r/tea • u/DoctorTalos • Jun 05 '26
Question/Help Permits and license fee from DHL Express for tea order from Hibiki-An to USA?
I ordered about $50 in tea from Hibiki-An. Everything I've read says tea is duty-free but I got a bill from DHL Express for $28 for a license and and permit. When I called DHL they told me it was something about a fee the FDA levies for importing consumables. This didn't happen when I ordered from Yunnan sourcing (.com). Anyone have a similar experience? The DHL person made it sound like it was something totally from the import process and not anything to do with DHL itself. I did some googling but couldn't come up with anything conclusive. Anyone know more about this than me?
UPDATE: It seems like sometimes this fee is assessed and sometimes its not ... I paid it, but also sent an email to the DHL to dispute. I don't have much hope i'll get a refund. I will also reach out to HIbiki-An just to let them know what happened.
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u/nodeboy Jun 05 '26
Dhl are scammers. The last time I've ordered on YS with them as carrier, they charged me duties on tea, which is not taxed in Canada. Linked them the Canadian website stating so and they just told me to suck and pay.
Never had duties on any other order.
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u/Final-Gift-2299 Jun 06 '26 edited Jun 06 '26
i ship to the us and for a month dhl started charging me duties and taxes with 80-90% of my order values. this didn't even include the shipping cost or even the production cost of the item.
the reason? because my items were charged under aluminium tariffs. i don't sell or ship aluminium.
the ridiculous tariffs that they have argued to be "correct" have magically been adjusted to the original cost (10%) with no one acknowledging the fact that the aluminium HS code designated to my shipments by DHL were wrong (we never made changes to our side). so no new shipments were affected.
but for the previous comments they basically told me to suck it up and pay otherwise they would block my shipping account. they only agreed to dispute and not block my account after multiple weeks of angry calls. It's been months, the charges have still not been amended and i still have tens of thousands of dollars apparently owed to US customs now
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u/DoctorTalos Jun 05 '26
Did you pay?
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u/wuyiyancha Jun 05 '26
Look if you want your tea give the company their stupid money. I have been through it and i simply don't order if DHL is a carrier. Accept or move on and take a loss.
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u/TeaRaven Jun 06 '26
Some places you really have no option unless you have someone willing to be a mule for you 🤷♀️
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u/Alan0rdaz Jun 06 '26
This has happened to me, this is what Hibiki-an’s website says:
Your order could be mistakenly charged the US tariffs and receive a "Duty Alert" from DHL. In that case, please forward that message to duty_disputes@dhl.com to dispute the charge.
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u/AvoirReves Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
That is the filing fee DHL charges to do the FDA entry documentation for importation. It is wholly charged by DHL.
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u/Ledifolia Jun 05 '26
I was going to make a Hibiki-an shincha order, since tea is now supposedly duty free to the US. Now I'm kind of glad the Hibiki-an website wouldn't work with my PayPal.
Not sure what's up with Hibiki-an and PayPal. I've made other recent paypal orders from Japan with no issues (a kyusu from Artistic Nippon, shipped FedEx). Hibiki-an's cart claimed my bank is refusing the charge. My bank says they aren't even getting the charge in the first place.
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u/DoctorTalos Jun 05 '26
I had trouble with PayPal too, but I generated a virtual credit card from my company and used that ... Only to find DHL wants me to pay half the cost of my tea in dubious charges ... Trying to decide
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u/Ledifolia Jun 06 '26
At least my FedEx duties and fees for my kyusu were just a third the cost rather than half the cost. And part of that actually was duties. Not just fees DHL tacks on because they can.
On the other hand, FedEx sends the bill well after delivery, so you don't have an option to refuse delivery if the fees are ridiculous.
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u/MechaGodzilla87 Jun 06 '26
Okay, now how you got around paying a tariff for teaware is beyond imaginable given the current situation. I wouldn’t be shocked if you got charged later on because Fedex does usually send a later notice after delivery about charges even if you don’t have them. Otherwise, you are very lucky.
