I've only tried and reviewed a few jasmine greens so far, but Yamamotoyama's is the first whose jasmine aroma (dry bag and wet cup) clearly stood as vastly stronger than the flavor. The jasmine taste was detectable, no mistaking it, but couldn't deliver on the promise made by the smell. The aroma took me back to warm nights with southeast winds in one of my childhood homes, when a neighbor had a blooming jasmine vine growing through a chain-link fence in the far part of his yard.

I found one packaged bag of this tea in a kitchen drawer of a vacation rental, and decided to take it home to try on my good well water (instead of the nasty water at the rental, which, even after filtration, tasted like some combination of wood wax and armpit sweat). So there was no funky water influence...and the strength of dry-bag jasmine aroma tells me the tea hadn't been sitting in that drawer long enough to degrade. So I wonder if the smell-taste gap had to do with the presence of numerous stems in the bag, in addition to the green-tea leaves. I'm no expert on the process, but it seems stems shouldn't soak up the airborne flavors of the jasmine sifting as efficiently as leaves will. That's just an ill-informed, speculative WAG on my part, though!

What was strong? The green-tea taste itself, which surprisingly offered a noticeable but not adverse bitterness, and a little bit of astringency. This has potential to be one of the best bagged jasmine teas, but it ain't there yet. I recommend that the makers do better at:
1. Sorting out stems, and
2. Infusing more and/or stronger jasmine petals, perhaps another time or two.

Add your own review

Login or Sign Up to comment on this review.