Hey teaheads! This is Don from Mei Leaf. In this video, the problem with scented teas.
In this video I'm going to be tasting some scented teas, and I'm going to be giving you
my PERSONAL opinion about the types of tea that you should be avoiding. This video is
going to go under the "Basic Tea Education" playlist.
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So last year, on my tea blog : https://teatipsy.com, which I'll put a link in the description below,
I wrote an article about my issues with scented teas. I wasn't really going to do a video
about it, because I don't want to use these videos to [too much] criticise other sellers,
or other people's taste in tea. But I have become increasingly frustrated with the trends
in the tea industry whereby sellers who are SUPPOSED to be representing true tea culture,
and marketing themselves as suppliers of PREMIUM quality tea when, in fact, over 50% of their
tea catalog is artificially scented nonsense.
Before I get into that I want to make very clear that I am not a tea purist. Now anybody
who's watched my tea videos before will know that my first passion and love is for discovering
the deliciousness and complexity of the pure leaf. But I DO appreciate blended teas. Now
there are traditional blended teas, like cooked Puerh and chrysanthemum, or cooked Puerh and
aged orange peel. Then there are MODERN blended teas, like the ones that we've created here
[points to sample tea bags]. We've got a limited selection of blended teas where we take the
tea as the star of the show and we add supporting characters, like flowers [and] certain herbs,
or maybe some fruit peels, that are going to work together, when brewed, to make an
ENHANCED drink, a different drink, but where tea is the star of the show. You also have
scented teas, like Jasmine scented green teas, or Osmanthus scented teas, where producers
will take the, hopefully high-quality, tea and mix it with fresh flowers, and the flowers
will open up and release their fragrance into the tea. Usually then the producers will remove
all the flowers so you get very little flowers in it, but you get that lovely aroma of the
flower.
In our bar in Camden we mix up teas. So we'll brew some Long Jing green tea very strong,
we'll blend it with goji berries and zest of mandarin peels. So we'll happily mix up
cocktails and mocktails at our bar, which we have taken many years to craft. So I am
not a purist. I do not mind mixing teas, but I do have a BIG problem when I walk into a
supposedly high-quality tea shop and I'm met with this sickly, sweet smell of artificial
aroma.
One of the questions I am constantly being asked is, "How can we tell if a tea supplier
is good quality?" One of the easiest ways is to just go onto their web site, or walk
into their shop, and if over 30 or 40 percent of their shelf space, or online space, is
dedicated to blended and artificially scented teas then they're clearly not taking their
tea very seriously.
I equate it very similarly to wine. Imagine walking into a wine shop and over 50 percent
of the shelf space in that shop is dedicated to wines that had been scented with Pina Colada,
or chocolate flavor, you wouldn't really take that wine seller very seriously. However,
if you walked into a shop and 80 percent of their shop was dedicated to fine wines, and
you had 20 percent to maybe some spiced wines, or mulled wines. That's fine. I wouldn't have
a problem with that.
So this is not about being a "tea snob". This is just about representing tea properly, fairly,
and accurately. So why do tea sellers practice in this way? Well there are two reasons why
they practice in this way. The first reason is to excite the consumer. Now if you've ever
smelled dry, pure tea leaf you'll know that there's not that much going on. You can't
get that much information out of smelling a small pot of dried green tea leaves, etcetera.
You may get SOME information, but not very much. So the tea sellers want to excite you
in order to convince you to make a purchase. One of the ways to do that is to add aromas
or artificial flavors, so when you smell it, "Oh, it smells like chocolate. Oh, it smells
like caramel." or, "Oh, it smells like red berries." and hopefully you'll buy it.
This is not just restricted to in-store. They will also do this online as well; write lovely,
flowery descriptions about the smell so that you start to build up a, kind of, excitement
- a flavor profile - in your head, and you make a purchase. The second reason why sellers
adopt this technique is because it means that they have a higher profit margin. If you are
going to scent a tea with artificial flavors then you can quite happily purchase lower
quality tea, because it's going to be masked with all of these artificial flavors. So they
increase their profit margin.