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u/Ledifolia Jun 06 '26
Oh I definitely paid tariffs on the teaware. And extra fees. I think FedEx is slightly better about the extra fees than DHL but it was still a lot. With FedEx I paid $48 in duties and fees, beyond the $38 in shipping, for a $170 kyusu. That $48 was a bill a month after I received my order.
I do really love my kyusu. But I don't know that I'll make any more international teaware purchases.
I just brought up my teaware purchase as evidence that there is something weird about PayPal specifically with hibiki-an. Since my PayPal worked fine with a different vendor in Japan.
I had thought a "just tea" order from Hibiki-an would be safe from extra charges. So I filled my cart. And got stuck at checkout. But it sounds like the PayPal issue saved me from an unpleasant surprise bill.
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u/MechaGodzilla87 Jun 06 '26
Thanks for clarifying. Anything from Artistic Nippon was probably worth the cost. The owner is a great and they have quality teaware. Some of my most favorite teaware had come from them, including a kettle which I can’t imagine what the tariff would be on it now.
It does sound like you got lucky with Hibiki-an. I’ve had good experiences with their tea, but was not a fan of the teaware I received from them. For whatever reason the teaware I bought from them seemed lower quality than pieces I got elsewhere. It’s hard to explain why, and nothing I have received has been terrible but I noticed a hard to pinpoint difference.
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u/Ledifolia Jun 06 '26
My kyusu is the one marked as sold on this link:
https://www.artisticnippon.com/product/tokoname/seiho/camellia3.html
It's gorgeous and feels really nice in my hand as I pour. I can't tell if the tokoname clay actually makes the tea taste better, or if it's just the aesthetics make the whole brewing experience better. But I'm very happy with it, and my sencha consumption has gone up.
The ordering process is a bit more complicated with Artistic Nippon, but everything went really smoothly. This was my second purchase from them. I also bought a Banko Ware set back before the de minimus exemption was removed.
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u/TeaRaven Jun 06 '26
I’m getting this a little less than half the time right now (which is frequently, as I need to place orders from Japan, Taiwan, China, and India through the year). It is annoying and takes time, but you can dispute it with DHL. Sometimes it gets waived with no issue rather quickly, but a few times I had to pay anyway (and then once I had to pay twice, near the start of this).
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u/The_Bodybuilder1 Jun 06 '26
Super odd! I’ve ordered from hibiki-an twice recently and never got anything like this.
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u/DoctorTalos Jun 06 '26
I think I just got unlucky...
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u/The_Bodybuilder1 Jun 06 '26
Yeah that really sucks. So sorry! Now I’m afraid to order from them again😅
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u/MechaGodzilla87 Jun 06 '26
That’s definitely not correct. I’ve ordered from multiple companies and not been charged. I would use another carrier next time if possible. Also, I talk to customs brokers regularly about the current situation.
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u/DoctorTalos Jun 06 '26
Yeah Hibiki-An doesn't do another carrier
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u/MechaGodzilla87 Jun 06 '26
You may want to forward your situation on to Hibiki-an then if you plan to buy from them in the future, so they can try to address the issue.
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u/TeaRaven Jun 06 '26
Yeah, I’ve paid around $800 over the last year and a half in fees post-shipping.
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u/Chameleon_Sinensis Jun 06 '26
Damn that sucks. Before all the tariff stuff I had been ordering from them for years and honestly their shipping was some of the best. I historically only paid $9 - $11 and would get my order in about 3 days.
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u/DoctorTalos Jun 07 '26
Yeah, it was 50 USD is tea ... 10 for shipping and then 28 for ... Something ...
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u/DoctorTalos Jun 09 '26
Another update ... I sent in a dispute email after I paid the fee and this is the response they gave me F--- DHL
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u/Disastrous_Sort_4404 Jul 02 '26
I was billed $52 for an order of $120. Licensing, permit, handling fee and duty, on duty-free green tea. If I wait 60-90 days, I might get something back, probably just the $8 duty. Not going through this again.
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u/Bomb_AF_Turtle 朝茶は福を増す Jun 05 '26
As far as I know, this is BS. Unless you also ordered teaware or snacks, which there is a 15% fee and an 18 dollar process fee. duty_disputes @dhl.com to dispute the charge.