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I’m aware that advocating pre-brewed and packaged teas is somewhere between heresy and fighting words in the fine tea community, but I still consume them. I have just finished one with my lunch so I thought I’d open a dialogue for any thoughts, experiences, suggestions or other comments related to canned / bottled tea.
Here in the US (as any USian member or foreign visitor can attest) sweet tea is number one, with the Arizona brand probably taking the lead, at least here in the land of the blue-crab. I used to drink them frequently but I’ve abandoned them since returning to a preference for fresh loose leaf tea. Lipton is also around, with the old style Brisk teas and their more recent plastic bottled ones. Like all the others, they tend to be sugary and often flavoured with…”natural flavors”…whatever that is supposed to mean. Invariably this is “black” tea, though various health claims come with whatever they make commercial style “Green Tea” out of. Lipton seems to lead the charge with these in a plastic bottle with a cork-screw kind of exterior. It’s horrid and rather thick feeling on the tongue.
I don’t think I’ve seen a single “Plain Unsweetened” tea around where I live. Closest I will find is “diet” tea with alternative sweeteners. Maybe other places have it better?
Anyways, the canned teas I prefer are made by the UCC (Ueshima COffee Co.) in Japan or the ITO EN corporation in Japan. Both are made in Japan but are likely export models due to the English lettering. There’s four (or five) different kinds I go for. UCC and ITO EN make a canned green tea with a bit of added ascorbic acid (and apparantly salt, as there’s 20-30mg of sodium, though nothing’s listed). UCC also sells an oolong. I acquire all three these at my local “Oriental” market, which is a nice bike trip away. They average 1.20USD a can, give or take. These are steel 330 ml cans with a heavy bottom that are by and far the best beverage cans I’ve ever seen. Typical US ones are very easy to mangle. These are solid. If there’s other kinds, my local shop doesn’t stock them, but that’s fine because I enjoy both of these. The green is a little bit on the bitter side but is still refreshing and makes a good travel tea or something to have at my desk to cool a hot lunch.
ITO EN also makes “Shots”. These are tall and narrow cans at 190ml. They’re equally solid and also have heavy bottoms. I acquire these at my local “health food” store, which I don’t frequently visit these days. Much smaller, they’re very handy for travel, and I’ve begun to consider taking a few with me on bike trips – I don’t always want water, and if any anti-oxidents remain in these canned versions they’d be a welcome addition to my exercise and hydration. Like the above, they have a green “sencha” shot and an oolong shot. Green is a tad bitter, and I don’t believe I’ve ever gotten the oolong.
Now without a doubt this isn’t a fine tea. All of these are bound to be made from mass market leaves. I’m unsure just how much health-contributing chemicals remain after processing, as well. However, with the way many of us travel it is much easier than trying to carry all the things that make a cup of tea, and much refreshing on a hot day. I’m finding myself considering purchasing a large 30 pack of the Oolong and leaving them in the break room for whomever wishes to try.
If you happen across these somewhere, I’d recommend giving them a try. They are refreshing and not saturated with sweeteners. A fine tea they are not, however they’re awfully convienient for when a good effort on tea making is impossible.
What kind of pre-made teas are popular in your area, and what do you enjoy?
M.
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USDA’s report on flavonoid contents of popular food and beverages that I quoted in the Health Benefits of Tea article in Tea Guardian has some figures on the range of flavonoid contents bottled tea products have. I am sure Itoen and UCC are better products but am also sure that if you consider antioxidant contents, they would still be in the range of the USDA report.
Flavonoid content of all bottled tea are many times lower than the “average” cup of tea. Having said that, however, it’s still tea.ICE is right, the range of choice here in the East is so huge that I don’t know where to begin describing them here. Obviously there is a huge market need for it as alternatives to water and aerated drinks. There are many choices that are not sugared, low sugared, or non-sugar sweetened. Even big brother players like Coca-cola offers their range of options too.There are increasing choices in the US and the West, but a lot come in ridiculous prices. A lot also come and go.I will post some that are available here in Hong Kong, hope others interested will post those that are available in their market.There will be an article on bringing tea out in an outing in the next Tea Guardian update. Read that. -
I promised to post some local ready-to-drink tea products here so here it goes:
Firstly there is the old local brand “Vitasoy” which soy milk products have been a favourite choice by parents, albeit all the overdose of sugar. They have made the brand rich. The rich brand, in return, come back with more sugarly drink. Low production cost, but low selling price as well. Lemon tea, a favourite way of favouring black tea by the locals, is a top seller in the category. It is also perhaps the bottled tea with most tea content in it:Taoti, a Taiwan brand employing some big-shot local actor in hypnotizing frequency of tv ads, is another brand with a long list of favours. They have also used the term “ji-pin”, meaning “extreme quality grade” which coincidently I have used for real premium tealeaves many years ago in my high profile brand. Seeing that they use it for lousy canned drink is most ridiculous. That’s how marketers brain wash the consumers. That’s one thing that triggered my writing on obscurantism. Notice in the below three images of the same “extreme quality grade” products: they are the same content, but in different packing materials to render the different price point for that “extreme quality” feel :- Note that these things are available almost ANYWHERE in the city. Think of the manipulation they have on the average person’s concept about tea and about quality. -
I forgot about this thread a bit!
