Teabag - Tamayokucha

Tea: Tamayokucha
Vendor: Two leaves and a bud
Price: $7.99 / 15 teabags
Source: Japan
Vendor Description: This incredible Japanese tea is steamed as it dries, yielding a sweet, light flavor with no bitterness - just the taste of a misty morning in a Kyoto garden. Like all high quality Japanese green teas, this tea is green, not brown.

This is the first offering from Two Leaves and a Bud that I have tried. Their teabags are made of the silken material individually packed. The packaging is transparent plastic, but I don't know if it is UV blocking or not. If it does not block UV then it would be important to keep these out of direct sunlight. UV destroys vitamin C. The teabag is a tetrahedral shape which is good.

The tea has a very unusual flavor at the onset, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It has a fruity somewhat vegetal flavor to it. It is very smooth with no bitterness and a very light sense of astringency. It seems almost like a Chinese green tea rather than a Japanese green tea. Unlike the description that it has, the tea is not green. It's more of a yellow color.

Rating: 3/10

Conclusion: While the teabag style is quite good, the tea itself is rather unremarkable. It is advertised as being a Japanese green tea, but it is not particularly representative of green tea. If they had more of a selection this could be fine, but as the only Japanese green it seems a bit odd of one. It seems almost like a Chinese green tea than a Japanese green tea.