Got this as a sample at the Midwest Tea Fest in the swag bag you get for attending. I usually give away the tea samples I get in these because they are almost always tea bags and nothing loose, and tend to be lower quality (broken leaf) teas.
I held on to a couple that I figured I might enjoy. Rishi has some pretty good loose leaf teas so I thought maybe this would be a good tea. And I should say that the leaves inside of the little pyramid shaped bag here are a mixture of whole and broken leaves. They are rather brown looking though, very dark, and don’t really evoke the idea of green tea much. The brew is the usual pale yellow green tea color at least.
The Jasmine aroma and flavor are nice, about what you’d expect. The taste of the tea leaves is not exceptional. I don’t taste really any vegetal or grassy green tea flavor at all, just a sort of drying astringent quality and a little bit of tart flavor aside from the jasmine.
This tea is about on par with the jasmine tea you’ll probably get if you order a pot at an Asian restaurant. It’s fine, might calm a hungry appetite a bit and pair nicely with some food, but on its own, it’s not particularly good tea and not something you’d probably want to sit down and just reflect on.
For what it’s worth, I’ve had better bagged teas from other companies, which is a bummer, because I like Rishi as a company.
Flavors: Astringent, Jasmine, Tart