YamaMotoYama teas have always been my go-to bagged tea while traveling. You can pick them up at any Asian market for next to nothing, I paid $1.99 yesterday for my box of Oolong at the Olive Farmer’s Market in St. Louis.
What I love about them is that they’re pretty much impossible to screw up even if you leave the bag sitting in your cup for an extra 15 minutes (not that I would ever do that). This tea also doesn’t care that you don’t have the right temperature water (I have absolutely no clue what temperature I used yesterday I only know that it was marginally hot). The tea also works well hot, iced, or room temperature and you can’t say that about a lot of teas.
Even with my poor brewing standards this week I still managed to end up with a really solid cup of tea that had a nice smokiness to it. The only thing I don’t love about this tea is that it doesn’t resteep well, but at $1.99/16 bags you won’t hear any complaints from me.
P.S. I miss my Zojirushi water pot and my ingenuiTEA, I need to stop traveling so much. At least I know that when I get home I’ll have a new tea pot and set of Japanese cups waiting for me to play with.