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Q: Is expensive tea any better than the cheapest stuff?
My Chinese friends are always bragging about how the tea they are drinking is from some special province or that its some expensive brand that is impossible to find in stores.
Is there really any difference in quality of tea between these high-end brands and the el cheapo stuff you'll find at the market down the street? I can't taste the difference. Can tea connoisseurs or are they just faking it to look fancy?
It's a matter of taste. My current favorite is a pretty modest priced green tea.
We were fortunate to be innocent bystanders to a failed face-buying attempt that means we have some of this tea that is only picked on one specific day, and only the tips of the leaves are used and they are packed by virgins wearing gloves made by the skin of panda babies. Or something like that. We looked it up and it was 3500 per kg.
It is very good tea, the taste is very round, all the flavors are very harmonious.
I would say based on this, that tea is like red wine. It does get better when the price goes up, but I think as soon as you get over the cheapest, then the increase fades and it's mostly face you are buying. The tea we got is good, but the normal green tra from the supermarket is a close second
I thought tea was expensive in China. I brought teas home from China. When I think of tea I think China, but I brought Tetly from home to China.
:
Well Tetly it's inexpensive indeed. What a great flavor and aroma gathers in it. I like drinking it with milk.
Hugh.G.Rection:
Ted I too brought tea from home, I love 'English Breakfast Tea' (so not Earl Grey) i.e. tea that has a very strong taste and will make the water a dark brown very quickly. I knew China did not have much of this kind of tea, (and I like the el cheapo Tesco special type) so I brought my own.
Obviously 2 1/2 years later I've ran out so now I buy Yellow Label tea, it's close enough, the difficulty is getting milk that doesn't spoil the taste.
Yes there's a huge difference and people who understand tea/tea experts can instantly tell the difference, similar to wine experts who can tell the difference between a mediocre wine to a top class one. Some teas have more health benefits than others such as white and green tea, while some varieties are rare and very pure. The stuff you get at markets is often the lowest grade tea made with the leftover leaves that weren't good enough for the expensive stuff and sometimes these teas are even mixed with other stuff.
