AKHA green tea from Thailand

[eor1122]

Yesterday I got a bag of green tea from one of the missionaries our church sponsors. It is from the AKHA tribe in Thailand. Now admittedly I probably had way too much tea in my infuser, out of the bag it was these little dried up balls that turned out to be whole leaves. So what looked like about the same amount of tea after expanding wound up being about three times the amount I usually use. The first infusion of about 5 mins had a light spinach like smell but the flavor was slightly different than other green teas I've had. The second infusion had a stronger spinach scent and the flavor was more spinach like as well. I'm going to try another cup again using less tea and maybe a shorter infusion time and see what happens.


I was wondering if anyone has had tea from this region and what they thought about it. Anybody have any suggestions on how to brew it so it's not as spinach like. I like spinach but I don't know how much tea I'd wind up drinking if it's always this strong of a spinach flavor. I actually thought about putting a little salt and butter on the leaves and eating them

[eor1122]

ok I'm thinking yesterday's first infusion was longer than 5 mins because the infusion I just did was about 4 1/2 and the leaves have barely expanded. I used much much less than yesterday. The scent is still spinachy, but there is next to no flavor to the tea. Back to the drawing board I guess.

[Cinnamon Kitty]

4 1/2 or 5 minutes is an extremely long time to brew a green tea. What temperature water are using? How much tea leaf to how much water? What are you brewing the tea in?

The little rolled balls that expand into a full leaf sound suspiciously like a green oolong to me.

[Geekgirl]

or gunpowder, which if it is sold in such large quantities, it may be.

[Victoria]

It may indeed be gunpowder as Geek says -
also Rishi has a Jade Fire green - does it look like this?

http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/product. ... t=4&page=1

[eor1122]

this latest attempt~

16 oz water at 145 degrees
2 grams tea (maybe a little more, hard to say how accurate my scale is but it was about 1 teaspoon.
I'm using the ingenuiTea infuser from adagio
brewed for about 3 1/2 minutes (was going to do 3 minutes but left my mug in the other room)

[eor1122]

I don't think it was such a large quantity about 200 grams for $12

[Geekgirl]

yeah, that doesn't look like gunpowder to me

[eor1122]

also Rishi has a Jade Fire green - does it look like this?

http://www.rishi-tea.com/store/product. ... t=4&page=1

It looks kinda like that, I'm going to try the brewing suggestions they have on their page.

[Victoria]

Good luck! If it tastes like spinich, it pretty much has to be a green tea, not oolong.

[Chip]

Hard to tell from the lighting of your photos,
but it amost looks like it has been fired or roasted.
This is done sometimes to make a bad tea more "tasty,"
but not necessarily better.

Thailand is a mixed bag for tea.
They have some really strange brews.
Not that they are all bad,
but you might just find this one is simply a bad tea
or you may never derive any pleasure from it.

[eor1122]

oh well, at least it supports a good cause

[Chip]

Just a thought, if all else fails, try cold brewing and drinking as iced tea.

Fact is, you won't enjoy every tea you try. But through experimenting you might find you can enjoy this one.

[eor1122]

Just a thought, if all else fails, try cold brewing and drinking as iced tea.

I do love iced green tea, I'll try it

[eor1122]

I just found a great use for this spinachy tea.....


Keeping my 9 year old busy

she's sitting on the porch with my mortar and pestle grinding it up........recently we visited a museum that had a Native American exhibit where the children had the opportunity to grind corn with rocks like the Native Americans did. She's having a blast.