China Green Tips

I could really take it or leave it. Reminds me of a gyokuro. Vegetal. a little grassy. Very round and plain. Pretty smooth overall, for what it is!

Backlog from earlier today/yesterday – I’ve drank it a lot lately. I spent this afternoon driving around the countryside, around Concord and Lexington – they’re full of old fields and historical markers blocking off stone-walked pastures. I haven’t beet here in so long – used to go walk around the Old North Bridge all the time as a kid, but I never cared about the history then. (The first shots of the Revolutionary War were fired across the bridge.) I’m not huge on history, but it’s beautiful country – all green and clean-scented, narrow roads and old wooden fences and weathered houses sitting on hills overlooking rolling fields bounded by stone walls.

Tomorrow I’m going to go walk around, I think. I have four months off. Four months. And work is so tight on payroll that I’m hardly likely to get hours this summer. But. I have an empty sourcebook and a play to write. Although today I read about 60pg of the novel, pulled about four pages of quotes, and then just wrote for ten pages. I needed to. I’ve just been haunted by this image, this little scene that showed up in my head a couple days ago and won’t go away. So of course I write three sentences of that scene and go into the backstory forever. I haven’t been able to get rid of that moment. I haven’t been able to forget.

Sorry.

Why do you read these? I just ramble. On to the tea.

I’ve had this a few time sover the past few days. The first time I tried it, last year or something, I didn’t understand about green teas and oversleeping and all. So obviously I didn’t like it much, but I do now. Not sure exactly on the temp/time details – just steeped the cup at Starbucks until it tasted good, and then pulled out the pyramid bag. Maybe 2 minutes or so?

It’s light and clean and grassy. I think I definitely have a preference floor Chinese greens, because even when they’re vegetal like this, they don’t seem to venture into spinich/seaweed territory, like some of the Japanese ones do. Also, it’s a lot cheaper ($2.30) for a grande versus $4something for a latte… Although I do like lattes, and followed this with a caramel macchiato… It was a marathon writing session.

So now that I’ve talked for about a sentence about the tea, and six paragraphs about other stuff, feel free to unfollow me :)

I’m drinking Tazo China Green Tips because I don’t want to drink my good tea when I’m too sick to enjoy it. I keep this tea in house to make for my MIL when she pisses me off. Yup, I get passive aggressive with tea.

I mixed crystallized ginger and mulled mint into this tea and that helped the flavor a bit. This isn’t a terrible tea… but it’s not a great one either. Meeeh…

I had a meeting today in Starbucks (I love that there’s one just downstairs!) and wanted to get something from there since we were taking up their space. So, I went with China Green Tips. I can’t wait until my Starbucks gets the loose leaf bags: http://blogs.starbucks.com/blogs/customer/archive/2009/12/28/full-leaf-tea-lineup.aspx But I’m not sure how soon that will be. :/

This is one of the teas that is provided in the break room at work. I usually stick with my own personal stash, but every now and then I feel like something different and will snag one of the tea bags that sounds interesting at the moment.

This morning, I remembered a conversation with a friend in the office about how much she has enjoyed the China Green Tips, so I thought this would be a good morning to give it a try.

I have to admit that I am a bit surprised at how decent this is. I wouldn’t call it a particularly high quality tea, but it doesn’t have some of those gross qualities that are so common of bagged teas, especially a green. It doesn’t have a lot of flavor, but more than I expected. It actually somehow reminds me of the Dragonwell from The Tea Spot more than anything else right now. Both just sort of seem good, but not something I’d go for if I’m in the mood for something more flavorful.

I like black teas better than black teas, but I was in the mood for a green tea this morning- probably because I had painted myself green to run as She-Hulk in a superhero 5k. Green was my mood.

This was a decent bagged green tea that I got at Starbucks. Has that seaweed taste that I find in most greens. It was also little bitter and dry, so not my favorite cup.

UGH!!! After our 1st cantata performance yesterday I needed some green ginger tea to sooth my throat before the next one and luckily the the Starbucks location I frequent is on the way to the 2nd performance and the only one in the area that carries it. Well… til now. After my order was repeated back to me, I was informed it’s been discontinued. Instead of just driving off, I ordered this instead and was really disappointed. Quite bitter. I’m tempted to call and complain about both issues.

