Before you buy Green tea
Green tea is the only category where the buying decision is mostly about a date rather than a grade, and knowing that before you walk in changes what you ask.
Decide first whether you want a Chinese pan-fired tea or a Japanese steamed one, because they are graded on different things and priced on different logic.
Chinese greens are judged on leaf shape, bud ratio and picking window. Japanese greens are judged on cultivar, growing method and how the leaf was fixed.
Pre-Qingming means picked before about 5 April. It is the most expensive window of the year and the most frequently faked claim on a green tea label.
For Longjing, the protected core zone around West Lake covers a small area, and leaf from outside it is legally Longjing but sells for a fraction of the price.
Write down what you want before you look at prices: one style, one budget, one quantity. Shops sell green tea by the story, and a written list is the cheapest defence.
Step 1: judge the leaf
Look at the whole batch rather than the sample on top. Colour should be even, with no yellow or brown leaf mixed through it.
Chinese pan-fired greens are flat and matte, usually a yellow-green rather than a bright one. Bright green leaf sold as a Chinese style often means it was steamed instead.
Japanese sencha is needle shaped and deep green, with a sheen from the steaming. Gyokuro is darker and flatter, and smells sweet and slightly of the sea.
Rub a leaf between your fingers. Fresh green tea still bends a little, and old leaf snaps.
Smell the dry leaf from about 10cm away rather than burying your nose in it. Grassy, nutty or marine notes are all fine depending on the style, and flatness is not.
Then smell the wet leaf if you can get it brewed. The aroma after 30 seconds in hot water tells you more than the dry leaf ever does.
If the seller will not brew it, that is the answer. No shop confident about a green tea refuses to make a cup.
Step 2: buy small first
Buy 25 to 50 grams on a first purchase. That is four to eight sessions, which is enough to know whether the tea holds up and whether you like it.
Green tea fades faster than any other category, so a large bag is a liability rather than a saving.
Order the smallest size available online. The price per gram is worse, and it is still the cheaper mistake.
Try two sellers side by side with the same nominal grade. The gap between sellers is usually bigger than the gap between grades at one seller.
Keep a note of what you paid per gram and what you thought, because a memory of a green tea lasts about a month.
Once you have found one you like, buy 100 grams at a time and finish it within three months. That is the quantity most people can actually drink fresh.
Do not buy a kilo of anything green unless you are running a household of six.
Step 3: check storage and source
Ask two questions: when was it picked, and how has it been kept since. A seller who answers both without hesitating is usually worth buying from.
Green tea keeps best at 0 to 5 degrees, sealed and away from light. Anything sitting in a clear jar under a shop light is ageing in front of you.
Check the packing date rather than the best-before date. Tea packed 18 months ago and kept cold beats tea packed last month and kept on a warm shelf.
Vacuum packing is good for shipping and poor for storage once opened. Move the leaf into a sealed tin the day it arrives.
For Japanese tea, ask whether it has been kept refrigerated since it arrived. Most importers do, and some shops do not.
Online, look for a picking date in the listing. A listing with no date is telling you the date is not good.
The source question should have a name in the answer: a garden, a county, a factory. A region the size of a province is not an answer.
Step 4: pay for the leaf, not the story
Price in green tea tracks three things: picking window, origin and grade. Story is not one of them.
A tea sold on the name of a famous garden at a low price is from a different garden. That is the most common trick in the category.
Compare prices per gram rather than per tin. Tins, gift boxes and ceremonial labels all move the number without touching the leaf.
Pre-Qingming core-zone Longjing runs into several hundred pounds a kilo. At a tenth of that you are buying green tea, and not that green tea.
Pay for freshness before you pay for grade. A good grade from last year loses to a middling grade from this spring, in the cup and in value.
If you cannot tell which of two teas is worth more after drinking both, buy the cheaper one. A difference you cannot taste is not worth paying for.