Why Green Tea is Tricky

Why Green Tea is Tricky – But Worth The Effort!

Our 2022 Moganshan Green Tea

When I started Jesse’s Teahouse, my first sampler box didn’t have a green tea in it.

That’s not because people didn’t want it – on the contrary, I got tons of questions about green tea from the very beginning. When you’re looking for fresh, crisp, sweet, easy-drinking tea, green tea is hard to beat.

But I didn’t include it because there are a few things that make green tea tricky to do well.

Firstly, it should be as fresh as possible. Unlike white teas, pu’er, and other highly-oxidized teas, green tea will lose fragrance and flavor over time.

That issue is compounded if it is stored improperly. Too much sunlight, heat, or exposure to air will make green tea lose its potency even faster.

This meant I needed to get it over to you as fresh as possible, which lead to the second issue: the best green tea is spring tea.

I knew I wanted to find spring tea, which meant getting as close to the tea mountain as possible at the right time of year.

Luckily, I have managed to find some tea farmers at Moganshan, a mountainous natural retreat several hours from Shanghai. They had great quality 2022 spring tea that was harvested and immediately put into refrigeration to await packaging.

To keep everything fresh, I worked for months to get re-sealable packaging made that also allows me to include my tea cards with steep times and temperatures on them. Green tea is probably the most heat-sensitive of all teas, so keeping the temperature at 80-85C or below and not over-steeping is important.

Beautiful yellow-green tea color! I only wish I were a better photographer

That’s how I was able to – finally! – launch our first green tea on the site. It’s super fresh, crisp, and magically sweet even without sugar.

The 2022 Moganshan green tea one of the three teas in our current subscription box. The way the subscription works is that you get three teas per box, and then every 3 months afterwards, will get three new teas sent in the mail as well.

If you order the subscription today and subscribe, it will send within 2 business days, and then a clock will start to deliver the next one in three months with new teas. This current combo box of three teas will be available through at least January 1st - unless I run out.

I’m so glad to be able to get 2022 spring tea over from China, and we won’t see the new spring teas until summertime 2023, so for myself, I’m going to be drinking this green tea all throughout the fall, winter, and next spring!

-- Jesse 杰西