Too sweet to be true
I have 3 green teas from a popular company and they are so absurdly powerful tasting it’s hard to believe they aren’t coated in msg. Have I been sold 5 year old tea my whole life and this is simply fresh tea? It’s absurd. I want this to be genuine tea but I can’t give in and just enjoy the cup it’s too different and strong. Thoughts?
Haha, I know that feeling!
Good tea is as different to commercial tea as instant coffee to a well made espresso. I couldn’t believe it when I first tried a dan Cong oolong, I swore it had to have been flavoured somehow.
How hot are you brewing your green teas?
I bought a bucket of darjerling in a bad year, for a very low price. I then let it sit for years in a dark place. It slowly oxidised over time. So when I tried Dan Cong oolong, I was like.. I recognise this ;)
I was totally surprised that green tea can be so salty & savoury. Never had tea like it before buying from vendors I met through steepster.
And echoing Benthejack, the same when I drank various different Oolong & puerh. I was knocked off my feet. Really amazing range of flavours that still surprises me to this day.
I’m brewing large quantities of leaf for sure but that’s what I’ve always done. Temperature varies depending on how many re steep i think I’ll have time to do. High or low it’s still way outside my expectations. And these teas are under 10 bucks for 50 grams. So if i start making the tea to taste light like I am accustomed to it will take me years to finish what a bought!
i think what benthejack means is that green tea needs 70c or it goes very bitter.
what teas are they btw?
You may want to seal up your green and store it in your fridge if it’s going to take you some time to get through it!
If you have been getting your tea in a supermarket in all probability you have been sold old and improperly stored tea.
Consider though, that there are some packages of tea that fly off the shelves. Everytime I open a particular box of store brand green tea, I am amazed at the fresh smell of the tea. Perhaps our lack of respect for how to brew with a tea bag clouds our vision?
In most cases supermarket choices start with lower quality tea and end with something improperly stored but you can get lucky if you have a market that actually sells something better than Lipton.
I keep hoping that the trend in selling high quality coffee in my local supermarket will migrate into them selling high quality tea but so far it hasn’t happened. I know of only one supermarket on all of Long Island with a loose tea section and it is middle quality at best and sometimes stored in the same plastic containers that deli goods are stored in.
Suffolk. Fairway keeps a tea section. But at least some of it is improperly stored. Then there is an Asian market in Hempstead in Nassau County with a lot of Chinese tea but usually bad tea.
This morning I went to a farmers market where they also have food venders and was surprised to find a “tea stand” selling “premier loose leaf tea.” Unfortunately, just as you said AllanK, there is not the same standards for tea yet as there are for coffee in these common shopping areas. When I asked to look at the tea at this stand I was disappointed with stuff that looked mostly like crushed up tea leaves that had little to no smell at all. I think a lot of it just as to do with supply and demand. Since more people drink coffee, stores stock more of it and take care of it better. Maybe one day it will be the same with tea! We can only hope.
My hope is that the contribution Teavana makes to loose leaf tea by simply being in so many shopping malls across the US will make a difference. While their tea is overpriced and not the very highest quality they may slowly make an impact on people who have never tried loose tea until they accidentally walk into a Teavana.
There are stores stateside that sell good tea, but you can almost always buy from overseas vendors for less money. I buy certain teas locally since the price/quality ratio is sometimes better in Hong Kong, but for new factory cakes, I buy directly from an authorized Dayi dealer in China that moves serious volume (way cheaper)! Certain vendors carry rare stuff I couldn’t buy locally if I tried, so I have to go online for something that isn’t sold here, like good liu bao, obscure maocha or cha gao.
Tea is definitely getting more popular all over, which is a good thing IMO, but may also mean higher prices.
Local stores here don’t usually sell puerh. One did carry some. It was overpriced and not that great. But I bought it because of the novelty of being able to see it before I bought it. I have gotten virtually all my puerh online both from US vendors and Chinese vendors. I am expecting an order from Yunnan Sourcing’s China site tomorrow and Yunnan Sourcing’s US site on Monday. It is nice that Yunnan Sourcing has the US site. There are also a few other vendors that sell puerh in the US but more of my puerh comes directly from China. There is a big us vendor in the mid-west called Puerhshop that has some nice offerings. There is no real point in someone not from the US ordering from them though.
No no bitterness. Too much umami. If you guys say it’s natural I’ll accept it but wow. These are very young Chinese greens (good but cheap) and the only thing comparable is super fresh sencha shinicha
I found all the fresh green teas I got this year through a tea club (wouldnt usually order them, green isnt my thing) to be so umami-strong I can use them for soup :)
This is the YS club btw, so I dont think anyone here would doubt that the tea was reliable & solidly tasting for what it was.
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