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I’ve had many senchas in my lifetime; in Japan and in the United States and I have scarcely found one I didn’t like. I love going to World Market, I even tried to get a job there several times. Almost all the World Markets I’ve been to have great service and great products. This tea didn’t disappoint at all. Most Japanese tea comes in packaging that can be cryptic to understand for those who are just starting to get in tea, but this looks perfectly accessible. It is a great introduction to Japanese tea for anyone that is just starting out. This tea has all the trademark grassy and sweet flavors a sencha should have. Goes great with fruit or something else sweet!

Mugicha and Korean oksusucha are very similar to my palate so I’ll kind of review both of them. This type of grain tea is very smokey and drinking it is almost more like eating a snack than drinking tea because there is a satisfaction that comes with it. I think it can be too heavy if paired with meat or something like that. I’ll always know it as a summer drink associated with happy memories from my time in Japan where the cold bottled and canned versions are very popular. Overall this tea is good for any time of the day or year depending on temperature or what food it goes with.

I have always been amazed by this company’s quality. I tried this tea around last year and it didn’t disappoint at all. I decided to brew it in the Laoshan style with the leaves drifting at the bottom of the cup. I love this approach because the flavors start out delicate when you have more water and as you go on, the flavors become sweeter and more bitter at the same time. It was good for a couple resteepings throughout the day. The flavor started out with a savory sort of soy-taste and sort of a carob-like taste? It was hard to put my finger on. Later on it got sweeter and more delicate almost like a sencha surprisingly. I was glad to have such a nice tea and I look forward to more from Laoshan village in the future.

http://www.redleaftea.com/matchaccino/custom-flavor-matchaccino.html
Okay, I guess I’m the first who picked the mocha flavor (maybe kind of an eccentric choice?). Anyways, first of all I wasn’t expecting for the Matchaccino’s to have sugar as an ingredient so it came as a surprise. I did greatly approve of the other ingredients though; there was nothing fishy. I usually don’t like my tea sweetened, but maybe I overlooked something. So, needless to say this concoction is verrrry sweet. It still has the trademark bitterness and sweetness of matcha but now combined with the taste of mocha. I actually have never had mocha from a coffee shop or any place like that before so I didn’t quite know what to expect. I guess maybe the taste of matcha would help me acclimate to mocha? I don’t really know. I have had green tea frappuccinos from Starbucks before and this is reminiscent of that. But it tastes like all the different caffeines (tea, coffee, and chocolate) are in one drink hahaha. All in all it’s a very exotic and fun taste that you discover new elements of every time you try it. It seems like the sugar flavor kind of overpowers the rest of the mix, but all around it’s great for special occasions!

Licorice seems like it can be hard to pull off in a tea because it can be a little overpowering? I’ve had some pretty bad ones in the past (won’t name them). This one complemented the other flavors and you could taste all of them if you concentrated. Licorice is one of my favorite spices because it is very characteristic/reminiscent of Chinese medicine and this tea played on that well.

The taste of this tea is very similar to the tulsi peppermint flavor in that the two main herbs play off of each other. I never had gotu kola before, but the minty flavor has a very cleansing taste. I think it actually does strengthen your brain as I had my first lucid dream after I drank this tea!

This was one of my first from Organic India when I mainly wanted to try them for health benefits. Lemon, ginger, and tulsi is a dynamite combination as a digestive tonic/medicinal tea. Perfect pick-me-up for those plain old “blech” days where you don’t want to go to work or whatever.

The tulsi and the peppermint had a great symbiotic relationship going here. It seems like once you’ve had a peppermint you’ve sort of had them all (kind of like chamomile). But this is going to be my go-to peppermint tea from here on out.

Honestly there was hardly a taste of jasmine at all. That doesn’t make this a bad tea, it just isn’t quite what it’s marketed as. A sort of anise/fennel/licorice type taste really is dominant here. All around a pleasant tea, but I did want jasmine when I bought it.