How to pay no import duty for orders to the EU?

Recently the EU imposed a policy to charge a flat €3 import duty per category of items for orders below €150. That means if you buy a teapot, a pack of green tea, and a pack of oolong from us that cost a total of 149, you have to pay an additional duty of €3 x 3 = €9, in addition to the country specific VAT and shipping charge. AND, since those IOSS agents (middleman companies setup particularly to process EU specific VAT for small online orders from outide of EU) all evade the extra responsibility of handling the duty, we have no alternatives but to ask for the help of a commercial courier who can do it. They charge a fee for doing that as well.

How to increase the buying power of each of your €

It must have been very depressing for you as a consumer to have to face all those extra costs. I am here to tell you that there are ways to minimise it and actually save money.

1. Do not order less than 150 in total.
Your government is attempting to make things simple by uniformly charging all parcels below 150 a flat rate, but will inspect those above 150 individually. 
To EU, it is official that there is 0% import duty for tea. Your customs officer would simply follow the book for that.
2. For teaware, buy only Japanese ones. 
That is because those that are made in China would have to face an extremely high punitive import duty (79+5.5%), no matter if it is a €1000 Yixing teapot or a €6 teacup.
Those that are made in Japan, however, because of a special EU-Japan Economic Partnership Agreement (2018), there is no duty for a huge majority of all daily products, including tableware. 
To make it easy for you, we have designed a mechanism that when you come to our shop from an EU location, only those teaware items that are made in Japan can be added to your shopping cart. 
If you want one of those lovely Yixing teapots, write to us.
3. Get free shipping
Plan your purchase so it is large enough to qualify for free shipping. Since all our parcels to the EU have to be through a high cost commercial courier, you are basically getting more than 10% discount for your products.

Tea Hong — True Quality. True Taste. — & True Value

I have been to a few EU cities, visiting top selling teashops and small ones. If you think it is important to put quality in your cup, and serious about getting the best value for your hard-earned money, there really is no better place to shop than ours, despite what extra costs the current situation imposes.

We have always been buying directly from the producers, and have built a vast network over the decades I have been in the business. The collection at Tea Hong has been made for the best genuine quality for the optimum price. This has been unmatched in shops even in Taiwan, Japan, or China.

Have fun browsing.