1970s: Vintage Pu’erh & Liu Bao (New York Tea Society) — Sunday, November 1, 2026, 1:00–4:00 PM, NYTS Tea Studio, 38 W 32nd St #1010, Manhattan. $75 non-member; $0 for members using one session credit. Four teas from the 1970s: a 1976 sheng pu’erh with some huangpian, a 1970s shou, and dry- and wet-stored 1970s Liu Bao side by side. Limited to 8 people including hosts. The dry-versus-wet storage pair on fifty-year-old Liu Bao is the kind of comparison you cannot assemble at home at any sane price, and eight seats will not last.
- Autumn Celebration (Tea Arts and Culture) — Saturday, November 7, 2026, 12:00–4:00 PM, Concrete Park, 1370 Westchester Avenue, The Bronx. Free. Their 5th annual community banquet for the Bronx River Foodway — wild food and drink tastings, herbalism, workshops, art and music. This is the first November date Tea Arts and Culture has posted all autumn.
Booking now
- Mahjong Night at NYTS — Friday, October 23, 7:00–10:00 PM, NYTS Tea Studio, Manhattan. $35 general admission; membership can bring it to zero at checkout. Beginner-friendly, no experience needed. Note the listing’s own description text says “Thursday, October 1” — that is a leftover typo; the booking block reads October 23, and tickets are on sale for that date.
- 2022 Wuliang: Gushu Pu’er Comparison Tasting — Sunday, October 25, 1:00–4:00 PM, NYTS Tea Studio, Manhattan. $25 members / $60 non-members. Six teas, one origin, three side-by-side comparisons: bush-grown material against pruned old trees against gushu and single-tree.
- Community Engagement Tea — Saturday, October 24, 1:00–4:00 PM, Maple Street Community Garden, 237 Maple Street, Brooklyn. Free. (Note the window widened from last week’s posted 2:00–3:00 PM.)
- 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 Ste 701, Manhattan. Ticketed through Eventbrite; price not shown on the organizer’s page. Pairs well with the White2Tea Dancong note above.
- Meditation with Tea: A Chinese Tea Ceremony for Stillness — Sunday, December 20, 11:00 AM–12:30 PM, Teasthetic, Manhattan. Price not listed.
Sold out
- Tea and Olfaction: Deconstructing Taiwanese Oolong — Saturday, October 24, 1:00–3:30 PM, The Institute for Art and Olfaction, 932 Chung King Rd, Los Angeles. $145.90, sold out. Anna Mariani and Julianne Lee, two contrasting Taiwanese oolongs taken apart aroma note by aroma note and rebuilt as fragrance accords, with tea from Tap Twice Tea. Logged because it is the only Los Angeles tea event we found this week, and it sold out at $146 — which says something about where the appetite is.
Deals and event details verified on 2026-10-19 from each linked source. Prices and availability change without notice — always confirm on the shop’s or organizer’s own page.