Different teapots for different teas ?

[ummaya]

I choose organic for the simple reasons stated, I don't want poison in my food even if it makes something taste better...I cannot always get organic food so I eat what is available

The same for me. I cannot get everything thing organic and I am aware that I cannot avoid from some unhealthy elements to enter my body . I do my best to minimize the harm. I have no experience with organic tea but for vegetables and fruits I have found that the organic taste as good as the non organic if not better.

I can almost always get organic tea and I buy it exclusively, now

Until now I only bought non organic tea because I wanted to try the tea considered by the experienced tea drinkers as the best (from a taste point of view). I hope that before the end of this week my first organic tea will arrive. Having read many good reviews of some organic teas I am quite confident that with some experience in brewing these teas I will find the way to make them taste great.

a friend just sent me a gift from Hibiki-an of their non-organic Pinnacle Sencha and their Sencha Supreme. Will I drink it? Of course

Good non organic drinking

[Tead Off]

One of the things I wonder about is how the taste of tea is altered by non-organic farming. Is it possible that what many tea drinkers take for granted is indeed not the way a tea should taste? Because tea is processed after the picking, this will be another factor in the flavor profile. In the hands of a master, tea, like wine, should be enhanced in the processing of the leaves. Differences will be seen between one style vs. another style of processing the same leaves. Some masters are more skilled than others, and, some soils are more flavorful than others. Getting the 2 together should give a great tea.

The only advantage I see in non-organic farming is producing a larger commercial crop. That means more money, not better tea. Farming is hard work and often not rewarding financially for the small farmer. But, the organic crop should probably bring more than a non organic one.

Here in Thailand, we have a lot of organic oolong grown in the north. After Mao took over, the KMT were forced out and many families of the army made their way into the Golden Triangle where they set up opium farms, (probably to help finance their dreamed of counter-insurgency). Eventually, they were persuaded (forced) by the Thai gov't to grow tea. Most, if not all the tea, were grown from cuttings of Taiwan plants. In theory, this tea should be very good, but, I have yet to taste a good tea from Thailand. Are they missing some real tea masters to oversee the processing, or, is the soil not quite right for High Mountain oolong? This is a good example of how organic tea doesn't translate into great tasting tea.

[Kevangogh]

Green tea grown organically has all kinds of handicaps which the organic farmer must overcome. For starters, the fertilizer is released much more slowly. The locations where it is grown tend to be limited. A lot of the better organic green teas come from higher elevations in Shizuoka where there are less bugs for the farmer to deal with, not because it's the ultimate area to grown a particular variety of tea plant. Same goes for most of the organic matcha.

All of that notwithstanding, both organic and non-organic Japanese green teas are tested for MRL's (maximum residue levels) as both have "some" levels or residues, organic or not. Japan has some of the strictest food safety levels in the industrialized world for MRL's and non-organic green tea definitely fit into that scheme. Anyone who would try to make you believe that non-organic green tea is unsafe has a motive. You are not going to get poisoned by drinking non-organic Japanese green tea.

I can appreciate what the organic farmers have to deal with and what they are trying to achieve, read Hibikian-en's site to see what he has to deal with. Also, there are some really good organic green teas these days too. That said, I were only able to drink only one green tea for the rest of my life, it wouldn't be an organic.

[Tead Off]

Green tea grown organically has all kinds of handicaps which the organic farmer must overcome. For starters, the fertilizer is released much more slowly. The locations where it is grown tend to be limited. A lot of the better organic green teas come from higher elevations in Shizuoka where there are less bugs for the farmer to deal with, not because it's the ultimate area to grown a particular variety of tea plant. Same goes for most of the organic matcha.

All of that notwithstanding, both organic and non-organic Japanese green teas are tested for MRL's (maximum residue levels) as both have "some" levels or residues, organic or not. Japan has some of the strictest food safety levels in the industrialized world for MRL's and non-organic green tea definitely fit into that scheme. Anyone who would try to make you believe that non-organic green tea is unsafe has a motive. You are not going to get poisoned by drinking non-organic Japanese green tea.

I can appreciate what the organic farmers have to deal with and what they are trying to achieve, read Hibikian-en's site to see what he has to deal with. Also, there are some really good organic green teas these days too. That said, I were only able to drink only one green tea for the rest of my life, it wouldn't be an organic.

Yes, we are not going to get poisoned by drinking non organic teas. At least not that visibly.

My whole point is about a committment to a different way of thinking. If there were no point in growing organic foods, why do so many do it? It is a lot easier to get rid of bugs with poisons. What is motivating these Japanese farmers to grow organic? Is it also the money? I think you will find a great majority of farmer's who grow organically feel a sense of harmony with the earth, at least the one's I've met do.

[Intuit]

Comment about successful transition from opium to tea production in the borderlands promoted jointly by the Thai / Chinese gov also may indirectly answer the question about spotty oolong quality. The climate and soils in these highlands is highly variable; matching tea cultivars to local environmental factors and pests is an art as much as a science, as is processing to smooth out soils/annual climate variability. The adapted cultivars may express different genes when compared to parent stock and gene expression continues to be variable in adapting plants for two decades after the plantations are established.

Why this comment rang a bell: Afghanistan once grew a lot of tea for local consumption. Tea has been identified as a potentially viable alternative to opium crops to curtail drug trade that funds militant operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Posted comment on organic versus nonorganic tea contaminants is mostly correct. Primary environmental sources of pesticide and heavy metal contamination common to organic farming everywhere: upstream irrigation water, overhead spray carriage (wind-blown) from commercial application adjacent non-organic operations, and regional and intercontinental aerial deposition of particulates (dust and smog droplets).

Because tea is grown in mountainous areas, local mining and metal processing can result in widespread soil contamination from stack and open pit mining dusts. Teas, like many other plants, may sequester excess inorganic contaminants in the root zone in their leaves.

Tea growers in Japan, China, India and Taiwan have all caught on to the fact that some cultivars naturally express inducible insecticidal gene products that afford exceptionally fine flavoring to processed leaves.

Indian tea growers are adapting biodynamic fertilizers and soil conditioning methods used by Japanese tea farmers for decades because they result in slow release of nutrients, controls soil compaction, and reduces drought stress/freeze damage to roots/invasive weeds - and reduced water and chemical usage.

[Intuit]

Biodynamic farming addresses issues of synthetic fertilizer heavy metals contamination, creeping loss of organic soil fraction (natural nutrients) and negative changes in soil mechanics (poor aeration by loss of aggregation, reduced soil moisture, soil compaction, loss of caliche by acidification, etc), while minimizing reliance on increasingly expensive agrochemicals.

It's smart farming that is most definitely driven by economics and environmental concerns (water shortages and MAJOR_ASS soil erosion in nearly all tea-production areas), but it's a slow soil and plant adaptation process, taking about a decade or more.