Our lovely final version (of 4 incarnations) of Elaine's Tea Shoppe that existed in the physical world has now closed. June, 2016, we were forced to come to the decision after our landlord refused to address serious plumbing problems in the building. So, we have been transitioning into the cyber world exclusively. We have had our web site for over 14 years, but it will now be our only connection to our tea customers.
We entered into this semi-retired phase quite willingly, but we sure miss the day -to-day contact with our customers. We still bring a superb collection of premium loose-leaf teas to our customers, but no face-to-face sampling before you buy, no sitting down over a cup of tea and home-made scones, no knitting circles, no browsing through our extensive collection of tea ware and tea related sundries.
So, we transition to the virtual world, and most contact is simply over the phone. It makes things more difficult, distanced, and less hands-on. But, most are adjusting to the new, and we are happy to still bring tea to the area. Elaine has had several speaking events, so it is enjoyable to talk to a group in person again and share the beauty and health of tea. Perhaps the fates will allow for special tea events/parties/tastings in the future. We'll see.
And as Murphy's Law would dictate, our web site, wildorchidteas.com has suffered a fatal crash, could not be retrieved, and is now floating, lost forever in cyberspace. So, we have been madly building a new site. The learning curve was pretty steep in the beginning, but we've got it under our belt now, and our new site should be up soon.
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| Sweet Shalom Tea Room in Sylvania, OH |
In the meantime, Elaine is now trying to settle into semi-retirement, finally getting to join friends for tea at other tearooms as pampered guest.
Transitions are tough, but we've learned to go with the flow and know that this is the right place for us to be at this time.