So what I've done - through gritted teeth, and only for you - is to go out there and
visit one of these sellers [picking up anonymous tea samples]. Now I'm not going to tell you
the name of this supplier, and I've covered up the box, but this is a worldwide, very
highly renowned, tea supplier who markets themselves as selling premium quality tea
and representing true tea culture. So I went in and purchased a couple of their teas. Over,
I would say, 60 to 70 percent of their tea shelf space was dedicated to artificially
flavored teas.
Now, I'm not going to tell you the names of these teas, but I'll read the descriptions
to you so you get an idea of the language that's being used. [Begins reading first tea
sample tea description on box]. So this is, "A sencha green tea with mango which equals
a tropical treat that is sweet and mellow...a bright and sunny brew." [Begins reading the
second tea sample box description] This one is, "A euphoric blend of white tea, cocao
pieces, and coconut. It's a match made in heaven... deliciously creamy and serenely
sweet... finishing with a coconut twist."
You can see the kind of language that's being adopted to try and excite the tastebuds, but
if you look at the ingredients you will see - on both of them - flavoring. So what we're
going to do is I'm going to do is I'm going to pull the camera around, we're going to
open these packs, and we're going to take a look at the quality of this tea. [transition
to close up camera shot of the two sample tea boxes].
Here we are. We've got the two teas here. I've got a nice, simple, white plate for us
to be able to see the tea. I'm going to pull one out so you can see I haven't opened these
yet. I'm going to take away these boxes. So this one is the green tea with mango. Let's
open that up and take some of this out here, like this. There you go. I'll put that aside.
Then this one is the white tea, supposedly, with cocoa and just make sure that I separate
them. There you go. One side, and the other.
So, let's analyze, and there's LOTS to say here. Let me first make sure that there's
focus on these. So this one here is the green tea. This is meant to be sencha. It looks
[like] very poor quality sencha to me - very large leaves, doesn't have any of the kind
of oiliness and dark green color that you'd expect from sencha. In fact, let me just get
some sencha. Okay. So this here is our sencha. This is what sencha SHOULD look like; [a]
very lovely, oily, glossy, dark green color. This is very, very matte, and there's hardly
any gloss, [with] large leaves. It's not a good quality sencha at all.
These little pieces here, I'm assuming, are bits of mango. Not don't be fooled, because
even though you have mango pieces in here, in fact, what they do is add these mango pieces
for color, but actually the tea is usually sprayed with artificial flavor. Or what they
do is infuse, in the pieces, artificial flavor, so that the mango piece becomes ULTRA mango-like.
In fact, I sent Celine -- those of you who watch YouTube regularly will know Celine - on
a tea-scenting course so that she could get some of the secrets, and we found at that
most of the apple, or berry, pieces that you see in these kind of mixes have been artificially
impregnated with aroma, [and] artificial flavor, so that the apple piece seems ultra-appley,
but in fact it's all artificial flavor. So this is green tea, apparently, with mango.
This one is even more confusing. This is supposed to be a white tea. I mean, I guess there's
a few little buds. You can see one here. There's a little bud there, but it's very, very oxidized
and mixed with little coconut flakes, and it looks like cocao husks here. Certainly
not a white tea. If I compare that with one of our white teas - just bare with me for
a sec... So this is Sweet Cheeks. This is one of our blends. [It is] white tea with
rose and Da Zao, which is an herb which is very good for you, and is lovely and sweet
as well. So you can see here that this is a Bai Mu Dan. It's a very classic Bai Mu Dan
[with] lots of full leaf, lots of proper, full rose buds, and is certainly a white tea.
This looks very, very, very oxidized to me.
Right, the moment I've been dreading. I'm going to pull the camera around and I'm going
to taste. So I know that I'm not the most impartial person here, but I will try to give
this my honest, fair assessment. So let's smell the sencha with mango. Right. So [a]
very strong, artificial, chemical flavor of, like, sour candies. Yeah, so [a] sour candy
smell [with] non-descript fruit. I guess it's KIND of mango-like. Let me taste one of these
mango pieces. That's not a mango piece. What is that? Sunflower petals. Okay. I'm not sure
why they put sunflower petals. I'm assuming it's just because of the color. It's just
so that it looks nice, and, kind of, bright and yellow and mango-like, but it certainly
has no flavor at all. Is there ANY mango in here?...Oh, yeah. I see [laughter] Okay. I
will try and focus that if I can.
