A chill stirs the morning air reminding me winter is near, here in the Northern Hemisphere, and that it is time to stock up on a variety of warm seasonal drinks. With thousands of vendors utilizing 2Checkout’s global online payment solution, a subset of gourmet coffee and exotic tea vendors from around the world have found success marketing unique brands of their warm and iced drinks through niche-oriented websites. So, while you stock up on wood and grab your comfy fleece throw from the closet in preparation for a “curl up” next to the fireplace, stray away from the instant brands for one of the following 2Checkout premium coffee and tea vendors.

COFFEE

Coffee Junkies Unite! Start your quest for “all things coffee” here. An excellent starting point for coffee aficionados and amateurs alike is the popular niche website CoffeeGeek.com. CoffeeGeek is a premier online coffee destination including thousands of consumer reviews on appliances, products and beans, opinion articles, and active forums and blogs. If you want to be the coffee czar of your office or apartment building, add CoffeeGeek to your favorites to keep up on daily news, must have appliances, and the world’s hottest blends and beans!

Café Milagro, sells delicious packages of dark roast, light roast, decaf, and a special organic blend of high altitude roasted Arabica beans from the famous Tarrazu and Tres Rios regions of Costa Rica. The company started when an American college student ironically could not find a decent cup of coffee on a visit to Costa Rica and decided to open a small business to roast her own. Today, she and a partner have multiple retail locations and are serving and packaging fresh Costa Rican coffee daily and shipping it throughout the world.

Also from Costa Rica, Coffees of Atenas gets its name from a small town surrounded by volcanoes in Costa Rica’s plush central valley where the weather is ideal and fertile soil results in an annual robust harvest of very rich coffee. Coffee of Atenas pools its beans from a cooperative of over 1,200 family farms within this region and markets four unique gourmet brands and ships throughout the world.

The owners of Firehouse Coffee Company also have a rich Costa Rican family history and blend rich Costa Rican beans from their current location in Tacoma, Washington but uniquely theme their brands in support of firefighter and fire safety related charitable causes. The company’s FDNY medium bodied blend was developed in honor of the New York City Fire Department and the firefighters who paid the ultimate sacrifice September 11, 2001. Fifteen percent of all proceeds from this brand is donated to the UFA Widows and Children’s Fund. Other similar brands tied to similar charities are also available.

From the other side of the globe, Fresh Coffee Shop touts themselves as the world’s experts in Turkish and Arabic coffees and accessories. The site offers a wide range of Turkish, Greek, and Arabic blends, as well as unique and ornate coffee pots, grinders, tabletop burners, and gift sets. In addition to a wide range of products, a number of educational resources and testimonials, including a coffee forum, convince visitors to interact and buy.

TEA

Thunderbolt Tea focuses on the exclusive sales of rare Darjeeling teas from the Himalayan foothill region of West Bengal. The site is an excellent resource for exotic teas from the region and goes into detail, describing the various teas originating from the region including a customer rating system to rank the teas that have had the most success during harvest. Photos of the tea leaves highlight an excellent shopping experience for consumers.

Dru Era features a number of international products including popular flavored teas from Ceylon (also known as Sri Lanka). Dru Era’s tea site features silver and golden tips, chrysanthemum, rose, jasmine, cinnamon, lavender, and a number of specialty tea blends. The site also includes a health benefits section and traditional and regional teaware sets to help set the mood.

Three other interesting tea sites using 2Checkout’s services include Jing Tea Shop from China, GrandTea.com run by two brothers in Hong Kong offering a variety of Chinese teas in quantities as large or small as you want, and The Real Tea Company of Great Britain. The Real Tea Company is a small business offering a selection of the best teas around the world with a customer service focus to help tea lovers take a “Journey of real tea discovery.”

Whether you are looking to quickly compare prices on your favorite coffee blends or exotic teas, or spend hours researching a unique flavor just for you, these sites will provide a remarkable number of unique coffee and tea options for even the most sophisticated palates in your family.