Tea Expert Guesses Cheap vs Expensive Tea | Price Points | Epicurious

I remember Carney and I'm a tea expert [Music] ta here is a teabag looks like a black tea he's got a nice dark color coming through the fiber here giving it a smell it has this kind of citrus aroma to it I want to have a look here at the the leaves inside so in a tea bag what we have here is a grade of tea leaf called Fanning's and this is the smallest available to us in the market you know when we're at the factory and we're producing these teas they are jostling through the machinery they're going through the oven and there's kind of little parts that break off in the process but at the end what we do is we actually sort it into these different sizes and so at the very top of the spectrum we do have full leaf tea which is the ideal product Fanning's while they are the smallest they are also the most inexpensive they do serve this really great purpose especially in the land of tea bags because they infuse really quickly they have this large surface area so the water goes in and it comes out and it pulls out all of these really great compounds caffeine being our really important one flavor polyphenols because of that faster rate of extraction it actually can be almost an intense cup it's not as smooth it's not as nuanced and make it not as enjoyable for somebody TB is also a black tea it is in a sachet it usually means that we're using a larger quality leaf size which would yield you know a higher price point giving it a smell it doesn't really have too much aroma going on so I'm just gonna go ahead and open it and look at the leaf in here opening up the sachet I'm a little bit surprised well it is a larger leaf size than a not as large as I would have expected it there's a lot of kind of these broken sizes most of it's about a quarter inch long maybe a third of an inch long the full leaf teas is definitely going to be longer than that let's get to brewing so looking at the brewed cups we see that they both kind of have this really nice reddish color to them ta you know when we pull it up it has a little bit of an orange quality to it it's important for us to slurp the liquid because then we can turn it into a gas which is something that we can smell and that's something that we have this limitless library of knowledge of things that we've been exposed to to reference it with in the world of team we we do this second part of it which is where we pull it through our teeth and that's what that kind of that chirping noises that I'm making it's kind of silly it's important for us to do that because we're continuing to aerate the product and it allows me to pinpoint more so what I'm looking to find here flavor-wise right off the bat I can tell that this is an Earl Grey we've got a nice blend of black teas maybe from China to create this really even smooth bass and then of course we do have the bergamot on top of that moving on to TB it has a little bit more of a darker quality to it give it a nice smell here it's a bit more challenging to say what this is as a blend of black teas it could be a number of different things we see a lot of things on the market like Irish Breakfast English breakfast I think it's definitely safe to say it is a blended breakfast tea I'm kind of at a hard place here because normally when I see a teabag against a sachet I inherently believe that the teabag is going to be of inferior quality we have a flat packaging style with a small leaf inside of it and then we have a very nice kind of packaging style with room for larger leaf tea however when we open these we did see that this is I would say substandard for a sachet quality tea but I still think that the higher quality leaf is in here so I'm going to say that TB is higher price point and I was right I like being right that's awesome that's good you know I think I just stuck to my guns here and I knew that more often than not we're using a higher quality leaf inside of a sachet than we are inside of a tea bag so we've got two green teas the finished leaf of ta has this very flat leaf quality texture to it which is generally achieved through a pan firing method so when the folks are out in the fields picking these leaves they bring them in and they're gonna then start processing them and that's really where green tea might differ from black tea it's all going to be about the post processing method and in the case here they're gonna give it a little bit of time to wither but really what they're gonna try to do is fix it by exposing it to heat getting it a little bit closer here we're gonna try to get some flavors out of it and I'm getting this very soft subtle note of like steamed bok choy the skin of walnuts or peanuts things like that that's really kind of a consistent with the idea of it being pan fired TB is definitely a different style here when we're looking at green teas from China specifically we're used to seeing them fixed in a pan or they might be oven fired when the tea is oven fired it kind of curls up on itself and that's how we get this kind of twisted look to it this is actually quite consistent like the leaf size and structure is pretty consistent throughout the whole tea I'm gonna try to get something from the aroma oh wow a mixture of sweetness and and like zucchini it's a very unique kind of combination I'm very excited about that let's get these started with green tea we are going to be using less than boiling water if we were gonna to use boiling water it would actually