Touch Organic

Not a bad oolong, especially for bagged. Good for a quick pick-me-up when you’re running short on time.

Comparing the color of the brewed liquor of Touch Organic Green and Clipper Organic Green, I find that the Touch Organic is a paler gold, veering toward green, while the Clipper is a pure gold, closer to brown than to green.

The tastes are different, too. Clipper Organic Green has a slightly grassier taste, and seems more baked than steamed. I am no longer sure that Touch Organic is a bancha, as I had opined before. I’m just not sure anymore, partly because I’ve imbibed several banchas of late, and so I have been reminded what a pure bancha tastes like.

My latest guess is that Touch Organic is a blend of various teas from China. Perhaps there is some Chinese bancha in the mix, but now I feel that there probably also is some Chun Mee or something along those lines.

So which do I prefer? I have more left in the Clipper glass than the Touch glass as of right now. The grassy quality of the Clipper today really reminds me of darjeeling, and they did say that they source their teas both from Hunan province in China and from South India. Hmmm is Darjeeling in the south of India? I’d better go check. Be back in a jiffy…

Okay, Darjeeling is in West Bengal, which is not in the south. Anyway, there is Indian tea in the Clipper, but not in the Touch Organic. In the end, I find that both are perfectly potable blends. It’s a tie! Honestly, I attached a 72 to Clipper before coming to Touch, only to find that I had also given Touch a 72! For organic grocery store greens, both are a steal and quite decent for filter bag brews.

I was planning to compare this tea to Yogi Super Antioxidant Green, but it was a futile endeavor. Like comparing gnocchis to ganache!

This cup was pretty good: pale yellow, with something of a sencha demeanor, despite being produced in China. It’s organic, and it comes in big cylinders of 50 filter bags for a small price. I enjoyed this cup much more than the Yogi which I brewed side-by-side. But the Yogi seems more like a functional health-benefits blend, since that is really their thing.

Once again I have found that keeping the steep time short and the water cool helps a lot with the quality of filter bag teas.

In this afternoon’s steep-off chez sherapop, two organic filter bag green teas wrapped in open-air paper envelopes are going sniff to sniff and sip to sip against one another. The first up is Touch Organic Green Tea. Vying to rule the category “organic filter bag green tea wrapped in open-air paper envelope” is Choice Premium Japanese Green (also organic). The Touch hails from China, but is a similar style of tea.

My first observation is that the Touch Organic Green is more golden and less cloudy than the Choice. This led me immediately to predict that the Choice would be more flavorful, being both more cloudy and more green. This is true. The Choice also tastes and smells more like sencha than does the Touch Organic Green.

Neither of these teas claims on the packaging to be sencha, so I don’t want to go overboard here. I hasten to add, however, that calling a tea “Premium Japanese Green” naturally suggests as much, since most of the tea produced and consumed in japan is indeed sencha.

I now suspect that the Touch may be a Chinese bancha or a blend of Chinese bancha and Chinese sencha. It’s also possible that the Choice is a blend of Japanese sencha and bancha. Why else would they not take credit for being pure sencha, if that is what it is?

In any case, I find the flavor of the Choice to be richer than the Touch. The Touch is still highly potable and the price is ridiculously low for a decent organic green tea. Is it worth it to pay the same price for only one-third the number of bags in order to taste the marginally better Choice, which however costs more per bag than Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha and yet is not nearly so good?

In this sort of cost-benefit analysis—which I generally eschew, but seeing as today’s steep-off is between grocery store teas, it seems not inappropriate—I end up coming to the conclusion that, despite its slightly inferior taste, Touch is a much better deal, all things considered, than the Choice! If I’m going to pay the price for Choice filter bags, why not just go Harney instead?

Not sencha, but still pretty good and in that general neighborhood. It’s certainly a million times better than the middling grocery store China lint-infested greens.

The liquor brews up a bit more golden brown than the green of Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha, and the taste is lighter and less crisp. Again I find the taste similar to bancha…

I stopped picking up boxes and containers of tea from TJMAXX quite some time ago because of the inevitable mediocrity of the contents, even when the labeling indicated that the tea was years from being expired.

