AWFUL MATCHA! Reviewing Supermarket Teas

AWFUL MATCHA! Reviewing Supermarket Teas - DENN'S

Рет қаралды 16,291

4 жыл бұрын

Can you get quality tea from your supermarkets? In these tea reviews, I blind taste a selection of supermarket-bought teas and give you my opinion.
TRY SOME PROPER MATCHA!
Ceremonial: meileaf.com/p/tea-orgc
Master's Small-Batch: meileaf.com/p/tea-hmmc
Supermarkets have all manner of teas from Green Teas to Oolongs, to Blacks (but rarely PuErh). Yet, the quality of their tea can often be uninspiring. We understand that a tea buyer for a supermarket has a lot of pressures and responsibilities and cannot select the same speciality teas as Mei Leaf, however, we think that there is plenty of room for improvements in their tea selection.
The aim of these videos is to try to highlight successful supermarkets and motivate others to step up their tea game to provide a better selection of all types of tea.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO CONTRIBUTE TO FURTHER REVIEWS:
1. Select your local supermarket (not a speciality tea shop). It needs to be a chain and sell other items like cat food and detergents.
2. Buy a selection of three teas. Choose teas that are representative of their range but select from their higher-quality offerings.
3. Send us some samples (at least 10g) to the address below.
4. Include your details.
5. Include a copy of the receipts so that we can confirm price and brand name (in case it gets a score higher than 8 and deserves a mention).
Address: Don Mei, Mei Leaf, 99-105 Camden High Street, London, NW1 7JN, UK.
★TRY MEI LEAF TEAS!★
meileaf.com
TEAWARE IN THIS VIDEO:
★ Tiny Gaiwan: meileaf.com/p/cl-swgw
★ Blue Tulip Cup: meileaf.com/p/cl-mlcp
★ Matcha Chawan: meileaf.com/p/cl-mcbt
★ Matcha Scoop: meileaf.com/p/cl-mcsc
★ Matcha Whisk: meileaf.com/p/cl-mcws
★ Gong Fu Guru Water Tray: meileaf.com/p/cl-gfgnw
★ Porcelain Scoop: meileaf.com/p/tsc-porc
*The DENN'S Logo is not the property of Mei Leaf and will be removed from all of our content upon request and use is not meant to represent association or sponsorship with Mei Leaf Tea.
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Пікірлер: 89

@EdoLS_ 4 жыл бұрын

Hahaha, that "cheers everybody" right before drinking that matcha was by far one the funniest moments I've seen on this channel

@normalisgone 4 жыл бұрын

The matcha tasting is my favorite! lol I think I've made some of those same faces when tasting bad matcha!!

@MrFlumsi123 4 жыл бұрын

What a perfect timing for a new video. I was watching some of the old ones and they were just about to end.

@SchokomuffinSarah 4 жыл бұрын

Hi Don and Celine! Very much looked forward to see this video, had so much fun to shop the teas and see you reacting to it 😄 yes, the darjeelings are from the same estate. and the matcha was the "highest" quality available, one of quite a few. in general I was very suprised that they offered a lot of different teas, until now I just walked past the tea isle there. "1 really surprised me, I'm not a darjeeling drinker at all but it was decent! same with the gunpowder I must say. i found the darjeeling green to be absolutely awful, but I was curious if the same estate is noticable. and for the matcha, sorry 😂❤️ greetings from vienna, Sarah

@moniermalyar 4 жыл бұрын

I live in Vienna and go to said shop every once in a while. Usually I just walk past supermarket tea isles. After watching this video I'll have to give them a try. However, with the amount of tea shops in Vienna I've never felt the need to buy at supermarkets. (also because we have a Mei Leaf quality tea house in Vienna)

@BS38114 4 жыл бұрын

About " Is it organic?". It is. Denns only sell organic stuff. Denns is where my "Tea career" started a few years ago...:-)

@tammymar8178 4 жыл бұрын

Oh my goodness!!!! I died when you got to the fourth tasting ( the matcha) I couldn’t stop laughing because I knew upon looking at the color that you were in trouble. You were very brave for taking another sip🤣😂🤣😅

@Ipergorilla 4 жыл бұрын

I honestly enjoy this series because we get to see Don doing true blind tastings. It's great to see him pick apart teas he knows nothing about & is not selling. It'd be nice to see him do the same with high quality teas!

