Even though this isn't a Stash tea, it was well stashed—just a couple packets jammed discreetly in the middle of a bunch of bags of Bigelow Green at a conference, and only the first morning. Fortunately I noticed and grabbed them: one for there, one to bring home.

I'm not much for detecting subtleties, and probably missed some here. Regardless, I got the sense this tea has quite a few, especially for a mass-produced bagged tea from a big tea company, and more discriminating tea drinkers than me should enjoy the process of teasing them out. Here were mine. Dry-bag aroma was pleasant, a little minty, a little malty, and a little monetary. By that, I mean it smelled somewhat like freshly printed U.S. paper money. When I was a kid, we got a school tour of the Federal Reserve in Dallas (the one putting the letter K on dollar bills), and were allowed to sniff (but not touch!) a stack of newly printed bills. So I know that scent. In the dry bag, it wasn't intense or offputting, just surprising, yet perhaps fitting for a good *green* tea.

The in-cup and wet-bag aromas lost the smell of cash, but weren't bankrupt by any means. Instead they came across as both toasty and vegetal, somewhat rice-like, and rich, much like a couple of Japanese loose greens I've had. In fact the taste was quite good, and also bore a striking resemblance to a generic bagged green with a little matcha powder that my daughter brought home to me from a 7-11 in Tokyo. Mild bitterness came out in the flavor, but much more in the aftertaste, which also became slightly metallic after a few seconds. That minor weird experience aside, the flavor itself was robust, strong-bodied for a green, and rather like a baked pastry: sweet, malty, toasty, and even a little buttery. Yum. I have no qualms recommending this tea for budget-minded green-teabag drinkers who want something more interesting than the mostly bland store-brand stuff.

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