Tea Review: Simon Lévelt’s Organic Jasmine Green Tea

I can’t believe that I’m beginning this blog with a review of a teabag tea, but so it is.

I sometimes work as a volunteer in Juuttiputiikki, which is the oldest Worldshop (i.e. a shop specializing in fair trade goods) in Finland. To own the truth, one must be careful when working there because their goods are so tempting that one’s bank balance is in serious danger of being disturbed whenever one visits the shop. As was the case last Saturday when I kept the shop open with my sister. I saw the most adorable little cups that were probably espresso cups instead of teacups, but I coveted them all the same. However, I didn’t buy them. Instead, I bought tea.

I don’t usually buy teabags, but Juuttiputiikki sells Simon Lévelt’s ten-teabag packets for 1.75 euros, so I thought I’d buy a packet of organic Jasmine Green Tea. (Though now that I calculate the price for 100 grams of the tea, it comes at 11,67 euros, which is… respectable enough even for an organic tea.)

I steeped one teabag in a small teapot for three minutes (even though now I see that Simon Lévelt’s website recommends four minutes—water temperature 85°C), and the result is a pale golden liquid with a very mild fragrance. It tastes delicate, and the taste of jasmine is well-balanced with the taste of green tea. A surprisingly good green tea, even better than the sole loose-leaf green tea I have in my cupboard right now (which, however, probably tells more about the loose-leaf green tea than about this tea). It does not even become bitter with a longer steeping period, and the second infusion is just as good as the first one.

My favourite kind of tea is green tea, so next I must try the green Darjeeling Juuttiputiikki sells. My sister said she had once had it and that it had been a good experience.

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