Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Glad you asked! We are passionate about offering high-quality, loose-leaf tea in bulk, retail, or customized packaging. We know our suppliers, source great pure tea from smaller producers around the world, and create our own unique blends so that you can offer a guest experience that simply cannot be matched from mass market tea companies or the grocery store.

We are customer focused and are proud to be able to support small business customers with a $200 first order minimum and zero minimum order quantity (MOQ) for bulk tea reorders or Dominion Tea packaged retail product reorders. Private label or co-branded tea is only a 20 piece minimums per tea/package for private label and co-brand – in fact much lower than almost any other supplier!

Our blends are prepared in small batches with fresh ingredients with a strong emphasis on keeping tea and ingredient age as short as possible so you can wow your customers.

Creating your own brand to sell online has become popular of late and many so-called “business experts” are writing books and selling seminars on how to do this. However, be sure you go into this with your eyes wide open. The only sure way to build a huge brand quickly on-line is to have a massive amount of capital to spend on advertising and be able to accept very small margins. This is even harder if you don’t make your own product, pay marketplace fees, have others package it, and hope to have someone else drop-ship for you.

We focus on top quality ingredients from small suppliers with great taste. And we expect to produce, package, sell, and ship our tea in a short time for maximum freshness. We simply do not buy the cheapest ingredients in massive bulk and slowly move through inventory over years as the product goes stale. Such mass market suppliers can provide you cheap tea – this is not the business model of Dominion Tea.

We offer quality tea with a low minimum first order ($200) and no MOQ for reorders of bulk or Dominion Tea packaged retail tea. Private label/co-brand is available for the same minimum order size and minimum of 20 pieces per tea/package to satisfy businesses which seek to offer their guests a great tea experience. We are unlikely to be your solution if you seek to be competitive with commodity tea.

Sorry but the answer on this is short and sweet. No. We are generally flexible on reselling our retail product in a brick and mortar operation, but we do draw the line at having our product re-sold online via a marketplace like Amazon. We want those who enjoy our tea to have a great experience and part of this experience is having a bit more personal interaction with a seller than is afforded with such marketplaces.

You are free to offer private label or co-branded tea on these marketplaces.

Please feel free to contact us with this form. If it’s easier, please give us a call at 540-999-8327 but note this is our retail tasting room and you will be leaving a message with our staff for call back.

Please complete our wholesale account request form, providing us a bit of information about your business along with your Federal EIN.

We offer a wide variety of sizes to suit many needs. Bearing in mind tea is its freshest if used in a year, we offer bulk tea in sizes ranging from 1/2 pound to a sack or larger. For more detail learn about the sizes offered to meet your needs. This includes full sacks of Rooibos, Honeybush, and Green Rooibos that we import direct from South Africa and Assam TGFOP that we import direct from India.

The minimum required purchase is 20 stand-up pouch packaged products per flavor/package type (and minimum order size of $200 for your first purchase with us).

Any loose-leaf tea product may be purchased as either private label or co-brand packaging. Please note that tea sachets (aka tea bags) are not available as private label or co-brand.

The short answer is no, we are sorry we cannot offer this. Production of tea sachets requires sophisticated equipment and large production runs. We use a co-packer who combines our tea, tea-bag material, and envelope material to produce the finished product. Cost-effective sachet runs requires large volume. Minimum order sizes range from 40,000 to 200,000 and higher! So unfortunately, private label or co-branded tea sachets is not something we can offer.

In order to offer very low minimum order quantities of private label and co-branded tea we need to standardize our offering a bit. This is what we offer:

• Customized front label with your logo or graphic (please see details below). Label size is 3” wide by 4” high.
• Rear label with ingredients, a bar code you can use with your point of sale system, and your physical address or ours as manufacturer (required by US FDA).
• Stand up-pouch packaging with zipper seal so the customer can re-seal the package after opening. All pouches are then heat sealed at the very top as well.
• Package color is generally white though other options are available, please contact us if this is of interest. We are open to other colors but if we don’t have them in stock you will need to buy a case of whatever you want. This is generally $100-$200 per case of 500 to 1,000 bags.

No. The FDA requires a physical address. You may not use a PO box on the rear label. There are two options:

• • Your physical address.
  • The physical address of Dominion Tea.

Here are some basic requirements for the graphic/logo you provide us. You must ensure you own any and all rights to graphic provided. We will provide a soft copy of the label design prior to printing.
You may opt to send a full 3”x4” label design or simply a graphic. If you provide only a graphic we will apply text for the tea name and size.

• • • Images must be in JPG, GIF, or PNG format.
    • Your image should be 300 dpi for best printing quality.
    • A full image for printing will be 1000×1333 px (WxH) so feel free to design a graphic that uses the full area. Just be sure to leave space for required items: Tea Name & Size
    • If you would like a border color printed around your label please provide a color Hex Code (e.g. #FFFFFF).
    • Unless you provide a full image as noted above, we will position & size your logo for best appearance on the label and apply a border if indicated.
    • FDA regulations require the physical address of the seller or the producer on the label. We typically put this on a rear label and it will be our name and address unless you provide your own.

Please see the requirements for private label tea above. In addition to these requirements, know that we will add the Dominion Tea logo in the location we think it fits best. If you are providing a full 3”x4” design you must leave enough white space for our logo, typically in the lower right corner.