@princerosalium 4 жыл бұрын

you released this video... on my birthday! i'll take this as an incredibly fun birthday gift. love your work!

@indubren 4 жыл бұрын

When he went back in for the second sip of that cursed matcha I realized what lengths we go to for a proper flavor analysis lmao.

@alexcherryblossom1 4 жыл бұрын

Bad matcha is one of those things that can really upset your stomach. I had a really bad puerh last week that made me soo queasy. It tasted like lemon juice and sardines, with a hint of dirt. It was from a pretty popular puerh supplier as well so I was not expecting it to be so bad.

@PlaguePriest88 4 жыл бұрын

Can you do a video on those yellow yixing pots you mentioned once when talking about black tea brewing? It would be very nice of you to explain a bit your opinion, I don't know much about them...

@annegamalski614 4 жыл бұрын

That you actually take an other sip of the matcha is so brave.

@kimballcrocferd9988 4 жыл бұрын

"why would I want to drink another bit" true dedication

@umiteasets 4 жыл бұрын

Chlorogenic acid and Vitamin C in the scented tea can make the skin become exquisite, white and glossy.

@johnbang8 5 ай бұрын

I love watching your Videos, while enjoying some Tea myself. Cheers! :)

@zefityzalch1 4 жыл бұрын

Hi guys, just a video idea, would you do one where you go over the nuances of shopping in a traditional tea shop? What to ask, how tastings go and what to expect?

@benjaminheim735 4 жыл бұрын

what country are you in? in taiwan or china tea shop owners are fairly insistant that you sit down and drink some tea.

@benjaminheim735 4 жыл бұрын

oh nvm i didnt see that you were asking for a video

@MeiLeaf 4 жыл бұрын

I cover some of this in my visit to a traditional Beijing tea market but we can certainly make another video. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/psyParOCp7zceYU.html

@euca7730 4 жыл бұрын

This video makes me thinking about the good side of the standardize manufacturing...Darjeeling's production process is much more standardize than many tea from Chinese tea. So there is a larger possibility of encounter a bad Chinese tea than black tea such as Darjeeling, it's very important to start drinking tea with an expert. and i guess that matcha is one of those low grade for baking.

@Katpiratefan275 4 жыл бұрын

Oh, damn. Good right up to the matcha. Reaction is right as I expected. I am so sorry, my dude.

@robertsansonetti7971 4 жыл бұрын

The matcha tasting is Sooo funny! Don is fantastic.

@doryman3 3 жыл бұрын

Not a “dodgy-ling”! Good job Denn’s!

@UnelmaPunelma 4 жыл бұрын

In my city there's a tea store, and they send some of their tea to my local supermarket. It's awesome :D

@unbdld42 4 жыл бұрын

Your reaction to the matcha? PRICELESS!!!…..lol

@22otakar 4 жыл бұрын

Hey people, just send some other awful teas to Don, it is better than sitcom. I love it Don, it is such fun! 😂🤣😄

@tristandietschmusic2516 4 жыл бұрын

The matcha reaktion is so funny, i kept on laufhing

@lamejackass 4 жыл бұрын

Just had a super low quality oolong right before this. I thought I was going nuts cause all I tasted was bland, mostly bitterness and like a hint of floral notes here and there but this gave me some assurance 😂 thanks Don

@rosalrosa5346 4 жыл бұрын

I drink matcha tea with almond milk and coconut sugar I love it. But I don't know if the yes is good cuality tea even dough is organic.🤔

@idontlikebigbrother9778 4 жыл бұрын

nice yohen youteki tenmoku chawan! I always want one fo this kind in my collection. a black chawan can perfectly serve the green color of macha.

@MikeThatNormalGuy 3 жыл бұрын

Can anyone tell me what scale that isn

@blueredyns7392 4 жыл бұрын

Just our of curiosity, are there any teaheads in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate NY or near Erie, PA?

