I decided to try the Choice organic Premium Japanese Green tea bags to see whether they are on a par with the Stash Premium Green and the Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha filter bags. I’m a big fan of sencha filter bags because they are the exception to the general rule that filter bags offer an inferior tea experience. The Japanese have perfected the sencha filter bag format, and from their centuries of toil on this front, all of us benefit!
The first surprise with this Japanese green from Choice was that the bags are wrapped in the cheap-o Lipton-type paper envelopes—so no attempt to maximize freshness, as with most teas with organic credentials and boasting “premium” quality. I’d have thought that any company charging 30 cents for a filter bag would take the trouble to wrap it in an airtight (foil) envelope. Not Choice.
I know nonetheless that this tea must be relatively fresh—or at least recently packaged!—since the expiration date is not until January 2017, which I presume means that it was only just produced. So the flavor was a bit disappointing, but not surprising, given the budget packaging. The box itself comes wrapped in cellophane, but it did not really seem airtight and hermetically sealed to me. Now that the cellophane has been removed, the tea is going to be exposed to air until the other 15 bags are gone.
I guess that I’ll try to drink these rapidly, because the flavor of the freshest bag, the one brewed today, was a bit wan. The pale greenish-yellow cloudy liquor was promising, and reminded me of Harney & Sons, but the flavor was less pronounced. I’ll try brewing my next Choice filter bag in less water, but my favorite double-walled Bodum glasses—the ones which I use specifically for sencha—seemed to be too voluminous for this 2 gram serving of Choice Premium Japanese Green Tea. Note, however, that the bags contain exactly the same weight of tea as do the Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha filter bags, which I find to produce a much more satisfying cup. I’ll do an official steep-off of these two filter bags soon, but I’ve imbibed enough Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha to be able to speak ex cathedra on these matters—it seems to me!
