Rishi

[woozl]

I actually picked up a small tin to tide me over.
That was 2 wks ago. The good till date is May 1, 2011.
Nice looking leaf, a bit dusty but still brews up nice.
I would be very surprised if this tea is this season's.
That being said, it does what I need (tide me over)
and is better than anything else close by.

[Geekgirl]

Yes, seems to be the norm to stamp expirations on the package of tea. I almost wonder if it is required by the USDA or FDA?

Anyway, expiration dates are pretty meaningless to many tea aficiodados who would prefer actual harvest information instead. This way we can decide if it is fresh enough for our enjoyment.

I believe one of those gov. org. require expiration dates on all "perishable" food and drug items. I do not know what criteria they use, however.

I'm also frustrated by lack of harvest year information. There are many companies that specialize in "fine" teas that do not provide such. I'm not so concerned with teas like chai or other black teas, but whites and greens... I've also noticed that often they don't provide regional information either.

Perhaps my expectations are unrealistic, but approaching tea from a somewhat casual wine hobbyist perspective - all of that information is standard, once you get past low-cost supermarket table blends. It would be nice to see it the norm with fine tea, rather than the exception.

[Chip]

Yes, seems to be the norm to stamp expirations on the package of tea. I almost wonder if it is required by the USDA or FDA?

Anyway, expiration dates are pretty meaningless to many tea aficiodados who would prefer actual harvest information instead. This way we can decide if it is fresh enough for our enjoyment.

I believe one of those gov. org. require expiration dates on all "perishable" food and drug items. I do not know what criteria they use, however.

I'm also frustrated by lack of harvest year information.

Agreed!

Not to go off on a tangent, but this is a topic that gets me going (and please do not take this post personally). This in no way reflects upon Rishi's expiration dates which I am certain are better than virtually any store shelf tea.

I rarely buy tea anymore w/o knowledge of harvest info, which is why I guess I don't buy much tea from any store. The expiration dates are not assigned by some regulation, a company could assign an expiration 5 years in the future, so a tea with 2 years left could be very old already. Expiration dates mean absolutely nothing to me when it comes to buying tea. The dates seem arbitrary or profit driven.

It is sad to say that buying tea from virtually any store, unless you are talking to the owner or buyer, it might be old, you just do not know. I used to buy strictly from brick and mortar stores in order to support the local economy, but why should my enjoyment suffer due to their failure to have proper product knowledge.

OK, well, that was a pretty major tangent. And yeah, I guess I am obsessed. But when there are acceptable alternatives to buying based strictly on expiration dates, why not?

[woozl]

I notice that Rishi has new tea on their site.
http://www.rishi-tea.com/2009FreshCrop.php

We may be having an influece on vendors
They have harvest date and origin posted for the new green.

Don't know if you can find "the new" at whole foods yet

[Chip]

Yes, I saw that page also! Kudos to Rishi

[Victoria]

I notice that Rishi has new tea on their site.
http://www.rishi-tea.com/2009FreshCrop.php

We may be having an influece on vendors
They have harvest date and origin posted for the new green.

Don't know if you can find "the new" at whole foods yet

Ohhh Purple Bamboo looks interesting and their Moonlight White is always good.

[silverneedles]

from the 10-15 dark oolongs i've tried (nothing extra special or expensive) i go back to Rishi's wuyi oolong for some reason.

just went thru a couple rishi web pages and some of them contain general origin such as "Nantou, Taiwan" or "Fujian,China" but no dates.

[Love4TheLeaf]

I'm just glad there are one or two brands of loose tea I can buy locally. I love tea but that's the only way I'm buying it. I absolutely hate ordering stuff. Especially stuff like tea where I need to keep a constant supply of it on hand and have to plan for ordering more before I run out of my favorites. I would honestly just about rather drink bagged tea than to do that all the time.

It's really a shame there aren't more loose teas available in many places. I can buy some of the best coffee in the world just about anywhere but if it wasn't for Rishi and maybe one or two others, I'd have to order tea like it's some kind of special request for decent tea or something.

I've not always been completely pleased with Rishi teas and sure. All the harvest info would be great. Still........

