White powder package in Japanese tea. Part 2.

Finally here is the link to the Russian site with the pictures of that tea.

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Please, comment.

The link to the original thread is from Dec 27 2006. I think it will be better if you comment inside the original thread. If not - comment here.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky
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Sasha, in the recent brewing techniques post by James (Thitherflit) (you were responding to the thread so I am assuming you saw it too) he says "(During and after WWII, when there was very little high-quality tea to be had, many tea dealers openly "salted" the tea with small amounts of MSG to mimic this quality. Nobody thought it was as good as the real thing, but saw it as an acceptable stop-gap.) "

So...maybe it is MSG? Is the tea not very good? :)

Melinda

Reply to
Melinda

All I got from that link was:

????????? ??????? ???? ??????? ?? ????????????.

Reply to
Zarky Zork

Since no one else had that problem I guess there is nothing much to do. Try another browser or a different machine altogether.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com1/9/07 20: snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com

MSG? Monosodium Glutamate? OMG!! I was sitting in a hole-in-the-wall dumpling house in NYC yesterday, and as I sat eating my steamed dumplings a guy delivered a

100 pound container of MSG, rolling the barrel right past me. Since this place serves nearly nothing but dumplings, I guess my dumplings were MSG infested. MSG in tea is new to me. Michael
Reply to
Michael Plant

Sure is good, though. I bought some to make a veggie fish sauce (nuoc mam cham) analogue, and have been using it in all sorts of things. (One of my new favorite flavor combos is MSG + ground chipotle.)

I'm tempted to try some in tea, though I wouldn't've thought it'd taste good....

N., who will report back after doing so

Reply to
Natarajan Krishnaswami

Showed the pictures to a Japanese friend, and she believes it is 'Kombu Cha', a "tea" made with Kombu seaweed, sugar, salt, & MSG.

Reply to
Elona

Reporting back after having done so. It is, in fact, not good. The aftertaste is clearly MSG's. I can see why you might want it in very bad, stale, flavorless tea. But for tea with any modicum of flavor, skip it.

(Might be good in Tibetan salted tea, though.)

N.

Reply to
Natarajan Krishnaswami

Is this the dumpling house near the Tea Gallery?

Everything here in Beijing is MSG infested, well, most things anyway.

MarshalN

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Reply to
MarshalN

Years ago when I was formally taught I learned that humans could taste but four tastes - salt, sweet, sour and bitter. Since those distant days two more have been added to our ability - metallic and umami. The latter addition is "savory" and is epitomised by the MSG taste.

High quality Japanese shaded tea is known for its "brothy" taste caused by an elevated level of amino acids - principally the unique amino acid theanine which can be 60-70% of a shaded tea's amino acid complement . For brothy taste read umami taste. Chemically theanine is N5-ethyl-glutamine and MSG is mono sodium glutamate. Thus it is not unreasonable to expect that somewhere an unscrupulous counterfeitor of tea might try the ubiquitous MSG to help perk up a flagging Gyokuru.

Nigel at Teacraft

make a veggie fish sauce (nuoc

Reply to
Nigel

Actually it turned out to be a package of MSG + other spices for sea grass (Konbu) tea. See Elona's post at the original thread.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

My failed experiment was with a black tea (actually, a nice whole-leaf Kenya, which was the error). I'll try again with some flagging Japanese style green, and report back.

Actually, I'll make some now.

Drinking some stale tencha; 2g leaf fragments in 8oz water of 80C water in a preheated ceramic cup (by Andy Shaw now of Philadelphia; highly recommend). Unaugmented cup is pleasantly grassy, somewhat brothy, sweet, with metallic hints. Actually, I like it a lot, despite its having been stored at room temp for several years. This likely means you should take my opinions about green teas with a grain of salt (or MSG).

Second cup, i added a minuscule amount of MSG (learned my lesson from the black tea attempt; just added a tiny pinch, less than 0.1g). It kicks the brothiness through the roof, but its flavor is still within bounds for what I'd expect from this kind of green tea; extremely pleasant, with a pronounced lingering green tea aftertaste. The less pronounced, more balanced grassiness blends well the MSG, and the metallic taste is almost completely obscured. Very pleasant.

From my quick trial, this seems like a viable avenue of fraud (or rejuvenation, as it were). However, I don't have a control batch of fresh, high quality leaf, so the above caveat applies doubly.)

N.

Reply to
Natarajan Krishnaswami

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