Bagged Japanese Greens

[sherubtse]

Tried a tea bag today of Japanese tea from Ito-En. Nice colour in the cup, but the flavour was lacking. The tea in the bag seemed to be dust.
'
Anyone have any good experiences with Japanese teas in bags? I know that some vendors sell them (e.g., O-Cha), but I have never tried any.

Thanks.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[Chip]

Uji Teabags from O-Cha with 5 grams of good leaf were the best teabags I ever tried. However Kevin may have had to change sources, you might want to ask him. Some people really like Otsuusen in bags.

Zencha has some good bags too.

I have not really looked much further ...

EDIT, the Uji sencha bags are no longer on the O-Cha site. Too bad.

[Kevangogh]

Sold the last of those a few days ago, too bad. Looking for new source....

[sherubtse]

EDIT, the Uji sencha bags are no longer on the O-Cha site. Too bad.

I see that the Uji Sencha Green Tea Bags "Musashi" are still listed on O-Cha, though in 2.5 g bags rather than 5g ones.

There are also the Karigane Sencha Green Tea Bags, again in 2.5g units.

I might spring for one of these with my next O-Cha order, though I might wait until Kevin gets a new supply.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[rdl]

zencha adds a sample tea bag with a purchase, and i was surprised as to how good it was. i don't know which tea bag it is however.

[sherubtse]

zencha adds a sample tea bag with a purchase, and i was surprised as to how good it was. i don't know which tea bag it is however.

I see, from a cursory glance at the Zencha website, that they sell at least 2 types of tea bags:

Yame Premium Teabag & Tea Bag Fuji The Ultimate

I wonder if anyone has tried these ....

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[teaisme]

the den's ones were pretty good too

I haven't tried their organic ones, but the others were fine when I tried them about two years ago.

Maybe you might be interested in just buying empty bags and filling them up to your own taste?

[brlarson]

Zencha usually includes a bag of their premium yame tea with their orders, and yes it is pretty good. Sugimoto's sencha in Tea Pacs are good too. I don't have any at the moment, but SA's sencha in tea pacs were my go-to tea when I would travel.

Ippodo's teabags of sencha and gyokuro are tasty but they're a little light for me, even when using two bags to brew one 6oz cup.

[sherubtse]

Maybe you might be interested in just buying empty bags and filling them up to your own taste?

This is something I thought about doing some time back with my stock of blacks. But it makes good sense to do it with Japanese greens as well. I have a selection of great senchas from O-Cha that would make great home-made tea bags.

Many thanks for reminding me of this, churng.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

[a.serrao]

Maybe you might be interested in just buying empty bags and filling them up to your own taste?

Great idea. And actually the tea tastes as good as traditionally brewed tea.

[joelbct]

I've found, even when I put a good Sencha in a teabag (the do-it-yourself filterbags), it comes out lousy... the leaves just don't get the chance to infuse properly.

[sencha]

I'll probably get lynched for suggesting it, but Stash's bagged green tea is delicious. It's from Brazil, I think, but it's steamed like Japanese greens, so it's technically a "sencha."

[Shihali]

I took the Stash teabags when I visited relatives for Christmas (they recently lost all their tea equipment and now use a Keurig machine for both coffee and tea). The teabags weren't fantastic, but I could get Stash at the supermarket. They were much better than Lipton and tasted more than vaguely Japanese, and that's good enough for me.

I do heartily recommend the Costco "Kirkland Signature" bagged Japanese green; they get the tea from Ito En and when reasonably fresh and made properly I recall it as being good. Unfortunately there's not a Costco within 50 miles of me so I can't get it; there are some sellers on Amazon but they charge 100%+ markups or have a reputation for selling the tea past its expiration date.