Green Tea Vendor Topic

[polezaivsani]

@faj, those sound like solid points! Ditto the use of 'blanching' term. Sorry, but i'm rather low on data to derail this topic any further with .

[Victoria]

faj, those sound like solid points! Ditto the use of 'blanching' term. Sorry, but i'm rather low on data to derail this topic any further with .

+1 - also I enjoyed reading that article. Thanks for sharing it, I had not looked at the structure of a tea leaf in so much detail before.

[faj]

faj, those sound like solid points!

I would say I am spreading my confusion rather than making arguments.

i'm rather low on data to derail this topic any further with .

So am I! That is a subject I really am curious about, and I could not resist commenting on. Thanks for sharing the article.

[wildisthewind]

Trying to order from lifeinteacup.com. Their email address is bouncing back, but the website is still up - does anyone know if they're still in business?

[Victoria]

Trying to order from lifeinteacup.com. Their email address is bouncing back, but the website is still up - does anyone know if they're still in business?

This link seems to work http://www.lifeinteacup.com/

[mael]

Did you try this e-mail adress : admin@lifeinteacup.com ?

My last order was in june 2021 using this adress e-mail, I enjoyed their green teas too

[aet]

For a small aside, while trying to research them, i found an interesting article on blanching leaves on the sister information outlet, shedding light at the moment of very first drops of hot water hitting the leaves - https://www.teaguardian.com/tea-hows/to ... to-blanch/.

Sorry for being off-topic, but the question of rinsing is one that puzzles me. While you hear people describing how they tried various temperatures and steeping time to get the most of a tea, I do not remember reading about people testing a given tea with and without rinsing. It is like it is so obvious that you either should rinse or not (for a given tea type) that it does not even warrant testing the preconception.

Any justification that is based on the idea of "getting rid of something" (dirt, pesticides, bits and pieces, easily soluble but detrimental aromatics, etc.) I can understand. If one likes the result better when rinsing first, that is fine with me. Using the rinse as a way to preheat the vessel? That can be done without the leaves, but yes, it does that. If one were to rinse the leaves with hotter water, and then infuse at a lower temperature? Yeah, I see the argument this achieves something different compared to a single infusion.

But often it seems to me it is considered a performance-enhancing technique that works across the board (for a given tea type) regardless of any other infusion parameter, and something is to be "scientifically justified" rather than experimented with and judged as a matter of preference. Is that an incorrect perception of how rinsing is usually approached?

As an aside I do not understand the use of the term "blanching" in the article. I am not much of a cook, but it seems to me blanching is not a short dip into hot water prior to cooking in hot water. I know about blanched potatoes for french fries. Blanched mashed potatoes... Is that a thing and I do not know?

I don't know if pests can be washed out by rinsing but it is used in gong fu style brewing for cleaning the dust and awaking the leaves.
Green tea ( at least here in Yunnan ) is brewed mostly grandpa style , so no rinsing. Not much dust expected because it's not sun dried ( outside on the ground or bamboo trays ) and not kill green ( where potential dust from surrounding is possible ) but in el.heated drums.
Shu puerh sometimes I give 2-3 rinses, depends on "how it looks" . Also shengs if hard pressed and need to get few infusions to break up / open ( like long zhu or iron pressed cakes for example )
I believe JP greens are also drunk from the 1st brew.

[wildisthewind]

Did you try this e-mail adress : admin@lifeinteacup.com ?

My last order was in june 2021 using this adress e-mail, I enjoyed their green teas too

Yep, that's the email address I used. Bounced back.

[GaoShan]

Have any of you bought from Treasure Green in Vancouver? They're doing pre-orders for pre-Qingming Dragonwell, Bi Luo Chun, Anji Bai Cha, etc. Their prices seem a bit high, though not unreasonably so if the quality is good. Do they vacuum pack their smaller sizes?

[LeoFox]

For those of you who buy from thes du japon, you probably know that they have a horrible exchange rate, and that it is much more economical to purchase in yen.

However, this is no longer possible with a recent website update. When i tried, i got the following message

SmartSelect_20240314_225140_Samsung Internet.jpg (204.59 KiB) Viewed 8668 times

An email exchange with the owner regarding this:

Hello,

I am wondering why I can no longer pay in yen with a usa address? When i pay in yen through pay pal, i am eating the cost of currency exchange.  I prefer this because my rate of exchange is much better than the one offered by your website. 

Thank you,

Leo

Dear Leo,

 

For technical reasons this scheme is no more possible with the new version of the site.

We are very sorry for that.

 

Best regards.

Eric GOGUY.

Shop Owner.

www.thes-du-japon.com

Hi Eric,

Thank you for letting me know. I will share this information with my tea community. Please note that many will see this change as an extra "foreigner" fee, which may impact their decision to purchase from your company.


Best wishes

Leo

[Balthazar]

This is very disappointing, as is the "technical reasons" explanation. Thanks for sharing.

[pizzapotamus]

Yeah...a 50% gaijin tax is just taking the piss. I'd say use a forwarding service except if someone is going to treat you like that it makes more sense not to do business with them at all.

[GaoShan]

If I'd wanted to explore Japanese tea, I would have chosen this vendor. I'm disappointed, and I'm sure they'll lose customers. "Technical reasons" is not a good explanation. I wonder if it's due to an update on their shopping cart platform and if other vendors are affected.

[pizzapotamus]

As far as I can see they're using a self hosted program not a SaaS platform so "oops, this was forced on us" is a bit dubious, but even giving them the benefit of the doubt there they'd still have control over the currency conversion rate. Can we even call a 55% premium an exchange rate? If they did say a 5% premium that would be a lot less outrageous even though I still rather than they just ran the whole shop in JPY.

[faj]

Maybe they thought they were "losing sales" and chose to close that "loophole" (or rather enforcing that discriminatory pricing). I suspect the foreign customers who took advantage of the "true price" were often they highest-volume foreign customers, and what they will gain in margins they will lose on volume to a significant extent. "Thés du japon" is a weird name for a shop if its main market is Japanese customers, and this aggressive move is surprising if the shop relies on international sales. I am puzzled. I guess they know their business better than we do.

In my case, since they do not sell in my currency, I would be exposed to paying the inflated price in euros, and in addition to that paying for the currency conversion fees from Euros to CAD. I purchased most of my Japanese tea from TdJ in the last couple of years. This will force me to reconsider my habits, and the solution is not going for me to move to Japan .