burn it and you get a very unpleasant flavor in your mouth ta has this really beautiful clear color - it's got this pale lime of being green and that's something that is really characteristic of these pan fire Chinese green teas called Dragon Well or long Cheng the color of TB is a little bit darker and a little bit more muted it's not a high quality tea as much as I had hoped it would be so starting the TA okay the walnut flavor is really predominant here more so than I actually expected and I think that might be because it actually used a higher temperature when they were firing it in a wok definitely when we're using a higher temperature like that we might be trying to hide something that this will may be a little unpleasant TB that sweetness is not there and that's a little disappointing unfortunately the aroma of this was very exciting but this is a little bit more vegetal than I expected it to be TB actually has a much more consistent leaf quality to it which makes me think that more effort went into it and that it could command a higher price I do think that TB is the more expensive of the two so let's figure it out I was right that's good so in the end I was right about tbh being more expensive that's largely because of the leaf structure we've got a really consistent leaf size here and it shows that there was a lot of attention to detail and care put into managing the production of this leaf ta on the other hand it may not have had the same consistent structure that we saw here in TV but it really had a great cup and that's really what matters so what we have in front of me are two things that don't really look like tea ta has this pale yellow color to it as I look through a lot of small pieces I'm going to guess that it's a chamomile which is a flower giving it a smell it really has this faint smell of green apples it really has that kind of fresh sweetness to it we're looking at Fanning's again since we ran a tea bag and you can see it has this interesting makeup of these really small filaments which are a little bit of combination of the stalk of the chamomile and also the pollen that's there that's primarily what is going to be in a chamomile tea bag as a combination of different parts of the plant there are some darker flecks in here that I'm not used to seeing so that might be from where they get their chamomile from or it might be something that we don't actually want in our chamomile tea be is in a slightly different style it does have a stronger aroma to it which is very interesting that's something what we want to smell is something a little bit stronger it might be a fresher product now this tea bag looks quite identical I have a feeling I'm gonna be making quite a guess here a similar composition of filaments and some squares of pollen there are those darker things as well unfortunately though I really can't get much else from just looking at the leaves here so I think I'm really gonna have to taste tá has this really thin color to it there is actually a nice sweetness to it it has this really Pleasant honey quality to it alongside those green apple notes very enjoyable now TB has this really nice kind of rich color to it it's a little bit more earthy than I expected when I'm tasting camomile's they have like I said this lightness to them and this sweetness to them that full body that it has is is definitely unsettling and it's not something that I really enjoy in a chamomile because of that assessment I do think that this has been made with slightly lower quality chamomile and maybe that they're using a little bit more of the twigs to kind of fill up some of the bag so I do think that this is the lesser expensive option of TATP let's find out ah that's bad that's bad that's not cool so I really think what might be happening here is a little bit of market play it's possible that a company has some sort of prestige or premium ization to their name into the products that they have sold for so long that they think that they can command a certain price point and maybe they can this is not double the ingredient quality of ta and sometimes that just happens so we have two teas here but they they look a little bit confusing to me because I see that tea a kind of looks like a green tea but tea be kind of looks like a black tea so looking at tea a we have these really beautiful emerald hues of this green the leaves are a little bit twisted but I'm not seeing a lot of buds in them so I'm not thinking that this is traditionally like what might be a green tea getting a little bit of the aroma like a lemon taffy it's a little bit sweet it's a little creamy that'll be very very fun to taste looking at tea B we have a much more darker more oxidized leaf here so we're looking at these kind of dark brown leaves there's a couple of twigs here and there which isn't necessarily a great thing for hi Mt the leaf size is pretty consistent but because there's a mixture of leaf and twig I'm already kind of thinking that this isn't necessarily the higher end of the two let's get a little bit more out of it oh okay this is very dark this is like sandalwood the charcoal that's not entirely surprising because it is more oxidized than the more oxidation there is in a leaf on the dark of the flavors so that makes sense that this is kind of light and floral and citrusy and creamy and this is darker in charcoal E and woody the only thing left to do is to make them into T so I have a very strong inclination that these are alongs long fit into that