Today, in a random display of recidivism, I picked up a cylinder of organic green tea filter bags by Touch Organic, a company which I’d never even heard of. I’m always willing to pay $3 to sample a perfume, so why not tea? Perhaps I was charmed in part by the endearing reference in the description text to “our proud famers [sic] in Southeastern China”…

This is not bad, in fact. The tea has a bancha-character to it. The color is golden yellow and the taste is smooth. The Touch Organic “famers” have reason to be proud, for this could pass as a Japanese tea.

The package bears a batch number, so it is possible that the harvests vary a lot. Mine turns out to be pretty good.

General Review:
I got this tea at HomeGoods. It is a bit too “earthy” for me. I honestly don’t know why I bought it; I don’t enjoy green teas at all. It is a strong tea. It wasn’t bitter at all. Pretty decent quality for a grocery store tea.

A nice, light green tea with a hint of jasmine essence. It won’t be replacing my Rishi jasmine pearls any time soon but it was cheap ($3 at Homegoods) and makes an excellent bagged tea for the office. I actually prefer the flavor of this jasmine tea to many of the inexpensive brands I’ve bought from grocery stores and Asian markets and then had to throw out.

A surprisingly good oolong considering its a bagged tea. Very smooth with a lingering sweetness reminiscent of honey. Tastes great hot and iced.

Got this tea from my dad! He was at Home Sense and saw it and thought he’d grab it for me.

I feel like I’ve tried a gunpowder tea before, but I’m honestly not too sure at the moment. So here we go!

This one unfortunately doesn’t have any steeping instructions on it from what I’ve seen, so this will be one of trial and error.

A 12oz cup with 1tsp for 2.5mins. I tried it, but I feel this one needs some sweetener. White sugar it is! I don’t care for the smell of this one at all. I’m not too sure what it is about it, but yeah…
Taste-wise though, I really don’t mind it. I think it’s pretty good! I like the sweetener added for sure. I don’t think I’d drink this one without.
How I ended up steeping this one is perfect.

I don’t think I would get this one again, but it’s not too bad.

I like this tea. It has a mild flavor. It has a slight bitter and sour flavor in it.

Good stuff! One of the few bagged Keemuns I’ve found. Silky smooth and slightly floral-ish in that classic Chinese kind of way. I like it by itself but it’s become a key ingredient in my DIY Russian Caravan blend. 1 bag Touch Organic Black, 1 bag Twinings Lapsang Souchong, and 2 bags Bigelow Oolong. 3 and a half minutes on the blacks and double that on the Oolong and you’re ready to trek Siberia!

I bought this in loose-leaf pyramid bags. It has an appealing jasmine aroma and noticeable jasmine taste. Both the green tea flavor and jasmine flavors are evident, but neither over powers the other. This is a wonderfully light and smooth tea for any time of the day! I’ll be buying more of this.

Still not too familiar with whites but from what i can tell this is a nice combo of flavours. I have it when I want something light and fruity, it really has a wonderful berry aroma and flavour.

Well…I steeped for a good long time…like over 8 minutes…and doesn’t have much taste. Maybe an after thought and after taste…it’s not bad…just VERY VERY mellow…

An okay bagged green tea—a bit vegetal in taste.

While I like most of my tea as blends, this is one of the few I truly enjoy plain. Solid quality, good cup.

Very light, a nice morning tea to have, taste is light

Bagged
Aroma when Dry: heavy floral
After water is first poured: lightly floral
At end of steep: fruity
Tea liquor:
At end of steep: clear
Staple? Type yes, prefer loose leaf, unsure about this company
Preferred time of day: any
Taste:
At first?: Jasmine, floral and fruity notes
As it cools?: gets bodied, slightly brothy, slight salt notes
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? yes, heavy floral notes

Second Steep(5min):
Floral Jasmine and stronger fruity, perfume notes in palate
Perfumy texture lingers

Nice light green tea with a hint of jasmine, not too strong which I like. My parents love the Home Goods/Marshalls/KMart reduced tea selection so I always seem to find these heavily reduced teabags in my pantry and they always seem like the saddest toys in the shop. The teabag is so small and the tea packed so tightly that it just kind of sits there like a rusty coin. Maybe I’ll try ripping it open and throwing it into my mesh strainer.

This is my go-to green tea because it is 100% organic. I love the taste, even when steeped very strong.
I also have used this tea to make cosmetics such as toners and face masks and It worked quite well.
The only downfall to this tea I would say is that it is a bagged tea – I prefer loose leaf teas.