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| They had tea flowers swaying back and forth like this one in mugs in that tea store. I just stared at them. A long time. |
So, when I saw some people handing out samples of tea at the mall, I got all excited. Tea. How delightful! A quick little gulp of some flavored tea was just what I needed in the mall at that moment. In fact, as I passed all the stores I couldn't look inside due to having my kids with me, I thought, "You know, I'm REALLY in need of a teeny-tiny sip of tea. I sure wish someone was handing out really, really teeny-tiny sips of tea..."
And there they were handing out teeny-tiny sips of tea with charming smiles spread across their faces in front of their very hip & trendy store.
"Sure, I'll take a sip of your hot tea in a thimble. Thanks!"
Oh, it's never that easy.
I sip it. I like it. I ask the obligatory questions.
"So, what is this called again? Strawberry kiwi tea, huh? Sounds refreshing!"
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| Verrrrry enticing, isn't it? Don't stare too long or that tea will hypnotize you and take all your money. www.teavana.com |
"Do you have any iced tea made?"
"Yes! Would you like to come inside the store with me?"
"Sure, I'll walk behind you like a rat with a very, very low IQ that is trapped in a maze while gazing at your fancy tea pots, being impressed by your swimming flowers, looking in awe at your various mugs and try to remember where tea originated (India? China? England?) so I can appear sophisticated in case you give me a pop quiz and THEN I'll try your blueberry-strawberry tea. Mmmm!!! This is GOOD!"
Tea Lady goes on to tell me that that awesome blueberry-strawberry tea is actually a combination of two different types of tea. She pulls out her fancy, large, hat-shaped boxes of tea and shows me the two different kinds. The blueberry kind and the strawberry kind. The tea looks like potpourri. If you didn't want to drink it, you could display it in a glass jar or something. It was just beautiful! I wanted to scoop it up over and over in my hands while laughing hysterically over having found such a treasure!
"Oh, sure, I'll take both kinds of tea. It's tea after all! SIGN ME UP! How expensive can tea be? I'll take all I can hold! Gooooooooooooo TEA!!!! Tea! Tea! Tea!"
She gets two $7 small canisters out and fills them up separately. She tells me these canisters will keep my tea fresher longer and that I can refill them for less.
"Oh, no problem! I like fresh tea! Stale tea can take a hike, huh?? Fill those babies up! I can't wait to sit around and drink potpourri. This is AWESOME!"
"Okay, ma'am, that will be $85 for everything."
"Eighty-five dollars?! You're trying to rob me, aren't you? Where's your mask? The gun? You're really asking me to give you $85 for iced tea. Are you kidding me? For tea?! For real?"
"Yes, $85, but you get the two canisters that you can refill. Also, you'll need to buy our special tea brewer that will sit so nicely on top of our special mugs. So, $105."
"$105 for tea?!?!"
"Yes, ma'am, but our tea is very, very fresh. We use only the best. You can see there are actually dried blueberries in there and dried strawberries! You can see them yourself!"
"$105 for tea?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"105 for tea??"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Uh, yeah, my you just said I had to pay $85 or $105 for TEA. I can buy tea for $5 at the grocery store."
"Well, THAT tea isn't nearly as good and goes bad very quickly."
"What if I just take the blueberry tea?"
"Well, that won't be nearly as good. You won't get the blueberry-strawberry tea flavor that you sampled just a minute ago." (Shows me her real sour, disgusted face.)
"I don't care. Give me just the blueberry tea."
"Uhhhh, okay. Well, (click-clack-click-clack), that will be...$65."
"Sixty-five dollars for tea?!"
"Yes, ma'am, but remember our tea is fresh."
"I don't care about fresh. I'm not paying $65 for tea! How about half of that?"
"Alright. That'll be $45, but you'll also need the tea brewer and special mug."
"You can keep your special mug. I am not taking that mug. I'll find something that will work. Also? I don't need your special canister. I'm never going to refill that thing here."
I think I walked out of that fancy tea store with a small brown bag with exactly 3 dried blueberries, a handful of tea leaves and maybe a stray strawberry slice in it, and that dang tea brewer, for a grand total of 40ish dollars.
For tea.
(You would've paid the $85, right?)
27 comments:
What's wrong with you Woman? You should have never walked in. If they are rich enough to have store in the mall, they've got to be expensive. (says the woman who almost got suckered into buying a beautiful lavender blend a few years ago. I took the sample, burned the crap out of my mouth and then felt so stupid I went in)
That's hilarious!! You should NEVER stop in the mall. Do NOT talk to the sales people. My best friend and I made the mistake of letting one of those friendly foreign ladies at one of those tiny kiosks stop us one day. She wanted to try the straightening iron she was selling on our "BEA-U-TIFUL hair." "Look how it makes your hair shine! Look it can even curl your hair!" ...she says as she puts one long, very bouncy curl on each of our heads. "You can have two of these for only $180!!" $$180!!! Umm... no thank you!
Well we should have asked her to remove the long, very bouncy curl from the front of out very straight hair BEFORE we turned down her generous offer! She refused to remove it... so the rest of the day we walked through the mall at christmas time, with our very bouncy BFF curls!!
