Choice Organics

This is a fine jasmine tea; light and not bitter. I’ve got a decent amount of jasmine tea already, but this would be an excellent one to have on hand for one of my favorite summer drinks: a pitcher of hot-brewed jasmine iced tea with limeade.

sipsby bagged advent, day 8

A fine mint tea from my October sipsby box. The mint mostly overpowers any other flavor, honestly; it just feels like a peppermint that’s a bit more subdued than pure peppermint. Thankfully, I like peppermint, so I was happy to drink it.

As I have mentioned, it was close to sipdown and today… it’s gone.
Another tea bought during my Germany trip and brought to the office as well.

And today I have finished it and it will be somehow missed.
Okay, to be honest, it is not exceptional tea. Just very good one considering tea bag quality. Robust, bold tea with floral notes, I probably never had a bitter cup of it. Weak dried fruit notes, especially noticeable when steeping short. A note: US website suggests 3-5 minutes, while German (including the box I had) suggests only 2-3 minutes. Interesting, huh?

Good daily drinking tea, however not so good as El Puente Darjeeling. Something I was lacking here. Maybe the flavour wasn’t so round, as I try to recall the differences.

I bought this tea on my trip to Germany and then brought it to the office and drinking it since. So, during 3 months I finished it — that means it’s a sipdown. I also have Darjeeling which I will finish this week as well (I suppose).

German website says it contains tea from Rwanda and Assam.

The flavour profile, prepared usually with boiling water and steeped for approx. 3 minutes, sometimes more as mornings at work means reading emails which came overnight, was still the same.

Bold, black tea, with bread flavours, sometimes with some stronger astringency and bitterness. Luckily, I have oversteeped it just once — and it turned out very bitter. There are also some notes of stonefruits as Cameron noticed and I am very happy to share similar thoughts.

Well, in the conclusion, as it is a tea bag (!) it is not bad. Actually I liked it for such simple, but not bitter flavour, and it delivered easy daily drinking tea. Nothing amazing, but for morning at the office, to wake up, I don’t need classy tea.

Sipdown! (41 | 257)

Last one from my September Sips by!

Really, a plain rooibos? Sigh… Needless to say, I was not thrilled to see this in my box this month.

It’s not bad, it’s actually quite pleasant. Smooth, woody, almost a tiny bit creamy? Not medicinal in the slightest, and there are some nice deep caramelized notes and a hint of honey.

It’s fine to have a couple of cups, but not something I would ever crave or buy.

Sipdown! (28 | 244)

Another single serving swap sample!

English Breakfast isn’t really my thing, but this seems decent for a teabag. I think I’m mostly tasting Ceylon? It does have that metallic taste to it, but there’s also a little bit of stonefruit tartness popping its head out. I taste a little bit of bread and perhaps oats, not sure if that’s from Assam or something else. The company doesn’t disclose what types of black tea are in here, but I would guess mostly Ceylon with a bit of Assam.

Anyway, it’s pleasant but just not my type of tea. Enjoying the rest of the cuppa with oat milk as sometimes breakfasty teas can upset my empty stomach in the morning…

Vaguely honeybush, tart from white hibiscus but it doesn’t mix well with the grapefruit oil and honeybush. Little bit of ginger pokes through. Don’t notice the licorice root at all. I see where the idea was going but there’s nothing juicy about this to make me think grapefruit.

If the best I can say about Grapefruit Honeybush is that the wrapper is a gorgeous color, then frankly, this tea sucks. The remaining bags are being ambient brewed to get rid of it. If that turns out as poorly as the hot cup, at least it’ll serve a purpose as a soil acidifier for my tea plants.

1/26/22
Another sipsby sipdown. This one is one I was sad to see go. It’s a great Earl Grey tea, better than most I’ve tried in bag form, but still not as good as Stash Double Bergamot or Twinings. I liked it a lot and would be interested to try other teas from this brand.

Solid bagged green tea. I prefer loose leaf green teas, but I choose this one often when I’m grabbing a tea bag. I’m a big fan of grassy Japanese teas, and I generally go with this one or the Stash green tea if I’m looking for bagged green tea.

My green tea of choice. Absolutely amazing.

The aroma is a earthy, sea weed like smell. However it’s not too overpowering. It’s just right. As it goes down, the seaweed flavor is in full effect but its not screaming or kicking but simply making its presence known on the palate.

My only complain is that, for my own preference, I have to add a sweetener because it is be bitter plain. But that’s just me, this is a fantastic tea.

I get this tea every spring. It’s become a staple on those chilly, rainy days when everything is just beginning to turn green. It’s one of those days today, in fact.

Paradoxically, although Choice Premium Japan Green tea tastes marginally better than Touch Organic Green, I have concluded that in an all-things-considered analysis, Touch wins the steep-off.

In truth, I do not recommend either of these teas, since there are much better options for filter bag sencha. Both Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha and Stash Premium Green are better and cost less than the Choice. The Touch costs one-third what the Choice costs, but the Choice is not three times better, hence the in some ways bizarre result of this afternoon’s steep-off!

In today’s brew of the Choice Premium Japanese Green Tea filter bag, I used less water—only about 8 ounces. The flavor was quite a bit more pronounced, so definitely this bag is not meant for a big glass. I do not think that the flavor was weaker than the Harney & Sons (in the sencha steep-off today), but I do find that the Choice smacks quite a bit of seaweed—so much so that I began thinking of sushi!

Choice would be a good Choice for those looking specifically for an almost fishy-seaweed sencha experience from a simple-preparation filter bag. I prefer the Harney & Sons, but I do own that this tea is better when brewed in a smaller volume of water, so I am increasing my rating a bit.

I decided to try the Choice organic Premium Japanese Green tea bags to see whether they are on a par with the Stash Premium Green and the Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha filter bags. I’m a big fan of sencha filter bags because they are the exception to the general rule that filter bags offer an inferior tea experience. The Japanese have perfected the sencha filter bag format, and from their centuries of toil on this front, all of us benefit!

The first surprise with this Japanese green from Choice was that the bags are wrapped in the cheap-o Lipton-type paper envelopes—so no attempt to maximize freshness, as with most teas with organic credentials and boasting “premium” quality. I’d have thought that any company charging 30 cents for a filter bag would take the trouble to wrap it in an airtight (foil) envelope. Not Choice.

I know nonetheless that this tea must be relatively fresh—or at least recently packaged!—since the expiration date is not until January 2017, which I presume means that it was only just produced. So the flavor was a bit disappointing, but not surprising, given the budget packaging. The box itself comes wrapped in cellophane, but it did not really seem airtight and hermetically sealed to me. Now that the cellophane has been removed, the tea is going to be exposed to air until the other 15 bags are gone.

I guess that I’ll try to drink these rapidly, because the flavor of the freshest bag, the one brewed today, was a bit wan. The pale greenish-yellow cloudy liquor was promising, and reminded me of Harney & Sons, but the flavor was less pronounced. I’ll try brewing my next Choice filter bag in less water, but my favorite double-walled Bodum glasses—the ones which I use specifically for sencha—seemed to be too voluminous for this 2 gram serving of Choice Premium Japanese Green Tea. Note, however, that the bags contain exactly the same weight of tea as do the Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha filter bags, which I find to produce a much more satisfying cup. I’ll do an official steep-off of these two filter bags soon, but I’ve imbibed enough Harney & Sons Japanese Sencha to be able to speak ex cathedra on these matters—it seems to me!

As Jasmine teas go, this was pretty much middle of the road. It had a nice Jasmine scent to it, but the taste was rather lacking. It’s good in a pinch, but I’ve had other Jasmine teas that far surpassed this one.