The tea leaves are long, twisty, intact, and dark green. I used the entire sample packet and steeped it for 3 minutes at 175 degrees in about 6 ounces of water.
This tea starts to smell quite buttery and floral while steeping. The water’s not turning color much, but it smells very nice. (When I saw the leaves and smelled the sweet and buttery flavor I kind of forgot this was a green tea rather than an oolong tea, so I was expecting the water to get darker than it did.)
After steeping, the tea liquid is a light whitish yellow; there’s not really much green in it at all. It tastes astringent, floral, and a bit sweet (honey-like?). It has fruity and orchardy notes and maybe a hint of umami. It really tastes much more like an oolong to me than a green tea, with its orchid-fruity taste and lack of the usual green tea flavors like jasmine/grass/seaweed/etc. Although there’s a bit of umami, there’s not a lot of vegetal flavor. The leaves looked oolongy too–super long and twisty.
As I continued drinking this tea, I found it to be a very complex, fulfilling cup. It has more than enough flavor notes to stand on its own without sugar or milk, and is interesting enough that I didn’t get tired of the flavor and found myself wishing for more when I’d finished. I normally consider myself more of a dark-tea person (and don’t drink oolongs or greens much) so that’s quite impressive.
The tea company has a focus on natural tea production and harvesting tea leaves in their natural state (grown pesticide/fertilizer free and plantation free in the forest), which means their processing tends to be a bit different than conventional processing. This may account for the super-high quality of the leaves and the fact that it has elements of oolong as well as of green tea (at least in my opinion). I’m kind of in love with this tea now so I might just have to go and buy some more from their website now. And if you enjoy complex oolong-y flavors and high-quality tea leaves in your cup, you might want to do the same. 🙂
Here’s the scoop!
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Love Some Tea
Description
Green Tea natural and wild, the way nature intended. Our green tea is wild picked from the mountains of Northern Thailand.
Learn even more about this tea and tea company here!
Pesticide-Free Japanese Green Tea Powder Packets from Shi Zen
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Shi Zen
Tea Description:
Our green tea is grown on family farms located in small villages in the foothills of Mount Fuji. This remote Hyuga region of Shizuoka Prefecture enjoys the perfect combination of clean air, pure water, and fertile soil only found in this area of Japan.
Enjoy the taste and convenience of our pesticide-free green tea powder while taking a full advantage of its health benefits. When you brew green tea, you are drinking only 30 percent of its nutrients and throwing away the rest. With our green tea powder, all of its health benefits will be packed in your water bottle. Perfect for today’s busy but health conscious parents who are always on the go. On your way to the daycare, work, or yoga studio, just dissolve 2 sticks of our powered green tea in your 16-oz water bottle and take it with you. Along with all the benefits of regular green tea, it’ll also give you Vitamin E and dietary fiber you wouldn’t get from brewed green tea.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The more I have of these green tea powder packets from Shi Zen … the more I like them. Today, I’m trying the Pesticide-Free Japanese Green Tea Powder Packets from Shi Zen. It’s deliciously sweet and invigorating to sip.
I start with a small bottle of water (16.9 ounces) and I open two packets of the powdered green tea. I pour one packet at a time, and give the bottle a good shake in between adding the packets, just to get the tea well incorporated and hopefully to avoid getting clumps of tea in my drink. And at first, I did get some clumps … but, after some vigorous shaking, the clumps dissolved and I’m left with a really delicious beverage for on the go.
The tea is really refreshing … I like this better than one of the bottled ready-to-drink teas that you can buy in a convenience store, because it’s not all sugar and corn syrup. I can taste the goodness of the green tea in this. I taste the grassy, vegetative tones and the sweet, lush flavor. It is sweet … there is absolutely no bitterness here. There is also virtually no astringency to this – that is to say, I can’t detect any astringency to this at all. It’s just smooth and easy to drink … whether you’re sipping or guzzling it down!
I like that this is pesticide-free. I like that this is pure green tea that’s been pulverized into a powder, and that once you’ve shaken it up … it stays incorporated. You don’t have to keep shaking in between sips. It’s a great way to stay hydrated on warm summer days like this one, and far tastier (and healthier!) than the RTD teas that you’ll find. This one gets two enthusiastic thumbs up from me!
Organic Korakundah from Butiki Teas
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Butiki Teas
Tea Description:
This green tea originates from the Korakundah Estate in Nilgiri, India and is grown at an elevation of 8,000 feet. Organic Korakundah is an FOP (Flowery Orange Pekoe) grade. The Korakundah Estate is biodynamic, pesticide free, and socially responsible. This tea is very unique and almost difficult to describe. Notes of bitter greens and baby spinach are present with some smokiness. It is lightly astringent yet somewhat sweet.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I’ve had this tea a couple of times now, and I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s a refreshing change from the sweeter Chinese green teas that I’ve tasted. This has a sweet flavor to it too, but, it’s quite different from the sweeter, creamier type green teas that I so often review.
This tea has a very interesting balance between bitter and sweet. The flavor is quite vegetal, with notes of grass, smoked spinach and dandelion greens. Yes, that’s right, I said “smoked” spinach, rather than steamed spinach. It has that mild, sweet flavor that one would experience with steamed baby spinach, but there is a smoky tone to this too, so imagine if the baby spinach were smoked instead of steamed … what that might taste like. That’s what I taste with this tea.
I love the complexity of the “green” flavor of this tea – it doesn’t just taste “fresh” or “vegetative” … it has a palate-pleasing sweetness that contrasts nicely with bitter tones, and a hint of smoky flavor that is also quite “green” tasting. There is a smooth astringency at the tail that is quite different from the astringency in other teas too. I often suggest an astringency is “dry” or “tangy” … but this is different. It is smooth with a hint of sourness to it … almost tangy, but not quite. It leaves the palate feeling clean and very refreshed.
A lovely green tea – uniquely different from the Chinese and Japanese greens, but every bit as interesting.
Superb Black Tea (from Rwanda) from The Excellent Tea Company
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: The Excellent Tea Company
Tea Description:
The Excellent Tea Company’s Superb Black Tea is a pesticide-free, Fair Trade Certified,* single-estate tea bag from the Mountains of the Moon in Rwanda, East Africa, where the high altitude, clean air, and fertile volcanic soils produce exceptionally smooth and highly prized tea without the use of pesticides or artificial fertilizers.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
Hmm… I like this. It’s a decent black tea, rich and malty, and I like that it’s pesticide-free and Fair Trade.
I do find myself wishing it was not a bagged tea. Perhaps it’s just me, but, I could swear that I taste a “wet paper” kind of taste in there. It isn’t a strong taste, and it isn’t off-putting enough so that I want to stop drinking it … but I do still wish it wasn’t there, and I wonder if it is indeed from the filter paper bag.
But despite this one misgiving about the tea, I must say that it is a tasty tea, and it is quite economical too. The fact that it is bagged means that it’s convenient – ideal for one of those days when you don’t have time to go loose leaf (and we all have those days on occasion, don’t we?) And even though it is a bagged tea, it’s one of the better tasting bagged teas I’ve had in a while … even with that faint “wet paper” taste that I am detecting.
Overall, this is an enjoyable tea. I don’t know that I’d go so far as to call it Superb … but, I enjoyed it.