Announcement: Not A Money Making Venture

Rather frequently I am asked how this blog makes me money. My answer is always “it doesn’t.” While this is certainly the way I envisioned the site as a whole, I have thought long and hard about this decision.

The questions I have been asking myself for the past six months are:

• Is advertising inherently evil?
• Does it constitute a waste of visual space?
• Does it distract from my content?

After quite a lot of thought on these and other worries I have finally decided that some visual advertising may actually be helpful for this site. My primary mission is to expose visitors such as yourself to more tea and tea flavors and brands than they may have had access to before.

The visual space usage doesn’t have to be all that great to help expose you to new teas, and hopefully… help offset some of the costs of running this site.

You will find adverts on the following page types:

• Tea Reviews
• News, Culture & History posts
• Accessory, Books and Software Reviews

You will NOT see advertisements on these page types:

• Static pages (such as the Tea Info pages)
• Brand Pages
• Feature Announcements

As I move forward with integrating the advertisements I’d like to make this process as transparent as possible. To ensure I’m not taking large kickbacks, you should know I have chosen to use an affiliate link service called LinkShare.

Different advertisers contribute in different ways, and I only apply for affiliate participation with companies or services which have something to offer the modern tea drinker.

So far these are affiliates I have signed up with:

• Adagio Teas, purveyors of some mighty fine teas. Some of which I have already reviewed.
  
• Amanzi Tea, a tea company I have yet to review.
  
• Alessi, an accessory maker with some neat contemporary products.
  
• Tea Forte’, another tea company with unique packaging whom I have yet to review.
  

I hope this level of transparency will help make the ensuing advertising more palatable. You won’t see the adverts everywhere and they won’t be like paint splatter on the pages where they do exist. They’ll only be for companies which have something topical to offer you. All proceeds will go to keeping this site going as costs continue to rise with increased traffic and posts while introducing new features!

Thanks for understanding this need. I’m excited to see how this goes and if enough funding offset begins coming through these affiliates, you could see more in-depth writings showing up as I can fund some extra research time!