Amount: 2 teabags
Additives: none
Water: 20 ounces from hot water spigot
Steep Time: a little over 10 minutes? time walking back from Starbucks
Served: Hot

Notes: It got over-brewed by time and temperature, unfortunately not much in my control. The tea flowed over my tongue and seemed to have a silky smooth affect and coating my tongue yet at the same time the flavor itself was unremarkable. I think with a honey I would have enjoyed it more, or maybe sugar. I also admit do not yet love a green tea, I drink them in hopes of finding one I love.

Smell: vegetal
Flavor: smooth, silky
Body: medium
Aftertaste: bitter
Liquor: honey colored, golden yellow-brown

Resteep: I tried for about 5? or more minutes with hot spigot water to resteep the bags (2 bags, 16 ounces) and it came out with little smell, medium body, same smooth flavor but much lighter flavor less silky, and still a bitter after-taste. I will conclude this does not resteep well.

A review of China Green Tips by Tazo Tea

Company: Tazo Tea
Tea Name: China Green Tips
Tea Type/Varietal: green
Region: China
Steeping Vessel/Amt. Leaf: tea cup/ tea bag
Plucking Season: Spring
Liquor Color:
Leaf Characteristics:

1. Steepings

1st Steeping:
Water temperature: 190 Fahrenheit
Time: 3 minutes

I wanted a simple cup of tea and I reached for this tea by Tazo Tea. I take the tea bag and put in my cup adding cold tap water to it and put it in microwave for two minutes. I let steep for a minute more. Tea is brown in color and smell fresh and clean. When sipping this tea it is very mild with a lingering taste of green tea upon swallowing. In all it is light and lingers with its freshness in that you know it is green tea and nothing added.

I bought one of these teabags from a holiday trip to Hunstanton a little while ago to try at home at my leisure. The cafe server looked at me a little confused but it’s another tea for me to log and try so it’s worth it. :)

My experiences with Mao Feng are unfortunately not very positive overall as I find it usually unnecessary bitter and without much flavour. This claims to be a Mao Feng blend.

The bag contains small chopped up bits of green tea and resembles mixed herbs used for cooking. Raw the bag is a little bitter but not especially fresh or green.

Once brewed this is grassy yellow in colour with a extremely subtle floral fragrance. It’s very hard to detect any fragrance at all.

Flavour is light with a touch of floral tones and a gentle perfume tang. It’s also slightly bitter and astringent. I can’t detect any sweetness or creaminess that is mentioned in the default description. The tea itself is not particularly fresh and nor is it past your average standard quality (what you expect) but that’s the real problem with it.

This would be the sort of green tea that someone would buy for pure convenience over quality. It’s all around ‘just ok’ and while being ‘joe average’ is fine for some it just doesn’t cut it for me. I would not buy this again and nor would I order it from a menu.

I’m in Washington state now visiting my friend and since I was packing in a hurry, I forgot to bring any tea. :( There are a few different kinds of tea bags here, though.
But yeah, this one was actually just a regular tea bag, not the full-leaf thing like in the picture. Mehh, it’s not so bad. Bordering on sour sometimes though, which is weird. Not much depth but I didn’t find it too bitter after a 2-3 minute steep.

1 full-leaf sachet for 400mL water (I think — great big mug at Starbucks), bare. I do not recommend the steep time I’ve recorded below.

(Backlogging.)

Starbucks keeps their hot water just under the boil, but it should be a little cooler for greens. I also lost track of time and left the sachet to steep waaaaayyyy too long. Like, a good 10 minutes. Yikes.

That said: I really like this green blend. Vegetal, for sure, though it gets briney if you leave it too long, like I did. Some creaminess and some sweetness. I can see this tea getting very bitter if the water is too hot, and it’s almost too hot at my local Starbucks. I’d suggest max 3 minutes steeping, and, if you’re at home, water below 90 degrees.

Treat this tea for the delicacy it is, and it should repay you with a quite acceptable and enjoyable China green liquor.

