Update on hivemind tea question

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Remember the tea thing I was wondering about? (basically, why my Japanese sencha from London tasted way better than any loose-leaf green tea I’d ever had)

cecile-c came over last weekend (we had a lovely Vietnamese meal in the XIIIe, and an intense gaming session of Battlestar Galactica); and in between struggling to survive the game without being betrayed by the dastardly Cylons, we studied the tea thing. She thinks (and I agree) that it doesn’t have much to do with sencha. Rather, the key point is that said tea is packaged in tea-bags (to be more accurate, in a tea bag, and then sealed in a foil-backed tear-away bag). As Cécile said, green tea is extremely fragile, and can lose its flavour within months of being harvested and dried [1]–however, by the time it gets to France, said green tea will often be months old, which leads to the simple and inescapable conclusion that, well, it’s not going to taste very good at this stage…

I don’t think the tea I brought back from London is necessarily uber-fresh (though it might be, since it was a direct export from Japan via plane, meant for the consumption of Japanese expatriates). However, remember our packaging? With a double layer of paper and then foil? This is probably better for its conservation than merely jamming it into jars that might not be full (ie contain large amounts of air), and might not be sealed hermetically.

This is not reassuring news, as it means I either should find another tea provider with ultra-fresh arrivals, or that I need to buy ecologically wasteful tea bags…


[1]Indeed, one of the reasons why black tea was so popular in Great Britain in Victorian times was that its flavour would survive the months it took to bring it from Asia to Europe, whereas green tea wouldn’t.

0 comments

  1. Hey, go easy on the Cylons, they’re human bei…wait, they’re thinking beings as well, they just don’t have the same point of view !

  2. wait, they’re thinking beings as well, they just don’t have the same point of view !

    Yup, my point of view of the universe doesn’t include them in it, as you no doubt have seen 😉 (especially not on the same ship as me, trying to kill us all…).

  3. The other reason the British stopped drinking green teas was that the Chinese were putting in green pigments so it would appear greener in British teacups. At least that’s what the author of “For All the Tea in China” wrote..

    How big are the tea leaves when you steep them? If they’re in bags, they they’re probably tea “dust” which supposedly has a weaker taste than the larger loose leaf. One suggestion I’ve heard for loose leaf is to let loose tea leaves brethe for a minute in a freshly warmed but otherwise empty teapot — I forget the physics/chemistry of what’s essentally a very light steam treatment. Good luck!

  4. The other reason the British stopped drinking green teas was that the Chinese were putting in green pigments so it would appear greener in British teacups.
    Interesting… Did the British complain about green tea not being green enough? That’s fascinating stuff.

    They’re in a tea bag, and I haven’t actually opened one, but I think they’re pretty large for tea-bag fare (most certainly not tea dust). They most definitely taste stronger than the loose leaf, however 🙁
    I’ll try the freshly warmed+leaves thing, thanks for the tip!

  5. Eugene Sunningstin

    I’ve recently bought sencha from a toko and it’s extremely fine powder, but the taste is very nice and intense. So I don’t think you can necessarily tell the quality of the tea from the consistency, you have to taste it. The tea was Japanese-style (probably means powdered) green tea grown in China, packaged in plastic packets containing 25 tea bags each.

  6. Yum, that sounds divine! (I’m guessing powder does yield a more intense taste than loose leaf, though? Broken leaves brew more strongly than whole leaves, so I’m inclined to think that the smaller, the stronger brew you get…)
    A friend of mine speculated that the difference was actually freshness–the tea here in France could be months old by the time we get it, and that would impact the taste… By contrast, I’d imagine your plastic-wrapped tea from the toko would be uber-fresh?

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