Is that in focus? I hope that's in focus. So there's a little piece of mango there.
It's certainly is not going to be contributing to the overwhelming fragrance on here, so
this is just there for show. Let me taste it. Wow! SUPER sweet! I'm not even sure if
it's mango, but it's certainly been infused with some other artificial flavor, and very,
very sweet.Okay. Let's give this one a smell. So this is the white tea with cocoa and coconut.
Whoa! This one actually burns my nose and eyes. The aroma [and] flavoring is SO strong
in this. It's cocoa-like a little bit, coconut-like a little bit, but it has this really strong
SOUR fragrance. Let me taste some of this coconut. Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! That is FULL of
chemicals. Okay, so that tastes like varnish - some sort of chemical flavoring. Oh! That's
bad.
Okay, so this is 85 degree water. I'm just going to give this a quick flash infusion.
I'm not going to rinse this, because the aromas, I guess, are going to escape very quickly.
That's why they make them so strong. So if I rinse it I'm going to lose what the supplier
is intending me to taste. This is the sencha green. And I'm going to brew up this white
tea with whatever is in it - meant to be coconut and cocoa. Again, I'll do a very quick infusion
of that, and maybe it will taste better than it smells.
Okay. Let's give them a go. You can take a look at the green tea here. That doesn't look
ANYTHING like sencha. Sencha should be a beautiful bright green color. This is MUCH darker, much
more oxidized, and quite cloudy; certainly not sencha. Ugh! Yeah. I don't taste much
tea at all. I guess a little bit. With sencha you would want this lovely, vegetal, chlorophyll-packed
taste, but here it's just a VAGUE grassiness, and what takes over is this intense chemical
flavoring of mango. It leaves a really horrible texture and flavor in the mouth - this, kind
of, artificial sweetener flavor when you breathe out through your nose.
You get that artificial sweetness aroma too, and it's leaving a WEIRD texture on my tongue
- like a sticky texture on my tongue. I am not going to drink any more of that. Sorry
[laughter]. The things I do for you guys. Okay, let me just give this a rinse and I
will try this white tea. Here you go. This is the close up. So, again, very dark for
a white tea, and quite cloudy. Am I in focus? Now I am. Right. Wow! This tastes like varnish,
like walking into a shoe shop and sticking your nose into a shoe - a clean shoe, but
a shoe. It's got this, kind of, quite musty, varnishy taste to it.
I guess a little bit nutty. Certainly no white tea AT ALL going on here. A little bit nutty,
but in a quite sickly way, and again leaving this weird coating on my mouth. This has actually
made me quite sad.
Okay. I realize that I'm probably setting myself up for criticism here. I know this
is not the most impartial, and certainly I have come to this with an agenda that I dislike
these teas. But the reason why I'm doing it - and I'm SURE I'll get comments and criticisms,
and I'll TAKE those criticisms - but the reason why I'm doing it is because I want to highlight
that this has NOTHING to do with true tea culture.
If YOU are somebody who drinks these teas then fair enough. If you enjoy them keep drinking
them. Who am I to stop you? But please, I PROMISE you, if you explore pure leaf you
will get so much more satisfaction, and you will build a PASSION for something that far
surpasses any of the enjoyment that you'll get from these teas. I promise! Just try.
If you agree with me that this is not tea then please share this video and tell your
friends. If you have friends out there who are drinking this kind of artificially flavored
tea at least let them know that this is not real tea, and maybe go out and do them a favor
and buy some good quality, pure, single estate tea for them. This is so far away from tea,
it's two worlds.
I'm not going to drink anymore. That's it teaheads. Thank you for watching. If you made
it to the end of this video then please give the video the thumbs-up. Check out our YouTube
playlists and let us know if there are any videos you would like us to make. If you're
ever in London, come and visit us in Camden to say "Hi" and taste our wares. If you have
any questions or comments then fire them over. Other than that, I'm Don Mei, from Mei Leaf.
Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea. Stay away from the tea bags,
and the artificial stuff, keep drinking the good stuff, and spread the word, because nobody
deserves bad tea. Bye.