A potentially goofy question...

[Michael_C]

I'm about to place another order from adagio (white and green), but I was wondering if anybody knows...

...the big supermarket here sells tins of loose Twinings teas... I did the math and they come out to about $21 for 1 pound ($5 and change for 100g). Are these things just mass produced junk, or are they redeemable for a quick fix - are they any better than mass-produced bagged tea?

I don't drink teas from bags, and I drink an Ise green, Mugicha, and Adagio's Irish Breakfast and Ooooh Darjeeling almost every day. I love a good leaf oolong as well.

I'm curious, because I like trying new teas, but I don't want to waste money if possible, and I don't trust Twinings as a quality brand after drinking Adagio and the like (as well as what I fly back with from Japan).

Any opinions would be greatly appreciated.

[daughteroftheKing]

Twinings has been around for 300 years, so they must be doing something right. I don't particularly care for it myself, although I'll definitely take it over Lipton or the cheapo bags.

[karia]

in the end i all about what you like. plus it never hurts to try new teas.

that said, i personally cant stand the twinings teas i have tried. they dont seem to do it for me.

[klemptor]

The Twinings tins aren't bad. They're CTC, so they're lower quality, but if you need a quick fix, they're suitable.

[Madam Potts]

with so many tea companies out there, why limit yourself to Twinings (or Lipton?)

[himthatwas]

I really like their Earl Grey in loose leaf form. It is a great improvement over the bagged version from them.

I even like it better than the Adagio version, which was far too Bergamoted for me.

The English Breakfast wasn't all that impressive, but I don't tend to like many of them in general. I lean towards the malty blacks like Assam or Nigiri but this one is more like the PG tips kind.

[Michael_C]

Thanks for the input everyone.

And hey - 'limited' implies that I would ONLY buy supermarket tea - I have never had Twinings loose leaf tea before, and I was just wondering. I just scored some matcha from a friend in Nara Japan and a loose green from Ise, and there's some Mugicha in the fridge right now. I wondered because they sell this cheap loose tea on the corner, and was just thinking about it, that's all.

[jogrebe]

Why not just get a tin of each type of interest and try them out to see what you think of them. Personally in my experience there is a big difference between many of the types of Twinings teas in their bagged vs loose forms. My personal take on tea is to try to find cheap teas that taste good so if you enjoy the grocery store tins of loose Twinings tea and are satisfied with their quality, great drink them.

[heatwaves]

I still buy teabags on a very limited basis, but in my opinion The Republic of Tea has some of the best quality and most tasty varieties out there.

[jogrebe]

In my experience in terms of commonly available teabags at the grocery store Stash seems to use higher quality leaves in their teabags or at least in the ones that I tried. Other good ones are the new Lipton whole leaf pyramid bags that can actually hold their own against quality loose tea. So yes you can find relatively good tea at many grocery stores now days, just be sure to compare prices as a lot of the time you can get even higher quality loose tea online at Adagio and other tea shops for less money even after shipping compared to the better teabags at the grocery store.

[karia]

stash tea really is amazing particularly bag tea

[Michael_C]

well, the loose gunpowder green from Twinings was ok - it has a hint of Yuunan smokiness to it - when Yuki drank some she said it was almost identical to the everyday drinking tea of rural Japanese households, but she couldn't believe it was almost five dollars. Way too expensive, she said. It should have cost two or three.

Thanks for the input, everyone.