Thanks for sharing Leo. I figured the closer to Ground Zero you get for tea, the more option’s there would be. I may have to import some of these, just to put them on the “Have Tried” list, though undoubtably I’ll acquire some of Taoti teas when I roll around to Hong Kong in the next few years (another thread on that incoming). I’ll admit the packaging is pretty attractive on those, but I can’t go judging a book by its cover (or tea by its wrapper).
That said, I don’t think they advertise tea brands here in the US. I don’t watch much TV though. I remember Brisk used to advertise with the same long-running commercial; a melting snowman in the summer heat reinvigorated by a cold can of Brisk (Brisk also being an adjective to describe low temperature, so a bit of a lame pun).
Agreed with ICE that nothing tastes like a cup of tea. Probably the worst offender is “Honest Tea” brand “Just Green Tea”. It’s one of those fair trade teas, comes in a glass bottle (not common here in the land of Old Bay anymore) and is utterly bitter. I’m going to assume they boil the green tea leaves for 10 or more minutes to make that tea. For ~1.25USD, it’s also one of the cheapest and pretty much the only completely unsweetened tea here. It has the interesting gastronomic quality of stimulating appetite. I buy one occasionally to remind myself why I don’t buy them more often – I’ll admit I originally liked the bitter.
I wonder what obsticles lie in making decent quality tea industrially. I’m guessing they just get huge quantites of machine picked leaves, probably from lowest bidder farms (which probably have poor quality control in the fields). Honest Tea probably gets their stock from India or Sri Lanka and that Japanese brand above probably imports leaves too. I ought to try and “can” up some cheap quality tea, let it sit a while and see what the result is. Will have to do the same with higher quality stuff.
I’ve wondered how well this all would keep, the finer brewings. I have considered making a steel travel bottle (c. 20oz) of tea the night before and taking that on trips. Will attemt and cross compare for everyone.
Thanks,
M.
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Oh! Here’s an example of the much prolific Arizona Tea:
“Nutrition” facts:http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-arizona-beverage-green-tea-i100153
Something like 25 ounces per can. That’s a lot of sugar.
M.
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It seems like every few years I’ll try some iced tea, and when I do, I always have the same reaction… “Agghh, what is this? This doesn’t taste like tea at all!” Then I’ll either put it in my refrigerator and dump it out later, or grudgingly finish it. I also tried making iced tea from real oolong tea, but actually the results are not so different from store-bought iced tea. Basically, when the tea cools and sits around for awhile like that, the flavor changes completely. The original character is gone, and instead there is just something bland, bitter, and cold, that needs to be sweetened up with sugar to be palatable. 😉
Sorry if this seems to harsh, but I have not seen many redeeming qualities in iced tea. Even in the hot summer, I would prefer green tea, but just cooled down for a few minutes so it is milder and has a cooling effect on the body. In TCM terms, not every hot drink is warming, and even a warm drink may be able to have a cooling effect on the body.
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Agreed; growing very distant from them myself.
I’m still in a phase where I make use of broken leaf loose teas. I find those chill alright overnight. Since they’re relatively inexpensive I’m willing to experiment, so I did this with ok results:
Get 500ml of water to 80C.Drop in large tea-ball with ~5g of leaves. Cover. (I did this in a measuring cup)When steeping is complete, funnel into a metal (or glass, I used metal) bottle.Chill overnight.
I filled a .75L bottle by rebrewing the same leaves and steeping longer. A fine cup of tea it was not, but it got me through class last week. I used Hime brand Genmaicha, which by its nature is sweet. Wasn’t particularly bitter or anything the next day. Not sure how this works with better leaves or longer time chilled, though.
I’m going to have to invest in one of those “Tiger” brand thermos’ that Leo has. Not found a US distributor that has an order form, but I haven’t dug too deep just yet.
M.
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“Nutrition” facts:
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