Desperate for some decent green tea while traveling, I picked some of this up (the full leaf sachets).. It’s okay. A little pleasant vegetal flavor, but other than that it’s flat, boring, and has a little bitterness to it. It’s definitely the best I can get around here, but it leaves a lot to be desired when you’re paying $7.99 for under an ounce of tea. I could get a very high quality loose leaf for that much. But it’s what I’m stuck with. Tazo just really bothers me. The description on the can makes it sound all nice and high grade, and there’s something written about how their “tea shamans” pick the finest teas and masterfully blend them and blah blah blah… But in Atlantic City, this is as close as I’m going to get to real tea.

I’ve been enjoying this tea more these days than I would like to admit. I don’t know why, but its comforting simplicity is just magical to me. The best way to enjoy it in store is to get the tea bags on the side, and then put them in your cup about five or ten minutes after the water has had time to cool down sufficiently. Otherwise, this will be a big bitter mess.
The perfectly roasty, vegetative smell that this tea gives off is more than welcome right now. The slight astringency is also welcome. I’ve been feeling this tea even more than genmaicha’s soothing comfort these days, as I seem to be in a bit of a rut both tea-wise and life-wise, and China Green is an easy decision to make.
And who can overlook the ease with which this tea can be brewed? I love not having to measure, scoop, and clean my infuser. Not all the time, of course, but when the cup is this good, credit must be given where credit is due.

Perhaps it’s the age of the bag (which is questionable), but there’s a roasted flavor coming out in this tea. It tastes like roasting brown rice for rice-a-roni smells, down to a slight buttery note and mouthfeel. There’s still the vegetal taste of the green tea as well, but it’s not sweet-grassy like some greens that I’ve had and not enjoyed.

Normally, I’m not a big fan of plain, non-flavored green teas. But this one…this one I could actually see myself buying more of, especially to keep here at the office. And this cup has went way too fast.

DISCLAIMER: At the outset I should say that I have very little green tea experience, and even less positive green tea experience. I have yet to try brewing a loose green tea. Most of my experiences (other than random restaurant experiences prior to my interest in tea where I wasn’t really focusing on what I was doing and those I’ve written notes about here) have resulted either in completely tasteless cups of colored water, or completely tasteless but bitter cups of colored water. I thought for certain it must have been an acquired taste that I would never, ever, ever acquire.

After doing some very basic research, I determined that the reason for my awful experiences was essentially temperature and steep time related (though water quality may also have contributed). So I significantly lowered my water temperature and lessened my steep time, and things started going better. But I still haven’t tried high grade loose green tea, only bagged Tazo, Twinings and Numi variants.

With that said, I am liking this one a lot. Compared to others I’ve tried, it is very flavorful in a vegetal way, sort of cabbagy/spinachy, but I don’t find it grassy. And it’s sweet, not at all bitter. The first time I got this result I said to myself, “Self, this must be what all the green tea fuss is about, more or less.”

The flavor comes across at 175 degrees, but even moreso at 140 degrees. I’m using two bags in about 16 oz of water and the bags are the full leaf version.

I accidentally grabbed this instead of a bag of Zen on my way to work. When I got to work and brewed this, I actually thought that my tea cup hadn’t been washed enough and needed to be re-washed. That’s when I realized it wasn’t the cup, but the tea itself. It’s not the most undrinkable thing I’ve ever had, but despite keeping brew time brief (3 minutes) and using only warm water (no scorching the leaves) this tea was really bitter and astringment to me, and the after taste was quite unpleasant. Not a fan.

This is for the traditional bagged version, not the pyramid bags.

I was surprised to find this to be a flavorful and tasty tea! It definitely falls into the category of nutty greens, reminding me primarily of a sencha. For sure, it’s not a very complex taste, but it’s strong and distinct (so if you’re not a fan of green tea like that, this is not for you). If I ever need to pick up a bagged green tea to keep at home for some reason I think I’ll turn to this one.

Definitely recommend steeping this on the light side of time and temp. No bad at all for a bagged tea. I usually manage to pull out a second, 3-minute steep that satisfies just fine.

Nothing stellar. A good work tea if you don’t want to be fiddling with loose leaf.

This tea seems really bitter to me.
Why is this popular?