China Green Tips

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.

Surprisingly good tea from the kitchen at work! Smooth on the palette and a rounded vegetal flavor.

(There are two versions of this tea: bagged and loose. This is for the bagged)

I don’t get all the hate for this tea.

I find all the characteristics of a green that I want out of it, even though its not as remarkable as some of the others I have in my cupboard. There’s a calm and dark yellow, slightly muddled green color to the brew that isn’t gross-looking or questionable. It looks mediocre and I’m okay with that. I get that slight “tint”, or “spark” that I get with really good green teas but not as powerful. You know that thing I’m talking about, its almost like you touched your tongue to a battery but not as intense. Its not grassy but theres something vegetal and calm about it. Its nice. Its out of a bag. So what.

I think this is a pretty good tea for what it is, which apparently, based on other reviews and opinions, isn’t much. Oh well.

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.

First I must say since they switched to the mesh whole leaf bags this tea has improved a lot. I enjoy the vegetal, even a little bit woody taste. I like the slightly bitter after taste. If you are getting this at Starbucks, be mindful of the steep time or this tea can get NASTY. I usually order it in a grande because the size of the teabag in a tall tends to make the tea taste oversteeped.

Tried this tea straight, no honey or anything. The taste was very bitter. Added a bit of honey and it offset the bitterness slightly. Not bad with honey not sure I would drink it straight however. Also, the bags are a tad old, that may have something to do with it.

Tried this in bag form at a Starbucks-supplied bookstore cafe downtown. I was on my way elsewhere, but luckily the campus has lots of structures/seats/trash cans scattered around this particular area, so I was able to stop after two minutes or so of walking and dispose of the tea bag without too much problem. (I didn’t want this to get bitter!) As it turns out, it does have some bitterness on first taste, which I’m attributing to the too-hot water. It was “too hot for your hands even with the java jacket on the cup” hot. The smell as it’s brewing is classic fresh grassy green, with a curious sweet honey-like note. On tasting (once it cooled off sufficiently), no honey is in evidence, but the aforementioned bitterness clears off quickly and the rest is full-bodied and vegetal. Perhaps a little bit of a roasted taste, but not much. Other people have mentioned a spinach flavor; I can totally taste that now that I read it. If this is Chinese green tea, then that’s what I like, not Japanese, though there seem to be many more kinds of Japanese green tea than Chinese, and I’ve only tried a few.

If I were up to having caffeine every day, I might buy a box (or a tin—others seem to prefer it in loose form), but my low caffeine tolerance won’t let me adopt this one for my daily tea ritual. So I’ll save my box-sized purchases for low- or no-caffeine items, and I’ll savor this one occasionally at Starbucks. (Or maybe I’ll just buy a tea bag from them and bring it home so I can control the water temperature!)

This tea obviously has an accquired taste.
I love bitter tea. No sugar no lemon nothing but the tea
and I love it to steep long making it nice and strong.
Delicious is China Green Tips by Tazo, yum.