Switching to organic only

[Uji]

I drink a lot of tea for many years. 70% Sencha. 20% Houjicha. 10% Mugicha and etc. . . . I am getting concerned lately about chemicals. I eat mostly organic vegetables and fruits, especially when the conventional type has much pesticide. Why not my tea? I have struggled with this for a while because I love my tea and don't want to drink yukkycha. I know I will have to sacrifice taste and quality until organic is up to speed with conventional. Might take a few more years. I know Japan has strict guidelines for conventional tea growing. I will make this change to organic tea and I hope I can adapt.

[rabbit]

the only option is to grow and process your OWN high grade organic tea!!!

[teaisme]

I know I will have to sacrifice taste and quality until organic is up to speed with conventional.

To me its not that they taste worse, they just taste different. It would also seem that their processing is slightly altered too. They make me feel different too. As for quality, very disputable, many high quality teas grown with great care are organic...

Looking forward to see some of your reviews organic friend esp the ocha organics, which I have tried none

[Chip]

I know I will have to sacrifice taste and quality until organic is up to speed with conventional.

To me its not that they taste worse, they just taste different. It would also seem that their processing is slightly altered too. They make me feel different too. As for quality, very disputable, many high quality teas grown with great care are organic...

I tend to agree with this statement. I always tell people to virtually consider this to be a different type of tea than conventional, it can be that different. So, I think it is wise to not compare directly to conventionally grown ... for your own pleasure and satisfaction.

[Uji]

Which organic green compares most favorably with a conventional green?

[Chip]

As I said, I do not compare organics to conventionals. I simply look for good examples of each.

[entropyembrace]

O-cha has a good selection of organics...and I really enjoy their organic sencha

[sebpassion]

i can recommend yuuki cha and o-cha as good organic tea sources..

try them and find out!

[OhJungMin]

Of course, organic tea is going to taste differently because they are not using pesticides. We all got used to consuming vegetables and other foods that are no longer organic so that taste is more familiar to us. A lot of food producers also use MSG to make the food taste better. Have you ever wondered why your local "hole-in-the-wall" Chinese restaurant's food taste so amazing? It's because the Chef has a giant jar of MSG next to him which he uses for every dish on the menu
No wonder that organic foods and probably teas (haven't tried any yet) taste dull to us compared to non-organic versions.
The question you want to ask yourself is what do you want? Good taste or be concerned about your health? And that's a tough one, I think. Im sure you answered - both! At least that's what I did LOL
When it comes to food - I try to buy organic as much as I can and then sometimes I would spoil myself with something really nasty and wrong like this one Korean Ramen noodles that I love so much but they add MSG to it (oh, boy does it taste soooo goood!)
I hope in the future people will learn to "enhance" the taste of food or tea to bring it close to non-organic taste that we all love so much WOTHOUT the use of pesticides or hormones or MSG (Yumm Yumm Yumm ) but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.
So for now, make your choice: good taste or health?

[entropyembrace]

I don´t feel deprived by organic food or tea

for food nature gave us these wonderful things called spices and herbs


for tea....at least with senchas organics are among my highest rated...especially higher priced ones like the Ooigawa Supreme.

but then I never bought from yuuki-cha either.

[OhJungMin]

for food nature gave us these wonderful things called spices and herbs

AGREED!

[teaisme]

I think many higher end chefs would dispute the claim that conventional foods taste better then organic...often they go out of their way to find the good organic ingredients

It's a myth that organic foods taste bad. Maybe it stems from people trying to go organic in fields that have been depleted of nutrients from conventional farming. Thus they now have a 3 year period to help soil detox and regain a little of what has been lost. I say with some good knowledge of organic farming and some care, organics taste just as good if not better. It's just harder to find ideal conditions for what you want to plant, you can't just pick any random field out there. A farmer has to be more aware of whats going on and usually needs to work harder.

[Rainy-Day]

?! Generally, everyone agrees that organic food tastes better, the dissenters say that there is no / or very little difference. With tea it's different because, if I understand right, organic tea plants are much younger. If an organic and non-organic tea of two tea plants of the same age were compared, I suspect the organic one would also taste better.

[Oni]

Organic food, tea, anything, can become much better that non-organic, but it needs a lot more effort and time, but the endresult is incomparable, for example if you use chemicals your apple tree can produce nice looking fruits and bigger fruits faster, but if an fully organically grown tree, gets to a certain age, it`s roots get deep and the tree grows big, if it is healthy, it will produce overall incomparably better fruits than any non-organic tree, it will be bigger and better tasting, so is with tea, but the farmer does not have a lot of old trees, a tea plant needs a lot of time to grow and produce good tea, so if it has the right terroir, it is healthy it will be much stronger and deeper tasting than any non-organic, at least I had the oportunity to see this myself with tea, I tried HOJO`s Tai Ping Hou Kui, that is from the original bush, organical, and it totaly blew out of the water all the other TPHK`s I have tried, it was better looking and much better tasting, I think if you would get the oportunity to taste a gyokuro made from very old organically grown tea bushes it will rock your world.
Please watch the movie "All in this tea", at a time they show a great natural fertilizer, earthworm excrement, that can be produced at earthworm farms that eat soy husks, or any other byproduct that is not currently used from the food industry, it could be used to make the best tasting teas and vegetables in the world.
Organic is better tasting, not only healthier, but the farmer should invest a lot of effort in producing such products, but unfortunately the organic food bussiness starts to become a sales pitch, and they do not make it right.
P.S. My local chinese restaurant owner and chef cooks organic food (because we have cheap organical products at the local vegetale market, generally peasents still produce organic stuff, and you can make good deals with them if you buy in large scale, so he buys all organic in the summer), and it tastes better that any competition I have tried, anywhere.

[Oni]

I have the slight impression that in Japan they only started recently to produce organic teas, because of the great hype with organic stuff, and the do not have old bushes, enherited from their grandparents, or if they have it they mix it with new bushes, take for comparison the Dancong oolong, the "new" young farms produce crappy tea full of chemicals, and look at teahabitats organic old single bush teas, the diffrence is huge, I think this is true for all kinds of tea.