@naimayleos 4 жыл бұрын

There's a cool online tea store out of Syracuse, NY unytea.store/

@naimayleos 4 жыл бұрын

unytea.store/ Out of Syracuse NY

@CandyRayne 4 жыл бұрын

Review adagio tea?

@askialuna7717 4 жыл бұрын

the problem with matcha from a food store is that the packaging is not refrigerated and that it deteriorates faster. I had caught a matcha that was bad, then exchanged it in the shop and got a fresh one that tasted much better. The taste was much too strong for me and I then added more water to my bowl, used the instructions with 1g to 100ml and then increased to 300ml of water. I then used less than half a teaspoon of matcha, I got an matcha that was not a cooking grade but a lower middle class. I thought it was OK, but matcha lacks an earthy-sweet taste that is found in normal green tea. It is a bit like missing part of the aroma spectrum of green tea. Is also whether own-label teas are tested or of tea labels that only produce tea. I think the Lebensbaum teas are OK. I only had the mate tea and green tea with jasmine. I would like to look at the others later. Tea should have a expiration date of 3 years in the future so that the teas are still fresh when you buy them. edit: I was just too stupid to prepare Matcha properly, because I thought the little steaming water with a few small bubbles are 80 degrees. Since I have a kettle with temperature setting I know that 80 degrees is a lot of steam and much ascending bubbles and that I have previously prepared matcha with about 60 degrees. At 80 degrees, the great earthy sweet green tea aromas have also developed. Of course, it is better if the best before date for teas is reformed and which have an extended best before date, so that there is a period in which the tea is about the same and from the other one changes but has not gone bad.

@PneumaB 4 жыл бұрын

Lord... #1 is bong water. Lmfao!

@hieronymuswiesenkraut3628 4 жыл бұрын

Hope you'll testing tea from "Tee Gschwendner". High quality and organic tea known in Germany for high quality. Would be interesting what you think of their tea, especially green or black tea

@felixhuber7946 4 жыл бұрын

I think Tee Gschwendner would be too high quality and too specialised for this series.

@hieronymuswiesenkraut3628 4 жыл бұрын

@@felixhuber7946 You are right, I overread "Reviewing Supermarket Teas". Maybe in another series.

@BS38114 4 жыл бұрын

Gschwendner würde ich als solide bezeichnen. Nette Auswahl an soliden Tees. High quality finde ich für Gschwendner bisdchen übertrieben.

@hero88687757 4 жыл бұрын

Mittelmäßig bis solide würde ich sogar sagen, auf jeden Fall kaum High Quality, schon sehr viel scented stuff und vage beschreibungen sowie schlechte preis/leistungs-verhältnisse sobald es etwas besserer Tee sein soll. Ist schon ok, aber da gibt es einige shops auch abgesehen von mei-leaf die mehr können, allerdings trinke ich auch nur noch gong fu und würde immer lieber weniger teuren Tee kaufen als anders herum.

@BS38114 4 жыл бұрын

@@hero88687757 Jep, kann man so sagen. Die eher günstigen passen meiner Meinung nach von Preis Leistung. Die etwas teureren, naja. Kaufe ich woanders...;-) Das es da deutlich zu wenig Infos gibt, sehe ich auch do. China oder Japan als Herkunft z.B., das ist ein bisschen mau. Zumindest auf Nachfrage im Shop sollte da mehr kommen, kommt es aber nicht.

@brileywells1628 4 жыл бұрын

“OOF!” Lol

@4minyte888 2 жыл бұрын

i laugh at the matcha coz i felt that. it makes my head ache when i know the matcha is not going to be good. POND WATER HAHAHAHAH!!

