Show HN: My first MVP - A Tea Search Engine (opens in new tab)

I like how you have collected a lot of data and let me peek into it in different ways. However - even as an avid tea drinker, you're still not solving a real problem of mine. I'm not wondering "what is the complete set of tea that contains ginger" or "or what are the set of teas from cylon".

I look forward to see what you do with the site, but please solve a problem and make it clear on the site what that problem is.

This looks beautiful. What stack are you using? I'm thinking of building a similar site for another category of products and am wondering whether to roll my own in Rails or just go with Wordpress. Would love to hear any suggestions based on your experience.

1. I really like the design. Simple and elegant, no clutter. 2. I keep looking for a search box because you branded it as a "Tea Search Engine", but it's more like a directory. I'd either call it a directory or add a search box. Let me know if you need help with the search function.

Hm, you missed my favorite addiction, cinnamon ;) Pretty cool otherwise!

Pretty freaking cool! I'm a tea lover and this might just be the catalyst I need to start buying online.

[pedantic] This is more of an index than a search engine though. [/pedantic]

I'm missing the option to select teas by vendor. However, listing vendors would make it clear to users how few vendors are included in the search results. The database seems to consist of less than twenty vendors, and I'm missing well-known brands like Yogi Tea and Zhi.

I understand that the idea is to earn through affiliate links, but you'll get more users if you also include some well-known brands that aren't necessarily Share-a-sale partners.

You should work with http://steepster.com.

I'm friends with those guys if you want an intro. Just shoot me an email.

MVP?

Nice site. Very simple and easy to use. I'm not a tea lover but it got me hooked!

A couple of suggestions - I would like to see the number of results I would get after applying a filter (shown in braces next to the filter words). a few times i got zero results. so it will be useful.

Also a small 'x' can be shown next to the already added filters at the top. Easy to understand that clicking it will remove the filter.

Other than that, nice work!

Couple of thoughts off the cuff:

1. Make the text size larger. I know I can ^+ but the people using your site may not. Many of them will be over the age of fifty and you want them to really enjoy using the site.

2. Give me more information at a glance. Maybe a symbol or icon for "improved digestion" etc. Sometimes I don't want to just filter on health benefits, because I don't want to close off options, but I still do want to see neat little green icons.

3. Social proof. This one doesn't belong in a MVP, but eventually you will want people to be able to rate teas. Make sure that this doesn't require a login.

This can give to someone the idea of content specific search engines. Still use Google for generic search but a specialized search engine in various fields could be of interest. Imagine something like the let's say: the Java finder, the soccer finder, the physics finder, and the list can go on almost infinitely. At these times that technical people tend to complain about Google's spammy search they could find such search engines (not just indices) very handy

Looks neat. Would be nice if you added Harney and Sons teas to the database.

It would be interesting to hear about your experience with ShareASale.

Great site, well done. Now iterate!