Museo de la Talavera Poblana Armando

My husband and I were visiting the market looking for a few authentic Talavera plates to use as vases for planters. We ended up at this store that has a lot of merchandise and were greeted by a young sales man. After looking around we decided to buy the plates and the planters too. I wasn’t paying much attention about exact prices but the plates were in the 200s and the planters in the 400s. We picked 3 planters and we were at the check up register trying to decide on the matching plates. The young salesman left to try to find more selection and an older salesman continued to help us. We finally decided with the help of the older salesman. I asked about prices and was told 420 pesos for the planters and 230 pesos for the plates. Total 1950 pesos but I ask for a discount for cash payment and was told 1700 pesos. My husband paid and we got our receipt. The older salesman was getting our order wrapped when the young salesman returned and asked for the receipt. When he saw the price he went ballistic and started asking for 250 pesos more. We told him that this was the price agreed and that the order was already paid for. He follow my throwing a temper tantrum fit for a 2 year old and started to unwrap the plates to change them I guess for cheaper ones. I again told him this was already paid for and even the older salesman was surprised by this behavior. The younger salesman continue to argue with us and with the older salesman that was telling him that the sale was done. I wasn’t going to behave the same way so asked for our money back since this whole situation was uncomfortable and uncalled for. I felt that he wanted to charge us the tourist price and the other salesman gave us the local price for the items. Tourists be aware of this place with poor sales tactics and even worst customer service.

Loved this store and wor shop. Great pieces and very friendly staff. We only wanted a platter but the assistant ensured we saw everything and selected one that meet all our criteria. Lovely service, fair pricing foe exquisitely made works of art. Highly recommend.

I ended up in beautiful Puebla on my way to hike Mt. Orizaba. As I usually do on my adventure trips I love to buy works of art from local artisans. Typically I don’t have the ability to carry these pieces with me given their size and have had these smaller shops ship to California from all over the world, Cambodia, Tanzania, Mexico and Israel. I found two vases that I fell in love with (see attached pictures) and I decided to purchase them for full list price (18,000 pesos or ~$950.00 USD). Given my success in having similar items shipped to my residence in conjunction with the beautiful set of stores operated under the name Armando I arranged with the store clerk’s that they would call and/or email with the shipping amount once they determined packaging and shipper but they estimated it would be ~4,000 pesos which sounded reasonable.

Now nearly a month later I have not received the vases nor an email but rather two phone calls asking for 11,000 pesos to ship which I let them know is exorbitant for these items and to please do better on pricing. I received several texts that an email would be forthcoming, none appeared and no credit to my credit card has been applied. While I would love to have written a glowing review of this business I unfortunately have to leave this review to warn others that they should be very hesitant about not taking their purchases with them. I have contacted American Express to open an inquiry on this transaction and hopefully one day I will have my money refunded to me. I will update this review as more information comes my way.

This was our second visit to the Armando Talavera factory and shops, and we will return. We have purchased off the shelf and had items custom done. Shipping to the states is expensive and slow, but nothing arrived broken. If you can take your items with you as checked luggage, that would be my recommendation.

We were interested in buying some Talavera ceramics and wandered into a showroom. We were told there was a museum about Talavera right next door. For a small fee we left the museum well educated about this ceramic process and its history. Our guide was very knowledgeable and all of us found the experience to be very interesting. We then visited the workshop and kiln area. Our final stop was an extensive retail shop.