tealifehk wrote: ↑Tue Dec 22, 2020 10:30 am
No package I've sent to Germany has ever been opened, so I think you've got me confused with someone else maybe?
I stand corrected then, sorry for the confusion.
I know that conversation was on Discord's CommuniTEA and it was a vendor that mentioned that particular incidence so with you being the one vendor i always remember there ( i'm not around that often ) guess i made a mental connection with you.
Now i think about it... hope i didn't misquote you ( this was recently on reddit ) on a 2008 Xinghai cake tasting like "horse shit" which you & Kupuntu seemed to agree >__>
The last package I sent to Germany was on the 7th of November. It arrived at the recipient's door on the 12th of November! Very quick and no issues for a 1kg box.
Genuinely glad that's working well for you & your customers, although can confirm the numbers i have from my own experience & other international sellers ( context: i'm part of a private forum where international sellers share their experiences; not going any further than that ) point to an objective & obvious growth in the number of issues at customs, the kind we didn't have before .
Also remember ( this time was a direct exchange between you & me on Discord ) you had no trouble with your orders shipped to Barcelona, etc... however since then ( i think that conversation happened either on late 2019/early 2020 ) the situation on Spain only has gotten worse, no matter the size of value.
wave_code wrote:
Since this summer I've gotten packages of tea from HK, Gungdong, USA, no problems with any of them. I've got two more that will get here when they get here from HK and also from Malaysia once post there resumes. I did find that one tea I ordered no longer is offered to be shipped here by the seller, which if it isn't allowed I can't blame them for not wanting to risk orders getting lost or returned. The only time I even had to go and pay tax was because it was a larger order, so one I should have had to pay for anyway, but it was more that it seemed they made some mistake and either cleared it and didn't mark it as cleared or something like that so the local office was kind of confused and it resulted in me paying. it was an unpleasant experience more because of who works in that office but technically it was no biggie.
Considering the amount of complaints from german buyers and comparing with my own experience and sellers from the private international sellers forum i belong to... i've also noticed there's a lot of discrepancies inside each country.
Sticking to Germany: half my family tree is spreaded over the Nordrhein-Westfalen region which is directly dependent on the infamous Frankfurt sorting office that since few years ago has changed things internally with horrible results... although just recently seems to have been fixed. Some regions just seem to experience more problems than others, whether it is anything customs-related or delivery speeds... or simple facts like not receiving any notice if they aren't home.
This year, as particular as it is, also is making such differences even more obvious. Some sellers i know had abnormal delays ( 1month+ ) on their domestic deliveries within France... while others ( located on Belgium ) had no issues trading with France ( although when i inquired a little bit... it was mostly northern-France locations ) .
Right now shipping to the Netherlands through regular post is becoming a bit of a nightmare with barely or no tracking updates on the dutch side and over 4-6 weeks delivery within EU.
I'd like to think my issues were directly related to my particular region... but all international orders are stopped/Checked at Madrid before being cleared & sent to a sorting office... so it just looks like they just increased the pressure.
I started searching for causes for this effect last year and that's when i found president Trump paid $30 million to the postal union on september 2019 demanding - precisely - more pressure ... and the timeline fitted perfectly related to the rise of complaints i've started noticing since then, not just on my side or Germany's... but everywhere else within the EU too.
I know some people still get lucky and receive their small parcels like usual not needing to pay any additional taxes, but the chances of success nowadays are definitely lower.
I know YS had stopped shipping to Germany for a bit, but I noticed its back on the country list so maybe whatever issue they were having was resolved? Maybe its an excuse for me to make a test order... I know these things can change over time but prior to moving here I also ordered from various places to Austria with zero issues and in Norway prior to that.
Had this text around from Scott of YS that i quote as i saved it:
"[...] It's like gambling. I'm tired of it. I also hate how German Customs and DHL will always shift the blame to the sender even though they have it. The parcel in the picture above was in Customs for a month in Germany. The customer called German Customs and DHL and they told him it wasn't in their possession and to contact the sender. Then a few weeks later it gets sent back to China with this sticker on it. They had it the whole time and lied to the customer. The customer was of course furious with us. In the end we were able to show them that in fact they did have it and sent it back because it was dangerous Chinese tea."-Scott
I've had a similar experience with my (5) YS packages stopped here; Scott claimed he never got 'em back months & months after the fact... and i absolutely believe him based on they way customs agents tend to proceed over here ( constantly breaking the rules & not caring at all ) . I myself had to wait 5 hours ( five! ) on the phone until a customs agent finally graced me with his presence... only to give me a generic answer and not even bothering to check anything then hang.
That said... had no idea Scott is now willing to risk it again.
I tried looking up specifics about what is allowed and what is not in terms of flowers/scented teas, so on, but its a lot of paperwork and stuff I'm not used to navigating. I don't know the specific reason various things aren't allowed- maybe because some tend to be highly treated with pesticides, but I would guess more that its things fall under some blanket rule where if that plant isn't allowed to be shipped here then teas with its buds aren't allowed either since even though its in a tea technically it still is the reproductive organ of what might be considered a potential invasive species or something along those lines. I do understand that legally they can open packages and test things and so on, and again I don't know and haven't found specific paperwork on under what circumstances this applies specifically or generally... maybe I'm naive but I highly doubt the post is doing that except extremely rarely. even if they can charge you for it the work/bureaucracy behind doing such a thing is probably rather involved and probably still nets a loss for the post/port or whatever other administration is involved. I would guess the main target and reason for such rules is primarily dealing with commercial imports - which for small specialty vendors I get its a pain and it sucks, but with the amount of sketchy things liked canned food products that get sold and imported into Europe I do think its a good idea in principle at least that someone is spot-checking canned vegetables or fish do not contain heavy metals or ecoli. its unfortunate it isn't possible to lab-test for whether something is grown using fair labor or not.
A tea vendor from Czechia confirmed he isn't allowed to import tea with "anything else" anymore . The "anything else" is mine... specifically it's a long list and directly affected the liu an/ hei cha catalogue he planned to import now drastically reduced to a couple options. In theory tea with golden flowers, essential oils, chinese orchids, etc, etc, etc... are no longer allowed, this particular vendor used to import a particular taiwanese black tea that he can no longer bring, same for plenty heicha... the surprising part is that he still plan to bring some eco fucha bricks... although i guess that remains to be seen.
Another veteran ( 11 years ) tea seller reported abnormal paperwork , questions , testings & legal battles with DHL to clear up their latest batch of teas on late summer as well.
I myself also experienced issues with another one of my food-related interests: cacao beans . The newer EU laws also increased the pressure on cacao importers and lowered the max amounts of heavy metals found not to mention the insane amount of extra paperwork required; as a result, brands like Pacari haven't been able to sell their cacao within EU for a while... now they are back on the market with a worse product.
While lower heavy metal levels might sound like a reasonable thing ( even more with the reported high cadmium levels plenty cacao plantations soil around south america ) looks like those tests are way too strict and - same as what's happening with plenty teas - more related to a lack of culture about the product itself.
Thanks to this, it isn't legally allowed to bring mexican cacao beans into EU territory... one of the great quality sources for cacao beans ( fun fact: everybody claims to have "the best cacao in the world", this is boring the more you get into the cacao realm ) ... top US chefs only use this kind and even fly to Mexico to source the beans themselves ( imagine the bill for those dishes ) ... of course available to the US market...but they aren't allowed within the EU... it's "der prozeß" again & again & again