Ito En

I adore this tea. It’s that simple. Ito En Tea’s Tea Green White is among the best quality RTD tea I have ever had. I’m going to get some now!

We tried a new salad spot today. New to us, anyway, not sure how long it has been around. It’s a sort of trendy, shi shi place with (supposedly) healthy food, in any case clearly attempting to appeal to the upscale but natural foodsy university crowd.

The kids were past their melting point and so I didn’t have a chance to peruse the many, various RTD tea offerings in any detail as I was attempting to keep them from either killing each other or running aimlessly up and down the length of the restaurant. I basically grabbed this off the shelf because in an uncharacteristic fit of short term memory absolute recall, I remembered that I had had the one right next to it before, the Pure Green, and liked it. I also noticed a selection of Mighty Leaf tins at the ordering counter, but as I was attempting to keep the 4 year old from walking backwards into a klatch of coeds who were craning their collective necks toward the menu (which was hanging what seemed like about 30 feet over the counter) and didn’t see him at all, I was unable to ascertain what Mighty Leaf teas were on offer.

In any case, this tea was very nice and I wish I had had a quieter experience with it. As it is, I sort of had to chug it to keep up with what was going on at the table. I did notice, however, that the white tea flavor was quite prominent. Though this can likely be explained by the fact that I was tasting for it, I found it quite easily. It had gave the tea a nutty flavor, particularly in the aftertaste. I am not sure that the green tea added a lot, not sure I really tasted it much. Though I often find that if I’m not tasting something it’s accomplishing something else, like making the taste of some other ingredient stronger, milder, etc.

I think I may prefer the True Green, but it may also be that the True Green paired particularly well with the salad I had at Whole Foods when I tried it. This Green White seems more like the sort of thing one would do better to drink on its own, at least for an initial tasting. Today I had a salad called “Howdy” which had marinated tri-tip and sharp white cheddar in it among other things. Some fairly strong flavors, which may not have been the best pairing with the Green White.

Yep. I got a bad one the first time.
However.
The “fresh” one was still weak and a bit bitter. But for less that a dollar, I guess I can’t complain, especially since forgeting to bring good tea to work is my own fault…

Perhaps the batch I got was off but this was bitter, sour, and barely tasted like green tea. The sell by was next year and I put it in the fridge the same day. I only had it once but if 45 cents more gives me a more surefire on-the-go tea, I’d rather play it safe.

…Then again, this is the only sencha bottled tea availble to me. Confustigated grocery constriction….

A dense body, grassy aroma, round mouthfeel. Strongly flavored, but not bitter. Cloudy liquor, pale-to-medium green that is slightly yellow at the edges. Excellent with a meal, especially sushi or sashimi.

Thick liquor, quite vegetal in flavor, but not bitter. A great tea if you don’t want to fuss with temperature control that much.

Second steep. Slightly bitter, but not unpleasantly so. A winner if you are looking for something a bit less subtle than sencha.

A strong green tea, goes well with Japanese food such as sushi or donburi. A cloudy cup, but not gritty. Deep green color, pretty grassy. Brewed in a kyusu for one minute. Will try a second steep to see how it goes.

This tea was on sale at Harris Teeter last week, so I bought a couple of bottles. As far as teas go, I do prefer Ito En’s Oi Ocha better. This is a good brewed green tea. Less bitter than Honest Tea. Nice palate cleanser.

The calendar may not yet quite agree, but it’s summer. Today it’s ‘only’ 23⁰C, but it has been upwards of 30⁰C for the past week and the last thing in the world I’ve wanted has been hot tea.

There are, however, remarkably few unsweetened drinks in the refrigerator at the health food store. But what’s this? Unsweetened green tea, claiming to be “Japan’s #1 Green Tea”, whatever that means. Suitable not just for drinking but also for logging to Steepster!

I don’t want to insult Japan or anything, but this is not the #1 Green Tea I’ve ever had. But it is reasonably decent and somewhat complex, especially given that I didn’t even have to think about hot or boiling water in order to drink it. If I’m again in the mood to pay $2 for 20¢ worth of tea and the convenience of having it already brewed and already cold, then I’ll pick up another bottle.

I can’t seem to get the link to the little picture of the bottle on the Ito En site to work. Oh well.

Today, my four year old and I went to Whole Foods to shop and decided to have lunch there. I picked this as the drink to have with my salad for lunch, mostly because unlike a lot of the other things on the shelf this didn’t have any flavorings.

As I have mentioned before I don’t have a lot of iced tea experience and most of what I have had has been on a scale on which the highested end point is unremarkable, and the lowest is retch-inducing. This is certainly better than anything on that scale, and it was a good accompaniment to lunch.

It has a vegetal, mild, sweet taste, with no bitterness and no artificial or chemical odd flavors or aftertaste. It’s only real downside is that it is a little on the ordinary/plain side. I didn’t really have a lot of time to spend with it but that’s my initial impression. I’d drink it again (but in the near term I’d probably pick something different just to gain more experience in RTD teas).