Japanese Green Tea

I’m not really much of a green tea person..maybe because I am not patient enough to wait for a minute after boiling? This one turns out okay for me most of the time but I’m excited to try good green tea that I’ve only recently read about.

I found a handful of these individually wrapped green tea bags from Kirkland in a purse! I drank a lot of this tea a while back, and it was my very first experience with the sachet format. I wonder whether Kirkland was the first to create the sachet? Well, anyway the biggest surprise was always that this purveyor of high quality Japanese green tea was somehow affiliated with … Costco!!!!

I loved this tea. The bag I drank this afternoon sadly tasted a bit stale, but now this tea is old, and I am thinking that maybe it was a sencha/genmaicha blend, because I’ve noticed that genmaicha sometimes becomes stale as a result of the popped rice. I believe that there is some matcha implicated as well, because some of the dark green powder sifts through the sachet pores.

Since this tea is no longer in its prime, I’ll refrain from rating it today. If I come across a fresh box at some point, then I’ll try it again. I do recall that I loved it before…

Drinking the Kirkland Signature right now.
I like it – grassy, vegetal taste with nice bag, and able to steep it for a second cup, nice!

6/8/2013 – This is one of the “must have” teas for my collection. Tastes great, can get it easily from Costco, guests drink it, each teabag is individually sealed. This is tea is a “winner”

This comes in a big 100 set at Costco, and it’s my go-to tea for travel. It’s not the greatest tea in the world, but as far as bagged teas go it’s one of my favorites. It’s a little watery, but it still has a little bit of that signature Japanese green tea flavor. This is actually an Ito En tea marketed under the Costco name Kirkland signature. I’m guessing it’s just the leftover fannings of Ito En’s bancha, so it’s not the highest quality but if you’re looking for cheap Japanese tea for traveling, then I recommend it.

Used this as the base for ochazuke, with leftover steamed white rice, edamame beans, and furikake. Yum!

here’s the idea, if you are confused:
http://justhungry.com/2004/01/ochazuke_rice_w.html

I generally leave one or two teas out for several hours. not on purpose, but it gives the tea a very harsh flavor (as expected). You would think that this green tea develops a metallic flavor when left out too long, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it did not! It is very clearly a Japanese green tea; you could tell even without the box if you knew the difference. It is very smooth with everything about green tea a green tea lover would love (that was a mouthful)! We found a box of 100 bags for $13, for very good value as well. I have around 4 or 5 cups a day, and I must say it is nice not to have to resort to my dad’s Earl Greys.

Yeah. Kirkland brand. I know some of their stuff is decent, even comparable to good.

But not this.

This is scraps. I opened the package the tea bag came in, and dust sprayed out. Dust. Quite a bit of it. There was even more in the bottom of the cup after pouring.

It was definitely left overs, the last of the last scraps from the bottom of the barrel after all the good stuff was used.

And it tasted like it as well. Bland, boring. Yeah, it tasted like Green Tea. Basically.

People, just spend a tiny bit more for a decent green tea. This is the bottom of the bottom.

Was given two packets that sat on my desk for a year, and finally tried it. Great tea from a bag! Vegetal sweetness, with nice body, and delivers a smile halfway through the cup. I want more.

Backlog.

My roommate acquired a whole box of these from Costco, and gave me a few to try. It appears to be a combination of green tea + matcha – the packet specifically instructs the user to dump any remaining matcha into the tea after brewing, and it was definitely quite dusty inside the packet. I brewed this at work, so have no idea what temperature the water actually was (but I did let it cool for a while first). The tea is quite green, and smells like kind of seaweedy (in that really pleasant way, not fishy like pu’erh) and green. The flavour is similar – a light, fresh, seaweedy flavour, with a bit of a brothy, umami flavour to it. I kind of wish it was a bit stronger (but it also might be the “spring water” I used – I swear it strips flavour out of things. Blech.) but it’s ok as is. Other than being finicky for brewing (30s/not boiling water), this would be a great tasty work tea. I’m reasonably impressed, and will happily finish off my remaining bags (and depending on how I long I keep this work schedule up – possibly some of hers too! I may run out of teabags!)

This is simple and enjoyable green tea. I like that there is a little bit of matcha powder to give it a nice taste.