I’ve been receiving the Sips by box for four months now, so it seems like a good time to check in about my over all experience.

In four months of boxes, I’ve only received one tea I didn’t like. My second box came with four bags of a “detox” tea. Since I had not selected “detox” as a reason why I drank tea, and I had expressed a preference for loose leaf over bagged teas, I was disappointed. When reviewing my box for the month I gave that tea a one out of five rating and added the comment “Please don’t send me any more detox teas.” I didn’t expect to get a response, I was just venting my spleen.

So imagine my surprise when I got an email from Sips by a few days later, saying hey, I’ve made a note on your account to not send any more detox teas and I’ll try to send more like this other one you rated a five.

I guess they aren’t joking when they say they match you with a tea expert. There’s apparently someone at Sips by who actually looks at my profile and takes my preferences into account when building my box for the month.

Unlike the Ipsy makeup subscription box that I used to receive, where they’d keep sending me bronzers and bright pink lip glosses no matter how many times I rated them a 1, my next two tea boxes have been detox free and full of teas that really fit the flavor profile of what I like.

Every month, I receive mostly loose leaf teas. sometimes a matcha powder. There’s been a good balance of unusual single origin teas (such as an unsmoked lapsang suochong) and unique blends (like a chai with coconut and lemongrass). So far I’ve received mostly brands I hadn’t even heard of, so I really feel like I’m not getting things that I could just buy at my local tea shop or fancy grocery store.

After four months, I still feel like I might not be getting $15 worth of tea in my box, but I think it’s worth paying extra to have someone curating a selection of hard-to-find teas and ship them to me.

The amount of tea I receive feels like just enough — I have a few servings of each, so I can experiment with different brew times and temperatures, but I can also finish all of my tea in a month while still enjoying the other teas I’ve already got in my cabinet. It allows me to fulfill my desire for variety, without having a cabinet absolutely overflowing with full-size packages of tea.

Also, I really recommend following Sips by on Instagram. They run a lot of contests with their “partners” (the companies that provide the tea in the boxes). I won one and received a very generous package of samples from Nepal Tea which is allowing me to really explore that brand’s product line.