ITO EN's Oi Ocha has become my favorite straight Japanese green tea pretty quickly. It was one of my favorites of several teas in my daughter's pantry in Bangkok, on decent water (reverse-osmosis filtration of the otherwise risky city tap water), and seems even better on my mineralized but filtered well water at home.

The dry-bag aroma is predictably ricey, slightly vegetal and slightly grassy, but well-balanced. The tea brews up a light yellow if hot-steeped the wrapper-recommended 30 seconds, but I went with a couple minutes to be more consistent with other green teas. I also swirled the bag back and forth, as with most teas, to maximize flavor; this actually is recommended explicitly on the wrapper: "Shake 5 times and remove." Swirling the bag turns the tea semi-opaque and more tan-yellow in color.

The in-cup aroma and flavor also are well-balanced, magnifying the same three elements from the dry aroma and adding a hint of dried fruit like dates or raisins. Surprisingly, it seems both rich (slightly savory) and naturally sweet, and doesn't seem to need as much of my usual sweetener blend as other green teas. The aftertaste is quite fruity, more like mango or papaya, and slightly grassy or vegetal. Inhaling through the wet bag reproduces the dry-bag aroma, but slightly stronger and, of course, moist.

I gort this tea (20-ct box) from a Thai grocery store for the equivalent of about $3.25, but it's a good deal more over here in the good ol' U.S. of A, with World Market selling it for six bucks as of this writing (about 50¢/bag). Still, I'll give it a good value score, due to the quality.

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