Tea Runners is the only major tea subscription company that allows you to fully customize your tea discovery experience. We usually have 25+ customization options available per month.

Your first box is customized when you sign up. For regular monthly shipments, you will receive an email on the 25th of the month notifying you that it is time to customize next month's box. Customization is open from the 25th until the last day of the month.

By choosing one of our four boxes, you are selecting what kinds of teas you'll get if you do not submit any customizations by the deadline.

We don't make you wait! Your first box will ship within 24 hours, Monday to Friday. You will receive a shipping notification via email when your box ships.

Ship dates can be minorly affected by public holidays and the time of day USPS picks up the mail.

Regular monthly shipments are made around the 4th-6th of the month. Billing for recurring subscriptions happens on the 1st of the month.

Example: You are billed on April 1st for the April box, which ships the around April 4-6.

Ship dates vary slightly depending on weekends and holidays.

When you sign up for a Tea Runners subscription you are billed right away. Billing for renewals is done on the 1st of the month.

For monthly subscriptions
If you sign up on or before the 24th, your first renewal will be on the 1st of the next month.

If you sign up on or after the 25th, your first renewal will be on the 1st of the following month.

For example, if you sign up on January 26th, your first renewal date will be March 1st.

All prices on tearunners.com are in U.S. dollars (USD). 

All normal subscriptions renew until cancelled.

Gift subscriptions do not renew.

Yes. To skip an upcoming shipment or renewal, use the "Pause" feature inside your account.

1. Login to your account.
2. Select your subscription.
3. Click Manage Subscription.
4. Click 'Pause Subscription'.
5. Choose from 1, 2, or 3 months.
6. Click 'Yes, Pause My Subscription'.

Your subscription will resume after the amount of months selected.

Please note that this action must be made before the 1st of the month.  You cannot pause the current month's shipment from within your account after the 1st.

You can also choose to pause your subscription indefinitely. This option requires you to restart it manually when you're ready.

You can cancel your subscription anytime by following these steps:

1. Login to your account. 
2. Select your subscription.
3. Click Manage Subscription.
4. Click Edit Renewal Settings.
6. Select ‘Cancel this subscription’

Please note that cancelling will prevent any future renewals from taking place, but it will not stop prepaid shipments from being delivered.

Example: If you sign up for 6 boxes and cancel after 3, we will still ship the remaining 3 boxes but your account will not renew.

No, gift subscriptions do not renew. If you purchase a 3-month gift subscription, it will automatically expire after the 3 months are up.

If you see a message on Shopify checkout about "agreeing to a subscription", just ignore that. We use the Shopify subscription API to manage shipments, but gift subscriptions will not renew.

Yes. Gift recipients can customize every box in their subscription except the first one.

The first box cannot be customized by the recipient (since it’s usually a surprise), but the gift purchaser can customize the first box on checkout.

The gift subscription can be accessed by both the buyer and the recipient.

Yes, there is a place on the gift subscription checkout to add a gift message. This message will be emailed to the gift recipient, along with a description of their gift and who it’s from.

We offer the ability to start your gift subscription right away, or to schedule it for a future date. Scheduling a gift subscription is especially useful for birthdays, anniversaries, etc., when you want your gift notification email to arrive at a specific date and time.

Important note:
When you schedule a gift subscription, the date and time you select is when an email is sent to the gift recipient. It is NOT the date the first box will arrive. The first box is shipped from our warehouse the day after the email is sent.

Scheduled gift subscriptions do not appear in your account or the gift recipient's account until the gift date has arrived. To make any changes to a scheduled gift subscription prior to the gift date you must contact customer support.

Gift cards can be used for tea, teaware, or subscriptions. You can purchase anything from us with a gift card, except another gift card.

When redeeming a gift card for a subscription, only the first purchase amount applies. Gift cards do not apply to renewals on a subscription.

No. Gift cards do not expire.

Every box comes with 4 pouches of tea and each pouch contains roughly 0.75 - 1.2 oz of tea (depending on the weight and bulkiness of the tea).  Each box contains enough tea to make about 30-40 cups of tea, depending on the types of tea and how strong you like it. You can also steep most of these teas more than once, so realistically you could stretch it to 50+ cups of tea. 

Almost all of our teas are USDA Certified Organic when we buy them from our suppliers. However, we cannot label them as USDA Certified Organic unless each tea is individually certified for Tea Runners.  We ship up to 16 different teas a month and approval for each tea can take weeks, so it doesn't fit very easily with our tight deadlines for packaging and production. 

In short, most of our teas are organic but our business model makes it very hard to get the certification on our label. 

We also manage to get our hands on top quality Chinese teas that were never intended for the US market and, therefore, never bother with USDA certification. 

In general, tea that is properly stored has a long shelf life. Some teas are definitely better when freshest, however others may taste better with age (black teas in particular).

We put best by dates on our packaging for each tea.

In general, pure teas usually have a shelf life of 2-3 years. Blended teas (depending on the ingredients) are also usually good for 2 years. Flavored teas have a little less shelf life, but in general they will be good for up to 1 year.

Make sure to store your teas in a cool, dark, dry place for best shelf life. Properly stored teas will be good for a very long time.

You can buy more of the tea you loved in our subscription from our website. Use the main navigation of this page to discover all our teas.

We have over 400 teas on our roster and not every tea is always in stock, but you can sign up to be instantly notified via email or text when a tea becomes available. 

For subscription boxes, shipping is FREE to United States addresses (including overseas military addresses).

We use USPS First Class Mail and your box should arrive within 3-6 days. USPS First Class Mail does not include tracking.  

Some orders will ship via USPS Ground Advantage, which does include tracking.

If you purchase a teapot with your subscription, we may ship your first box with UPS.

Canadian subscriptions customers should using www.tearunners.ca. However, subscriptions to Canadian addresses may also be ordered on TeaRunners.com

Shipping is free for all subscription boxes delivered within Canada. Orders ship via Canada Post Lettermail from Delta, British Columbia.

Delivery typically takes:

• 4–6 business days to western provinces
• 10–14 business days to eastern provinces

Tracking is not available for Canadian subscription shipments.

We offer FREE SHIPPING on order over $60. We ship most orders via USPS, but some are sent via UPS.

As of February 2026, due to duty charges, brokerage costs, and occasional tariffs, we no longer ship ecommerce orders from TeaRunners.com to addresses outside the United States.

However, Canadian customers may participate in our monthly duty-free sales. Once per month, we open our full U.S. inventory to Canadian customers, import the orders in bulk, and ship from Delta, B.C.

Join our mailing list to be notified when these sales are available.

Products available to Canadians year-round can be ordered on TeaRunners.ca