Vendor - Tea Gschwendner

I recently placed my first order to Tea Gschwendner (TG for short, I keep spelling Gschwendner wrong) and thought it appropriate to do a quick review on them.

TG is a tea company based out of Germany, although they do have a worldwide presence. They do have a pair of stores in Illinois, and a partner store in Michigan which sells their teas, but aside from that their presence in the US is internet based. They have locations in many other countries, but mostly in Germany. My experiences with them thus far have been all virtual.

TG carries a very wide variety of teas, ranging from high grade single estate Darjeelings to Herbals to Oolongs to Whites to Greens. They cover a wide variety of teas, but it would seem that the majority of their teas are black teas. Considering the company is from Germany this is not too surprising. Although what is surprising is how good their selection is while being so broad. At first you would think that they would be a jack of all trades company, dabbling in many areas, but not having very specific teas in any particular area. This does not seem to be the case, at least for what I looked at; Darjeelings and Japanese Greens. Their selection of Darjeelings was very impressive, they had a number of different grades of Darjeelings ranging from FOP to SFTGFOP 1. They also had a number of estate specific teas. Their Japanese Green selection also was somewhat varied, encompassing the main classes of Japanese green teas, as well as some lesser seen types and different grades.

They do offer a variety of sizes, 50g, 100g, and 250g. This is nice because it offers a nice price break for larger volumes. They also have a free shipping break at $35.00, which is fairly low and thereby nice for those who don't want to pay for shipping.

For my particular experience, I ordered a few cups and some genmaicha. They shipped the order in a very nicely packaged box, wrapping the fragile items with paper and bubble wrap, and filling the rest of the box with packing peanuts. If you are looking for a low packing material company though, there was a lot of packing to protect my items. My items took up about 1/10 th of the volume of the box if that. They also added the wrong packing list with my order, but that didn't really matter as my order did match what I did order.

Their tea is packaged in a double lined paper bag with a roll over top similar to those found on most bags of coffee. I was a bit disappointed to find that it was not a nitrogen flushed package, especially considering how much emphasis they place on their quality control on their website. Aside from that my interactions with their customer service were quite good, and the tea was good, but would have been helped if stored in nitrogen flush bags I believe.

I look forward to trying out other teas from them in the future.

Japan Genmaicha

Tea: Japan Genmaicha
Vendor: Tea Gschwendner
Price: $4.84 / 50g.
Source: Japan
Vendor Description: A very popular Green tea blend in Japan, made by mixing roasted whole grain rice with fresh Sencha. Milder, and less strong in the cup than pure Sencha, it has a pleasant aroma of toasted rice.

Leaf: The leaf for this tea was about what I would expect from a genmaicha. The leaf was matte in color with color variations throughout the leaf. There was the characteristic aroma of the puffed rice from the mix. The leaf was somewhat unimpressive in its size and shape from rolling. The leaf was more twisted and contorted than regular for sencha, and was not rolled into the fine needles like some senchas are.

1st Infusion: There was a normal light green color and the infusion was fairly transapernt. It had a very characteristic fresh crisp aroma from the puffed rice. It had a very clean fresh tang to it. The flavor was very smooth and sweet, there was no astringency or bitterness. The flavor was very crisp on the front of the tongue, and produced a very good and distinct genmai flavor.

2nd Infusion: This infusion produced a more yellow colored infusion. The flavor was more muddled and not nearly as crisp. The front of the tongue flavor was definitely duller. It had a very rich and full flavor this time, with a very full bodied flavor spreading throughout the mouth smoothly. There was no bitterness and a light sense of astringency.

Rating: 8/10

Conclusion: It was a bit disappointing how much the clean and crisp flavor of the first infusion disappeared with the second. The leaf had a bit of a disappointing appearance to it as well. It is to some degree to be expected of a genmaicha, but not necessarily the way it would have to be. As a genmaicha though, this was a very good contender.