@ZoranRadakovic84 4 жыл бұрын

I just buy a theoretically high quality green tea from specialised tea shop in Germany. My wife is Burmese and I had been drinking high quality green teas from Myanmar. Now I buy Burmese green tea in Germany and I am extremely disappointed! Very bitter, foggy and flat! Taste is so bad! But when you open the leaves , they are completely whole but approx. 3-4cm long. Can you tell me ; how long should first and second leaf be? Maybe they harvest the leaves, butts, fist and second leaf is for Burmese market and older ones are for European market. I just ordered first time from you; Jade sward. Let's see will it be tasty like tea for Asian market :)

@aminboumerdassi2334 4 жыл бұрын

Can confirm jade sword is a very good one! On the pricey side but a precious brew

@paulphelps7809 3 жыл бұрын

It's important to know that ALL matcha products are good from a health viewpoint. The ratings 'better' or 'best' are about artistic values --taste, fragrance, appearance.

@Mandragara Жыл бұрын

All are good but some are better than others (shade stressing etc produces more beneficial compounds). But yes drink whatever you can afford and enjoy - no need to chase premium for premium's sake. Fancy organic peas aren't that much better than dollar store frozen peas after all

@changfachou 4 жыл бұрын

Hahaha. I love this game

@RicardoLuna 4 жыл бұрын

So, I may be crazy, but I kinda like the taste of old gunpowder tea and I buy large batches of it with the purpose of letting it dry. It will lose some of it's sweetness and herb flavors, but will gain a more wood and dry grass which I find very tasty. If brewed properly you get a very flowerly middle with a bitter ending that I just really love. Sure, the flavor is discreet compared to other stronger leaves. But I thing discreet can also be good.

@Ironst0ne 4 жыл бұрын

Alpine meadoows? So hes tasting the sound of music

@michaellampson7085 4 жыл бұрын

Is no one gonna talk about the first tasting? The fact that they made a very competent Darjeeling? You don’t see that with most supermarkets!

@BroKeNT1TaN 4 жыл бұрын

Where did you find such a small scale? Can someone comment there favorite scales?

@mollywatch 4 жыл бұрын

I just searched for "gram scale" @ Amazon and the first one that popped up was rated .01g and looks exactly like Don's. $12.99, I think? Works fine, too.

@blueredyns7392 4 жыл бұрын

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000O37TDO/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

@blueredyns7392 4 жыл бұрын

I've had this for a few years now and have never even had to change the batteries

@mariannefleur6671 4 жыл бұрын

Jewelry scale. For gold. Good luck!

@BroKeNT1TaN 4 жыл бұрын

Blue Redyns thanks you my friend!

@tinahuttner7280 4 жыл бұрын

Think compared to our markets here in the states the overseas market teas are better. W the matcha that was funny, first time I’ve seen don so disappointed in a tea and I’ve watched quite a few of his vids.

@aikadesakilleus 4 жыл бұрын

Hi buddy! Do you make international shipments?

@blueredyns7392 4 жыл бұрын

If by international shipments you mean can you order tea if you don't live on the same continent as him, then yes. I order tea and I'm in the US.

@aikadesakilleus 4 жыл бұрын

@@blueredyns7392 thx for the update, I'm also from the US, cheers

@TheClyde1993 4 жыл бұрын

Lol it's so funny you're reviewing denns. Overall they have good stuff and yes, everything is organic, it's an organic shop. I really like denns, you can buy good organic stuff there, but I don't buy tea there.

@tobiasmuller6232 6 ай бұрын

Nett 😉 Tobias

@mariannefleur6671 4 жыл бұрын

Hi Don, you’re being very charitable to supermarket teas. To be quite honest, and just my opinion, but I don’t think it’s laudable to encourage supermarkets to stock even more low quality commodity tea. They should just leave tea in peace. The logistics and price points of supermarkets destroy good tea cultivation practices. If demand does pick up, it will encourage exactly the wrong sort of tea farming. The kind that robs land from food, nature, people. We don’t need more low quality industrial tea farms to compete for land use against better tea farming practices or downright natural environments. Even if organic, stretches of land are being turned into monoculture & landslide prone pesticide and fungicide rich artificial tea fields. I don’t think this is desirable or sustainable. It’s dependent on cheap labor or machine. I’d much rather we drop some of that world wide volume and increase the quality- not only in the cup, but in the tea gardens and lives of the tea field workforce. So supermarkets are definitely not on my list of places to encourage tea-stocking/ tea-buying. Sorry, I might be a bit strong in my views on this, but environmental sustainability of tea growing is just as important to me as tea quality and definitely more important than tea quantity. This series on supermarket teas is really a torture to watch, not only for the disgusting matcha and the kombucha turned into vinegar, but for the underlying contradiction between good tea per definition and supermarket expansion into the category. Just like supermarkets are actively destroying the health and resilience of our food chain by pushing industrial food production practices to the extreme, they inevitably will bring the same mechanism to tea, if not already. If I have a good alternative to supermarkets, I actively seek those out. It breaks my heart to see the art and craft of tea making being dumped into a place as somber and loveless as the supermarket shelf. Please reconsider. . Thank you. 🙏😢

