Are expensive green tea very different than the supermarket brands?

This is an excellent suggestion. It will enable you to find something that you will probably enjoy better than Lipton, without spending a fortune. That being said, if you enjoy Lipton, there is no reason not to drink it.

I don't drink green tea, but I have found with black teas that the most expensive ones are not necessarily the ones that I like best. If you experiment a bit, you should be able to find some teas that are agreeable to both your palate and your pocket book.

Reading your post makes me wish I could take a course, say an evening or weekend class, in "How to enjoy fine quality teas". Maybe repeat once a year at ever higher levels.

I have never seen any such course, and I am quite sure there are none in my country. Maybe elsewhere?

When I first moved from "Black Currant tea", a black tea flavoured with fruit concentrate, to Ti Kuan Yin and Pai Mu Tan, my tea merchant told me that the ultimate goal would be green teas, but that there could be a long learning curve before I was able to appreciate it fully.

Twenty years have passed since then. I am still moving in the direction he predicted, and I buy the most expensive teas I can find, but I have not arrived to the real green ones yet. I think a course would be nice.

Not online, mind you. There are things you can learn online, but not this one. (Just to say don't bother setting one up because it'll flunk.)

Lars Stockholm

Hiya Lars,

I'm not so sure a class would accomplish much, tea is a personal thing and I really do not believe in "right" or "wrong" with it. I have only really been into tea for about 10 years and only high quality and special teas for about 3. I do however turn a lot of people around me onto better teas, and over the years have come up wih a pretty good plan. I also say it a lot but I firmly believe in walking before running, start off with Asian/Indian market teas. Oolongs, Blacks, Greens, Whites, Darjeeling, Assam. Nothing expensive, even teabags are fine. Get a feel for the overall types you like. Then start into them, progressing into better grades/more expensive options. Then do a little research and figure out from there where to go next. It helps you taste and understand what makes one tea "better" than another.

You may surprise yourself too, by trying some of each tea you may find something you never thought you would like. I found Kukicha that way, and really enjoyed it. I also highly recommend reading Okakura's "The Book of Tea" it is available for like $4 at bookstores or free online at Project Gutenberg.

I have learned tons from this newsgroup in just a few months, much better than any class. Let your own tastes, feelings, and curiosity guide you... that is the ultimate teacher.

- Dominic

Have you never been to a "wine testing"? (My translation.)

A table is set up with 5 or 6 glasses for each person. Then the guy who is conducting it shows a bottle of wine, tells where it is from and in what way it is special, about the soil where it was grown, for what circumstances it may be good, how its fragrance and taste has been described etc etc. And then you sniff and taste it.

Then a new glass and next wine etc.

If the guy is good and your mind is open you can actually feel the taste of mineral in the wine or understand those funky descriptions that it has a taste of "saddle" etc etc.

It is not teaching. It is showing and guiding, helping you to explore. That kind of thing is done with whisky and cognac and chocolates too. I would love to do it with tea.

Lars Stockholm

Fully understood, but I am still aprehensive of how effective it would be. I am similarly not for those types of tastings... I'm not sure if you have ever watched a television show called "Penn & Teller's Bullshit!" Each week they take on some new topic and show how some things are pure B.S.

They did an episode on bottled water that was amazing, they filled some fancy bottles with water from a rusty garden hose and applied fancy labels and made up whole stories and such for each. They presented them like fine wines to customers at a fine restaurant and had secretly taped their reactions. To a person, each one swore they could taste the mountainous ice flavors from water that was supposed to be from the top of the himalayas, or even one with a dead tarantula in it that was supposed to be from the Amazon river... all garden hose water, packaged fancy, and with a high price.

They did the same thing at a top restaurant with TV dinners. They served the customers TV dinners plated to look like real food, and people were raving about them as if they were unique creations and rare delicacies.

I could no doubt tell you anything and with enough imagery have you believe a bottom quality tea was the finest you had ever tasted. Taste is subjective. I enjoy a number of "cheap" teas over the most expensive options from their variety. I also firmly believe that you need to taste some truly low quality teas and drink and enjoy them for some time before you can even begin to understand what makes a fine tea so fine. I drank regular jasmine green tea for 4+ years and thought it was great, and then I tasted a hand rolled jasmine pearl that almost made me cry it was so good. But had I started there I would have had no appreciation at all for what I was tasting, and even if you had told me it was the best I would have had no reference and just believed it.

This is just my opinion, but one that I and many others believe in fully, and it applies to anyhing wine, cognac, chocolate, etc. you should try to form your own opinion and go by your own tastes. If a bottle of $4 table wine is what you enjoy, then that is the best there is. I really enjoy Arbor Mists Strawberry Zinfendale (costs about $5), and would take it over almost any other zin no matter how expensive it was. It is a very subjective thing. Rather than a class, find a few friends who have some interest, try a couple teas together and without any pre-conceived notions see what you come up with... I bet you would be surprised at the results.

Again, just my 2 pence and wholly my own opinion,

- Dominic

snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com/26/06 14: snipped-for-privacy@fake.com

I agree with Lars, but I don't think that every "tea class" or "tea tasting" available follows the spirit he describes. Michael

If such a tea tasting system could stand the test of time it would be in place by now. The closest we come is professional tea tasters for plantations and packers but then it is based on some reference standard developed inhouse. The people who flourish at such tastings are the ones who can verbalize taste and not necessarily the ones with the best sense of taste. My local tea shoppe has tastings. I imagine it is like when I go to the Symphony where everybody is a patron of the arts. I've been told by another here to get off my high horse and smile when someone who has been drinking tea for a couple of years makes a pronouncement. I don't intellectualize tea. I'm past that stage. Over the long haul I learn things about myself from drinking tea. So I see tea tastings as a social occasion and not a learning experience. I don't see tea tasting going beyond the trivial I do wish occasionally to socialize with knowledgeable people over a cup of something I really like but I wouldn't tell you which one it was. With wine you are dealing with a finished product from the vineyard. People can actually go buy that bottle. With tea no two different estate Darjeelings are going to taste the same. I think the biggest fault with a system for tasting tea is the final step of preparation.

Jim

Lars wrote:

hola,

i do agree with you lars, i'd also like to find a person who can give any guiding class about chinese tea, like a chinese tea ceremony with notes ;)

here you can find tasting classes for wine, cheese, olive oil, and heard also for water and yogurt... i've been in a couple of these guided tastings with wine, and both times i though i was being pulled my leg... and afterwards i knew a woman that use to go to weekly appreciation [tasting, whatever...] classes of wine, and she guided us a bit in the times we take wine at restaurants, and the difference is high... and the language used can be, at least for me, something that prevent to pay attention. a natural, clear use of words is as important as the attention payed at your senses.

and if any teacher don't say i have to experiment at home with any other wine, [or any other whatever, tea, cheese, water, beer, whiskey...] i won't rely much on him. i understand classes are only a guide, or a training for senses, but the work must be done alone... although you also find the time to enjoy with friends, of course, they are two different things

i can also learn to paint [or any other discipline, build a brick wall, for example] by my own, experimenting from zero, but i also like to rely on others experience, and be guided, as i think it could be faster to learn, at least as a way to start. that's one the reason i'm here, and find internet so useful...

regards from madrid, b> >