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Is organic certification perfect? No, but better than nothing, if you are worried about chemical contaminants. I personally choose to trust JAS, although the number of Japanese teas with JAS organic certification is quite small due to the high cost compared to the small scale of many/most Japanese ...

As for the "organic" - maybe it works better in countries like US or Japan, I do often eat organic produce myself here in the US. But for places like China, again, having witnessed a lot of things firsthand in my home country, "organic" is just an empty word for me. An organic certification is only...

I thought I read somewhere that even conventional Japanese green tea has pretty high standards, and the pesticides used not as damaging as those in some other countries. I don't know if this is factual information. I really have not researched it. They at least have standards. Decide for yourself w...

I think ultimately the issue comes down to one of trust. If you don't trust the vendor, or don't trust the vendor is doing appropriate diligence on its sources, don't buy the tea. To dismiss entire countries though seems like it is going too far, unless what you really mean is that you have no way o...

An electric kettle that will heat to a programmable temp would save you quite a bit of effort. Heat the water once, and it will keep it at temp for you. The trick is to find one without plastic - most of them seem to have plastic windows, washers or lids.

To address various points: 1. Yes, certain pesticides are allowed under Organic certification regimes. Each country has its own regulations as to what is permitted or not. In most cases those regulations are very restrictive. 2. Assuming you live in a country that has an established Organic scheme (...

I have a suspicion that organic isn't seen as such a big deal in Japan as it is over here. So it's probably not generally worthwhile to pursue organic certification even for those that practice organic farming anyway, except for larger farms and/or those that sell in the west. If it matters to you, ...

Interesting. To what do you attribute the disappointment in this fall's harvest?

Yunomi isn't really a vendor per se, it's a marketplace through which dozens of different tea farms sell their teas. I find it more hit and miss than o-cha.com (which I recommend unhesitatingly), but has much better variety than what you can find on o-cha, particularly if you like (or want to try) l...

Instead of a club, have you considered sampler packs? Various vendors offer them. As an example: https://yunomi.life/products/the-ultimate-japanese-tea-sampler-with-free-standard-airmail?_pos=5&_sid=2c89bc263&_ss=r https://crimsonlotustea.com/collections/frontpage/products/puerhiodic-table-of-the-el...

The white2tea club is quite popular, but I believe it tends to be very much focused on white & puer teas.

The question that comes to my mind is "What is an authority"? We have access to far more information these days, but as Baisao relates, not all of those purporting to be experts actually are. Even more pernicious, so may "experts" are nothing more than paid shills. My background is music, and as a m...

What I have heard is that it's best to keep the tea in such a way as to allow them to fully dry. The reason is that while many pathogens can thrive in damp, few can survive dry for any length of time. I'm not a doctor, so I can't vouch for the veracity of this, but it seems reasonable/plausible. Try...

Was that it? BF seemed rather underwhelming.

The 20% off posted earlier by Yunomi is now 33% (code BF33), plus heavily discounted shipping.