What exactly is in those generic green tea bags?

[daidokorocha]

Does anybody actually know? When I signed up here I made a post in an introduction thread about how I just can't understand the appeal of supermarket green tea bags and that they are surely the worst out of the lot. That got me thinking about what the contents of these bags are. I find it interesting that one can get a lot more information about other sorts like bagged oolong and blacks, but bagged green remains in this vague state of being "green tea" with some allusions to it being Chinese sometimes. That is about as far as it goes. Anybody happen to know?

[Peacock]

Tea fannings or dust. Basically, the left-overs, sometimes from a company that has farms in Brazil or Sri Lanka.


Or.. rat droppings

[daidokorocha]

This is what I mean, of course! Obviously they are fannings and dust, as most mass produced bags are, but what are their origin? Sometimes I surely think if they don't specify China that perhaps it is Brazilian as you mentioned or something or other. Still, there are so many kinds of greens and processing methods that I wonder where these fannings and dust actually come from. It is all very mysterious! I wonder if companies just grab whatever they can or do they have a standardized processing for their unique brand?

[beforewisdom]

Does anybody actually know? When I signed up here I made a post in an introduction thread about how I just can't understand the appeal of supermarket green tea bags and that they are surely the worst out of the lot. That got me thinking about what the contents of these bags are

I think that, and the quality of easily obtained ( ie without the aide of postal service ) tea in the United States is mostly the result of most Americans never having been exposed to anything better.

Great point about green tea being just generic "green tea".

Even with the small amount of exploration I have had I can see there are huge differences, even between steamed versus roasted green tea, yet most boxes will not tell you that. It is all, just,......."green tea".

[daidokorocha]

It is very interesting. If you look on supermarket shelves you will see oolong listed at least as "Fujian" (although that still isn't telling you much) or something similar and not just "oolong tea". Similarly, you will know whether or not your black is assam, ceylon, etc. I am a big green tea enthusiast so this whole "Green Tea" thing just bothers me ever so much. Telling me "China" doesn't even mean that is it necessary sinensis var. sinensis. For all I know it could be Yunnan assamica. Even then, it tells me nothing about elevation, whether it was steamed or pan fired (I assume the latter 99.9% of the time), whether it was covered or not, etc. Again, I don't expect these things from such companies, but I can't help but feel disheartened when people tell me they HATE green tea after having these things.