[woozl]

Ahhh,
more for us

[Love4TheLeaf]

Ahhh,
more for us

Wait. So you're actually opposed to good tea being available in stores? I'm not sure I follow that logic. That's exactly why the general public (In America, at least) is so ignorant about tea in the first place. It's no wonder tea isn't as popular as coffee and quality tea is so hard to come by when you can't get anything but lousy teabags full of dust in most stores. People actually think that stuff is tea.

[Chip]

Not to be argumentative!!!

I am all in favor of the dregs being available to 100% of the population through supermarkets, etc. and the good stuff being available to anyone and everyone who wants it enough to look for it through more specialty outlets.

Like anything else, supermarkets rarely carry the premo grades of anything, be it bread, olive oil, fish, fruit, etc. The exceptions are the types of stores that would also carry a tea brand such as Rishi.

[Cinnamon Kitty]

Ahhh,
more for us

Wait. So you're actually opposed to good tea being available in stores? I'm not sure I follow that logic. That's exactly why the general public (In America, at least) is so ignorant about tea in the first place. It's no wonder tea isn't as popular as coffee and quality tea is so hard to come by when you can't get anything but lousy teabags full of dust in most stores. People actually think that stuff is tea.

Even though you can get good coffee in many places, a good chunk of people still get the pre-ground cheap stuff instead of the better quality, fresh roasted beans that they can grind at home. Tea is the same way. Even if they see loose leaf, the general public still buys tea bags because those are cheap and convenient. They never think that tea is anything beyond an oversteeped bag of dust. Any loose leaf tea, like the Rishi that you find in the grocery stores, costs more than a box of Lipton bags so sometimes they don't think to try it just because of the price. It is nice to see them available though for those individuals who either already understand the awesomeness of loose leaf or those brave enough to try it.

I think woozl's comment was more in line with your dislike of online tea ordering. It simply leaves more of the good stuff for those of us who have no issues with ordering our teas over the internet.

[Love4TheLeaf]

Even though you can get good coffee in many places, a good chunk of people still get the pre-ground cheap stuff instead of the better quality, fresh roasted beans that they can grind at home. Tea is the same way. Even if they see loose leaf, the general public still buys tea bags because those are cheap and convenient. They never think that tea is anything beyond an oversteeped bag of dust. Any loose leaf tea, like the Rishi that you find in the grocery stores, costs more than a box of Lipton bags so sometimes they don't think to try it just because of the price.

Well, regardless, you can buy whole bean coffee just about anywhere and most of the time what you'll get (even if you don't pay a lot) is very good coffee. Maybe not the absolute best but I've had surprisingly good coffee from just about everywhere.

But my point was that it's going to take time for a public that is accustomed to the definition of tea being a Lipton tea bag to come around to the idea of loose leaf. We know it can happen that even the biggest fool in the world can learn the virtues of higher quality because it's happened with coffee.

I just got into tea in the last couple of years because honestly, I never knew it could be better than Lipton. I didn't even know loose tea existed because I never saw it in any store. Ever. And I would have never known it existed if I wasn't the type to go googling everything that I get curious about.

I think woozl's comment was more in line with your dislike of online tea ordering. It simply leaves more of the good stuff for those of us who have no issues with ordering our teas over the internet.

It's not that I have anything against people who don't mind ordering their teas online. It's that if you want good tea, you almost don't have a choice in many places in the US. Where I live, I've found a grand total of two places to find loose tea. There are probably a few others (or maybe even quite a few) but they're really hard to find.

I just think having to order something you consume every day makes about as much sense as having to order bread. Some people might be fine with it but a lot of people would find it irritating and troublesome.

[tea-guy]

As a note (since I didn't spy it via a cursory glance through this thread)...

Rishi Tea took away some 28 awards at this year's World Tea Competition held at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas in May.

http://worldteaexpo.com/index.php?optio ... Itemid=466

[Love4TheLeaf]

Rishi Tea took away some 28 awards at this year's World Tea Competition held at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas in May.

I can't speak for all of them but the China Breakfast is great stuff! It's very, very bold but if you like it that way, you'll just love it more. It's kind of hard to brew it just right though. The aroma is killer!