I receive a number of email messages asking me what is the best green tea you can buy or what is the healthiest green tea you can buy?
The best green tea and/or healthiest green tea you can buy is always made of the first two leaves and a bud from the tea plant. However, the quality of an estate's green tea crop varies from year to year. One year the green tea could be award winning and the next it may not be quite as excellent. And often, the highest quality green tea never actually makes it out of China and Japan or ends up being for sale to the public. Often the best green tea is kept in the producing country and/or sold to private bidders.
The highest quality green tea is also picked in the early spring, March / April , when the sun is not so hot. Typically you will want to get your hands on the first flush and second flush of the year. The leaves are young and tender and not “roasted“ by the hot summer sun.
You will also find that single-estate green tea is better quality and healthier as well. This means that the green tea leaves were all picked from the same estate and harvest. When you buy green tea blended from various plantations, it often means the quality of each green tea is not as good and they try to hide / mask the poor quality. You are better off buying a single-estate green tea for the best green tea.
That being said there is a lot of high quality green tea on the market. You usually end up paying a premium for it and most of it can be found online. I have mentioned before that you will find either poor quality green tea at the grocery store or pay way too much for the good green tea at the grocery store. I recommend you buy your green tea online.
Rather than focusing on the best green tea or the healthiest green tea, often you have to find a green tea you enjoy. No matther how good or how healthy the green tea, you have to like it. Some teas are a bit more vegetal / earthy in flavor while others are more subtle. Often the partially-shaded green tea from Japan, such as Gyokuro Green Tea or Sencha Green Tea, are more vegetal in flavor. The cup is a bright, clear lime green and somewhat earthy and healthy to the taste. I actually find that Sencha and Gyokuro are also very thirst quenching.
China Green Tea, such as Dragon Well Green Tea, is a bit more subtle in my opinion. You can of course also get flavored green teas, such as Jasmine Pearls Green Tea, that smells like the wonderful Jasmine flowers. Jasmine Green Tea makes for a wonderful drinking experience. The premium Jasmine Green Tea lies with Jasmine Flowers, with new flowers being brought in 7 or 8 times. Cheap knockoff is only sprayed with a Jasmine scent or includes some small flower petals in the bag. Be careful of the knockoffs.
If you are a daily green tea drinker like myself, you just need to find an honest and affordable online green tea store that offers the best green tea for the money. If you have any questions, please feel free to email me.