"I ran across this websaite while looking for wheatgrass sprouting seeds (a vet had suggested that an indoor cat who has hairball problems might benefit from eating growing, sprouting wheatgrass, and as we'd tried a number of other ideas without success, I thought I'd try it.

Needless to say, the market for such a specialty product was not too deep. I would usually have attempted to use a merchant affiliated with a larger, known merchany (e.g. Amazon.com or Buy.com), but none provided specific enough product information for me to feel comfortable that I'd be getting exactly what I needed through them (even after emailing customer service at a few of them a couple of times).

I ran across Starwest Botanicals through a google search; I checked them here (they had no entry at the time) but their local BBB had no negative reports, so I decided to try them. I also a few other products (some loose-leaf tea for myself, some saffron for cooking, and sprouting barley grass -- another potentially cat-friendly seed product -- among them.)

Just a few days before, I had switched to a new version of NoScript I was using in my web browser (FireFox) and had not gotten all my settings correct up to my satisfaction yet, and ended up placing an order that was incomplete. I emailed them and submitted the balance of what I had intended to order as a separate order. By the next day, they had customer service had responded that they were able to combine the orders, and they adjusted the shipping costs down (without my even specifically having asked for that as I knew the mistake had originated on my end of the initial transaction).

I recevied the products, and everything was exactly as expected and well sealed for shipping (although the cat for whom the wheatgrass was bought smelled the decaf green tea the instant I opened the parcel, I couldn't detect any odor myself until I actually opeend the sealed container.) All of the product packaging was clearly marked as well (including country of origin of the contents).

Overall, it was a very positive experience, and since their customer service did me the good turn of combining me good orders, I thought I would do the favor by posting a review of them here. Hopefully the next person looking for specialty organic products who runs across them and chacks here will see that they treated me in an exemplary manner when I first ordered from them.

Because of the thin market for most of the products I bought, I honestly can't make a blanket statement as to their pricing (I'd think that for some of their products, not even larger organic/natural-focused chain retailers would have all the comparables... You'd probably need to include things like farmer's markets to really get a good idea... And that's not something easily done in Cleveland, OH towards the end of February). However, I have been buying and using saffron in cooking for many years, and their price for saffron was quite competitive -- but I don't feel comfortable extending my thoughts on that one product to their inventory as whole. (Especially as saffron is sold in such minute quantities as compared to most of the other items on offer.)

But aside from not being able to rate their pricing in any general way, the experience I had with them was excellent... And given the fact that I got exaclty the product I needed/ordered/expected vis-a-vis the sprotiung wheatgrass seeds, I would certinaly order from them again for anything that specific. (And I'd certinaly spend a few dollar more ordering from them and being 100% sure I was getting exactly what what I intended rather than risk a lower-priced provider from whom I had some questions about exactly what I'd get.)"