Here are a few tips but please note that our specialty is tea, not graphic design. If in doubt, please ask your graphic designer for guidance.

• • • Use a graphic editor like GIMP (GNU Image Processor) or Adobe Photoshop to confirm the image resolution. In GIMP use the “Image” menu option and view “Image Properties”. If it says 300 x 300 dpi then you are good to go. If the dpi is lower but the image size in pixels is very large, like 2000x2000 then the image is likely to work well when it is resized smaller.
    • Do not provide a graphic that is smaller than 1000x1000 pixels as the print quality is likely to be poor.
    • The source for your graphic should be your logo/graphic source, not a photograph of your printed logo or your logo/graphic file saved from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,etc. Anything other than the raw logo/graphic source is likely to be of poor quality when printed.

For wholesale orders we require payment for the tea itself at the time of order. We will then bill the same credit card on file for shipping when it's ready to go. This normally is within 3-5 business days (Monday-Friday) and you will receive status updates from us as we work on the order and if we have any questions for you (especially with white label or co-branded packaging).

We strive to ship all orders within 3-5 business days (Monday-Friday) of the order being placed. This may be longer for custom blends. In the rare case that we are out of stock, we will clearly communicate options with you rather than simply dropping a product from your order. In most cases, orders actually ship within 3-4 days or sooner.
Full payment is required prior to shipment for those outside our delivery area.

We happily ship anywhere in the United States including DPO/FPO and similar locations and generally to anywhere that can accept deliveries. We do not ship outside the United States or DPO/FPO locations.

We currently ship via United States Postal Service but may use FedEx or UPS depending on available rates. The shipping you pay, outside of our local delivery region, will be the actual amount it costs us for shipping. We do not charge a handling fee.

Unfortunately, no. We pride ourselves on importing great pure tea from around the world and producing unique, great tasting blends. Simply put, our business model just does not support drop-shipping.

To be clear all companies charge for shipping, even those that offer “free shipping”. It's either built-in to the cost of the product so that shipping appears to be free, or it’s not built-in and you see exactly how much shipping costs. We opted to be transparent about shipping costs, instead of building in extra margin on all products, and provide guidance on how to reduce the impact of shipping charges.

You bet! The easiest way is to buy more at one time. The cost of shipping per pound can often be cut in half by ordering closer to 10 to 20 pounds as compared to 1 to 2 pounds. In our experience buying 20 lbs of tea at a time is about the sweet spot, beyond which shipping costs per pound generally don’t fall any further.

If you happen to have FedEx and get better rates we are happy to ship on your account number.

Any unopened wholesale tea purchased from Dominion Tea in bulk or retail packaging may be returned to us within 7 days for a refund or credit. Custom, private label or co-branded tea may not be returned.

Unused/undamaged tea accessories or unopened tea supplies may be returned to Dominion Tea within 30 days for refund or credit.

Please be aware we are filling orders daily, so we may go into production on your order the same day you place it. So, if you made a mistake, please communicate quickly. If your order includes private label, co-branded, or custom products be aware there is no swap outs or refunds once we print the labels.

The easiest option is with a so-called make your own teabag. These are individual bags open at the end that allow you to make a cup to go with any loose leaf tea available. This method allows you the most flexibility to support a wide range of tea flavors -- whereas you won't find as wide a variety in packaged tea bags. Learn more on our post on instructions for making tea to go.

Absolutely! Our wholesale customers will often serve their guests iced tea with our products. Just about any tea can be served iced. You can purchase the tea from us loose in bulk or in convenient ½ gallon sized pouches to make prep that much easier. You can then make iced tea one of several ways:

• • • Brewed hot for concentrate which is stored at room temp and served over ice.
    • Brewed hot, standard strength and stored refrigerated to be served pre-chilled.
    • Brewed cold, stored refrigerated for a slightly smoother, sweeter taste.
    • Brewed cold or hot (standard strength) and served on-tap with nitrogen gas for a silky sweeter taste with bubbles, aka Nitro Tea!

Absolutely! There are several options which come down to fresh made by the cup, served at room temperature, or served from a refrigerated container. We've put together directions based on years supporting coffee shops and our own tasting room experience. If you want to make larger batches you have the option of using bulk loose leaf and straining off the leaves or using our iced tea pouches -- each one makes 1/2 gallon so you can scale easily and pull out the pouch when you finish brewing.

• • • Iced Tea Preparation by the Cup.
    • Large Batch Iced Tea Prep -- Stored at Room Temp
    • Large Batch Iced Tea -- Stored Refrigerated

We're happy to work with current customers to create a custom blend that highlights your brand and style.
Creating a custom blend takes a good deal of work once you provide us with the notional taste profile you have in mind. It’s quite a bit of trial and error on our part to find a tea with balance that tastes good and meets the desired profile. We’re happy to work with you on a custom blend using ingredients and flavors we already have, as long as you are willing to purchase a minimum of 5 lbs up front.

If you are not an existing customer, minimum order size of 25-30 lbs is required plus a $100 fee for recipe development. Please get in touch with us to let us know what you have in mind and we will schedule a time to discuss your objective in more detail.

When first creating the item, this could take a good deal of time, but much of that is driven by you. Once we receive your preferred flavor profile, we will turn around 2-3 versions of the blend for you to taste. These will be mailed out to you. It is up to you to taste them quickly and get us feedback.