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Fantastic Green Tea, the Best of Tazo,
*****
Tazo’s China Green Tips Green Tea is a slightly stronger green tea than Tazo’s Zen, and I liked that it doesn’t contain Tazo’s omnipresent “natural flavors” that almost all of their other teas contain, which to me is not an advantage. I like a natural, real taste with real ingredients sans vague “natural flavors” and sans flavorings, sans essences, etc. China Green Tips delivers this in a cleaner, purer way than Tazo’s other teas. I liked this green tea!
The ingredients in China Green Tips are simply spring-harvested green teas from China. It contains caffeine.
Tazo is an interesting company that makes only super premium teas. They are socially responsible, based in Portland, and have the motto, “The Reincarnation of Tea”. Tazo is owned by Starbucks. Their web site is fun and quirky, with a Zen-type focus, definitely worth checking out. It is unclear, though, from their web site, how many of their ingredients are organic or kosher, and they do use some “natural flavors” in their teas–this wording seems a little vague and unnecessary for a super premium tea. China Green Tips has none of these “natural flavors” and it shows in the quality and cleanliness of the tea experience.
On the paper tea packet, Tazo writes, “a traditional Chinese green tea with a delicate fresh taste and a light green liquor.” This is the perfect way to describe this tea! On their web site, Tazo describes the flavor profile of China Green Tips as “grassy, vegetative, sweet, ricey”. Tazo describes the aroma as “vegetative, popcorn”.
I would rate this tea, and Tazo in general, as very good—better than premium teas like Stash or Celestial Seasonings—but not as good as Numi or Aspen. Still, this tea is excellent, so I’m breaking my tradition with Tazo teas and giving it five stars. If you enjoy super premium teas, and are stuck with Tazo for some reason, choose China Green Tips and you will be quite satisfied. I can’t honestly say that about any other Tazo tea.
*****
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|Tazo China Green Tips Green Tea,
I have been drinking this tea for about a year, on and off. It is the best green tea that I have tasted. I brew it overnight at room temperature, and I find that it has a full, smooth, and mild flavor.
Another writer stated that the fluoride levels associated with this tea are 8 mg/L – that is, indeed, pretty high. Unfortunately, the writer did not quote a source or describe how the levels were measured, so we don’t know how realistic this number is, and how it relates to the number of cups consumed. Unfortunately, too, it seems that many other sites have picked up all these Amazon reviews verbatim, and copied them to their own sites, so this information is spread across the net. I have heard (from other sources) of Chinese product fluoride levels and would like to know the truth – in real numbers – about the fluoride levels in China Green Tips tea. So I contacted Starbucks. They replied…
“Thank you for contacting Starbucks Coffee Company. Unfortunately, the information you are requesting is proprietary information, which we are unable to divulge. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.” One wonders if by “proprietary,” do they mean that the fluoride levels are part of the “secret” ingredients from which they make China Green Tips tea (and here I was thinking that the tea was, well, you know, tea leaves…) OR are the fluoride levels really so high that they are afraid to let folks know for fear that tea sales will suffer? One can only speculate…
~R~
Update: 2010-12-02: I contacted the FDA to get their informal (non-binding) opinion. They replied that Starbucks answer is accurate under federal law. The FDA does not currently have authority over food service and the regulations for labeling do not apply. Foods imported into the U.S. must comply with FDA regulations so no excess of fluoride or other contaminants would be permitted.
So I did further research and found this report “http://www.ars.usda.gov/SP2UserFiles/Place/12354500/Data/Fluoride/F02.pdf”, which has entries showing green tea
Tea, green, brewed – 1.15 ppm
Tea, green, decaffeinated, brewed – 2.72 ppm
In water, at low concentrations, the approximation 1ppm = 1 mg/L holds up pretty good because the density of the solution is approximately 1 g/mL or 1 kg/L If you start getting in the range greater than 1000 mg/L, this starts breaking down.
So we still don’t know why Starbucks doesn’t want to give a range for fluoride for their green teas. I /did/ discover that green tea has much less fluoride, on average, than black tea. (See the report.)
These folks “http://www.traditionalmedicinals.com/FAQs_ingredients” state (2010.12.02) “We have had our organic green tea products tested for fluoride at an independent laboratory and the test results have shown none detected.” (I neither recommend for nor recommend against this company.)
“The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 118, Issue 1 , January 2005, Pages 78-82, Skeletal fluorosis and instant tea” may be of some interest.
~R~
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|Love this tea,
This green tea tastes like the expensive green tea my father bought as a present for his professor grown in asia. It has that nice subtle gentle flavor underneath the usual green tea flavor which I really love. It’s not too harsh (for me anyhow) and I don’t like it when people mix green tea with lemon… so this tea is good for me to just enjoy the tea leaf flavor without breaking my bank!
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