The pomposity and audacity overwhelms.
Seriously!
For TEA???
I read this to my wife, and she suggested that, if the sales clerk were young and blonde and buxom, I would have spent the $85 for a handful of tea leaves and some dried fruit. I really don't think this is true. There is a cut-off point, measurable in money, beyond which flirty pulchritude just doesn't work. I think it's around $54.
Dying laughing. Props for bartering and refusing the stupid canister and holder. I would have DEFINITELY been the sucker that mutters "Ohhh ok, thank you" while sheepishly handing over my debit card to bring home some stupid-ass tea that would sit in my cabinet for years.
I think they send the sales staff to pirahna (sp) school. They are real sharks. I like tea but I won't even look at those peeps.
BTW: the story on my blog...the husband that does indeed talk favorably about his wife when she's not around is true. He does talk highly of her. Just wanted to clarify. I wasn't completely lying to her.
I cannot believe you even bought anything at all. Oh sure I would have felt like a heel but as per your famous quote '$65 for TEA????!!!" Man now I am thinking those little 'blue pills' must be a bargain ... I wonder if I mix them with red pills if they will make good tea? Fun post! W.C.C.
Oh, my! And I don't care for tea, at all! Good for you for resisting as much as you did!
Haha!! I also wrote a post about the tea bag of shame.... though in all fairness... this tasted nothing like strawberry tea!!! Nightmare!
Oh you, conned!! I would've walked away.
So, how did the tea taste at home?
I walked into that store once, sipped her tea and walked right out. She was amazed. I didn't even let her give a spiel. I cannot believe how sly they are. She had tea in my hand before I knew what I wanted to say. And I'm not really about flavored tea with crap in it. So I'm not going to spend that kind of money. And that stupid special brewer for on top of the mug. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid people can be to just fall for that kind of stuff.
And I could not work in that store because, like you, I just want to run my fingers through their dried tea over and over and over and ovver....
Is it magical tea? Will it make you have super mom powers?
45 bucks is steap...get it steaped tea? hee hee
I'm sorry, but oh hell no.
I did pay $4.50 for tea the other day that had little balls in it that popped in my mouth when I sucked them in through the straw. So there's that.
Thank God I don't even like tea, coffee or anything like that. One of the few who can walk straight past Starbucks and, seems now Tea stores. LoL
Never, ever take the sample, never tell them if they are your real nails, and never let them touch your hair. A good rule of thumb is to laugh and look really engaged in conversation with your children while walking through the mall, sorry too busy to answer your questions! Avoid eye contact at all costs!
PS enjoy the tea, it better be fabulous!
This entire scenario has happened to us about 4 or 5 yrs ago, and guess what?! Most of that 'fresh' tea is still sitting in our cabinet unused! Girl, I could've given you my stale fancy tea for FREE!! It's called freecycing! ;)
Good grief! This is why I drink coffee ;)
This too has happened to me!
We should form a group.
I love this story. I'm so glad you posted it!
Well! I must say, you have taken a perfectly good evening an' turned it into quite a laugh-fest. I actually DID have plans to accomplish a few things, this evening. That is, before I wandered in here an' started reading your many hilarious posts. How do you EVER expect me to get anything done when you write like you do? I mean, REALLY! I could hardly leave before finding out 'bout the tea, now, could I?
An' surely, you couldn't expect me to keep going when I saw the next title, could you? Having a Baby Doesn't HURT That Bad?!?
It's unfair, I say. I jus' kept reading an' reading an' you jus' kept having more interesting an' funny things to say. It's jus' not fair. I'd keep telling you how I feel, but I'm still reading. We'll talk later. :)
~ Yaya
---The tea must have been mixed with hashish or something! WOW! Now, I may pay 85 dollars for chocolate...but NEVER tea. Funny post. x
I buy my tea from a specialty store and I thought $7 per 50 grams was bad.
I so wouldn't have paid $85
That price is true.
I couldn't believe it myself:
we had, sadly, a memorial service for a young girl that died in her 20's.
Don't cry, but her mom had a high tea for her, in a tea room in town.
She had her daughter's favorite china cups there, and the tea: with specific directions at what temp water for what length of time.
I was so damn nervous making that tea when I saw the UPC price on the little bag: 70 BUCkS.
70 BUCKS.
My hands were shaking as I checked the temp of the water every 4 seconds.
TALK ABOUT HIGH STRESS.
Forget Wall Street...it's making 70 dollar a lb tea for a lady's dead daughter that had me break out in hives.
Those tea people are so tricky!! So very very tricky! I'm sorry you has to endure that discomfort. I hope the tea was good once you got it home.
I'm deathly afraid of samples.
So I don't like tea, but I was thinking I needed to try the blueberry-strawberry one...and then you said "$105." I'm gonna stick with my original statement of "I don't like tea."
So I don't like tea, but I was thinking I needed to try the blueberry-strawberry one...and then you said "$105." I'm gonna stick with my original statement of "I don't like tea."
This is the biggest reason the mall scares me!
My husband likes me to answer the phone (sales calls) and the door (sales peeps) because I have no problem with saying no. And I'm kinda mean.
:)
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