Privacy Policy

Who we are

Coffee & Tea Culture is a content and community site about coffee and tea — brewing guides, origins, and stories. This policy explains what information we collect when you visit the site, how we use it, and the choices you have. By using the site you agree to the practices described here.

Information we collect

We keep data collection to the minimum needed to run the site. Depending on how you use it, we may collect:

• Information you give us: When you submit the contact form, we collect the details you enter — your name, email address, and message, plus any optional phone, company, city, area of interest, or quantity you choose to add. We use this only to respond to your enquiry.
• Usage & device data: Like most websites, we automatically receive standard technical information — your IP address, browser and device type, pages viewed, and referring links — through our analytics provider and our hosting logs.
• The coffee-vs-tea vote: When you cast a vote in the on-site coffee-vs-tea poll, we record the vote and temporarily store your IP address to prevent repeat voting and abuse. We do not tie votes to your identity.

How we use your information

We use the information above to:

• Respond to you: Reply to contact-form enquiries and any follow-up you ask for.
• Operate the site: Serve pages, keep the site secure, and prevent spam, fraud, and abuse (including rate-limiting votes and form submissions).
• Improve our content: Understand, in aggregate, which guides are popular so we can write better ones.

Cookies & analytics

We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how visitors use the site. Google Analytics sets cookies and processes usage data (such as a truncated IP address and pages viewed) to produce aggregate reports. This helps us see which guides are useful — it does not tell us who you are.

We ask for your consent before non-essential analytics cookies are set: on your first visit a banner lets you accept or decline, and until you accept, analytics runs in a restricted, cookieless mode. You can change your mind at any time by clearing this site's data in your browser. Analytics is never loaded on our admin pages or during local development.

You can also opt out of Google Analytics across all sites by installing Google's browser add-on, or by blocking cookies in your browser settings. Blocking cookies will not break the site's core reading experience.

How your information is shared

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising. We rely on a small number of trusted service providers who process data on our behalf:

• Analytics: Google (Google Analytics 4) for aggregate usage measurement.
• Hosting & infrastructure: Our hosting and database providers, which store the site and any contact-form submissions securely on our behalf.

Data retention

We keep contact-form submissions for as long as needed to handle your enquiry and for our reasonable business records, then delete them. IP addresses stored for vote and form rate-limiting are short-lived. Analytics data is retained according to Google Analytics' standard retention settings.

Your rights & choices

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to access, correct, or delete the personal information we hold about you, or to object to certain processing. To make a request, or to ask us to remove a contact-form submission, get in touch using the details below and we'll help.

Children's privacy

This site is intended for a general, adult audience and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes to the site or the law. When we do, we'll revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Significant changes will be made clear on the page.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data? Reach us through our contact page.