category that lives between green teas and black teas the lighter or the shorter the amount of oxidation the lighter the flavors a darker or the longer the oxidation period the darker the leaf is the darker their flavors so I'm going to start with ta so a lot of that warm cream flavor and and citrus that I was talking about has totally dissipated it's not there at all the only thing that I'm getting is like lily-of-the-valley gardenia a lot of these floral notes looking at TB the cup here really kind of embodies the aromas we have these really kind of dark toasty charcoal flavors in the aroma and then we're getting those right there in the cup sometimes you know the aroma of the leaves can tell you one story and then all of a sudden when you taste the cup it's something completely different and there's really nothing but to do but just to relish in the fact that you've totally surprised yourself this is so spectacularly floral and I didn't get very much floral at all I really got a lot of these sweet flavors a lot of this kind of citrus creaminess from the leaves so that that's pretty that's fun there was a lot of effort that went into making this so I would say the TA is the more expensive here why don't we find out okay I mean there's not much of a contest there we're looking at an oolong of this quality where it votes this much nuance and aroma and flavor it takes time it takes effort to make that this is a very hot topic tea right now called matcha I can tell instantly that this is matcha because it's powdered green tea and tea a has this beautiful vibrant color and that's usually like the best indicator of the quality of the matcha the brighter it is the more unnatural it looks the better it's gonna be I am gonna taste it a little bit from the powder it's not the most pleasant flavor it's like a young asparagus so there's a little bit of sweetness but there's still that really strong underlying quality of vegetal flavors looking here at TB it's much more dull it's it's not an exciting bright green color it wasn't as nice of a leaf grade to start with it may have been older it may not have been shade grown it may not have been a shade grown as long but it's definitely not a positive on this tea yeah okay so that's giving me a much darker flavor there's very little sweetness with nori seaweed very dark spinach to understand about the quality of them each is to really taste them now matcha has a very different preparation than the other teas that we've tried today because it's powdered we actually are going to be whisking it into water so rather than infusing the flavor out we're actually just going to be bonding the matcha molecules to the water molecules so why don't we whisk them so looking at Ta we have this really even layer of foam this beautiful color and that's you know what we're looking for with a good macho in TB we have a little bit of an uneven layer there's this little crescent here where we don't have foam and that sometimes can be user error like maybe I didn't whisk this strong enough or well enough but also sometimes it can mean that maybe this macho was clumping and that it didn't blend well when I wished it so give ta delicious this is what I think is perfect about matcha it has this really nice vegetal undertone but it's sweet it's delightful it's something that you could enjoy every day how nice it is does make me think that it is expensive now this one on the other hand TB is giving a lot of a chlorophyll flavor like a algae alfalfa spinach it's dull it's not bright which is important I think the TB might be a little bit more of a lower grade but I do think it is a step below this let's find out whoa that's different that is a quite a large price difference actually when you're shopping for matcha in the supermarket there's gonna be a plethora of options it's become so so popular so if you're looking to add something into your daily smoothie for an added dose of maybe a caffeine or amino acids this is really great but if you're looking to enjoy something that is bright and unique and vibrant you can't beat DEA well growing up I drank a lot of tea with my father and with my grandfather and they imparted on me the tea time is anytime so enjoy your cup of tea and drink it any time of day [Music]

Channel: Epicurious

Views: 1,773,182

Rating: 4.8186145 out of 5

Keywords: tea, cheap vs expensive, price points, tea expert, teas, cheap tea, expensive tea, cheap vs expensive tea, cheap, expensive, cheap v expensive, expert, best tea, experts, cheap expensive, making tea, tasting tea, types of tea, expensive teas, cheap teas, best teas, make tea, how tea is made, how to make tea, green tea, best green tea, expensive green tea, cheap green tea, expensive black tea, expensive macha, cheap macha, expensive oolong, cheap oolong, epicurious

Id: O_VsxGdECYI

Length: 16min 7sec (967 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 31 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/ImranRashid]

Wonder when they'll do a weed one.

[u/spikeboyslim]

Sounds like the guy on my desk at work when he has his hourly cup of tea.

[u/acslator]

Cheap vs Expensive request: bottled water expert compares bottled water

[u/[deleted]]

Omg, he actually got one wrong! It finally happened! What a hack.

It was like 3 v 6 and he guessed that one was banking on branding to charge more lol.

[u/JurijFedorov]

Now, finally I can feel like I understand what the expect is saying in these videos.

[u/motleybook]

Did they guess it?