@joetexas1546 4 жыл бұрын

Marianne I read your Post an hour ago-and you are so right! You can wax eloquent much better than I. These Supermarket videos are hard to watch! Cheers

@mariannefleur6671 4 жыл бұрын

Joseph Troyer 🙌👍❤️🙏🙋🏻‍♀️ #DrinkResponsiblyDrinkOnlyTheBest

@MeiLeaf 4 жыл бұрын

Hi Marianne, Thanks for your comment and opinion. I am in total agreement with you regarding ensuring more sustainable tea farming practices and reducing quantity of low quality, ecologically harmful tea on the market however, I have a different take on the way forwards. Supermarkets are not expanding into tea, they already stock lots of tea and already sell more tea than any specialist tea shops. Therefore, they are not going to stop selling tea and the goal is to improve the quality of their offerings which will in turn have the following positive effects: 1. For most people, their main experience of tea is from supermarkets and by increasing quality we can enthuse more people to explore the specialist tea sector thereby rewarding better farming practice. 2. By buying higher quality tea for their shelves at higher price points, supermarkets can start to move in the direction away from the really low quality, industrially produced tea and mass produced farming practices. Supermarkets, like most other businesses will react to consumer demand and if their customers start to see the low quality tea for what it is and start demanding higher price point and higher quality tea then we may see improvements down the chain to the agricultural practices. It may seem naive to hope for this direction and I am very well aware of how supermarkets can use marketing to promote faux-premium and their significant buying power to push farmers to reduce price (and therefore lower good farming practice). This is why a healthy specialist tea sector is so important, to provide a space for the top farmers to thrive. But, I do not think that we can pretend that supermarkets and their position in the global food chains will go away and so I prefer to try (in my very small way) to influence positive changes through encouragement towards better quality tea rather than the status quo of industrially produced, empty tasting brews.

@mariannefleur6671 4 жыл бұрын

Mei Leaf Dear Don, Thank you very much for your thoughtful response. I think we agree on all points except the interpretation of what roles supermarkets have, can have, and will play in the tea world. As you know, I’m a staunch supporter of small batch high quality teas, yourself at Meileaf being my champion on that front from day one. Today, supermarkets cater to the mass market, which is their role. They have a volume demand that is never in line with responsible farming practices and never will be. I don’t think any supermarket selling great teas would have enough branded stock to last a day, making incentive low and feasibility nil. This automatically eliminates the possibility of decent tea at supermarkets. Maybe an independent grocer or specialty teahouse, never a supermarket chain. I am fully aware of the volumes they currently command and am not optimistic this will go away in the future. Just like supermarkets have tarnished the original good intentions of organic and created a beast with a greenwash logo, supermarkets will inevitably do the same with “better tea”. Mass and class in a globalized world don’t come together. The alternative is (in my opinion) not trying to raise a standard that’s abysmal to one that’s terrible, but bring responsible tea buyers away completely from supermarkets where good standards are per market demands impossible to where the good tea has a fair chance at thriving. Putting the efforts on what works, not on what will have little to no chance. I just rewatched the documentary I posted above. I’d rather drink my lemon verbena or mint tisane than supermarket “tea” of dubious origins. Luckily, there are enough good purveyors of quality tea out there, so I don’t have to rely exclusively on my own produce. Your great sourcing is one of the reasons I trust and drink tea again in the west after leaving it off for half my life when confronted with supermarket gunpowder. Have a great Sunday and thank you for the discussion. Best wishes, Marianne