The most expensive tea you've tasted?

[poikkeus]

Most tea is reasonably priced - though some tea is frighteningly expensive (and good).

What is the most expensive tea you've ever tasted? Has any of this tea made its way into your cupboard?

Go into detail - it would be great if we could vicariously enjoy your tasting sessions.

 

[Legion]

My ex-inlaws are Chinese. They would go to China, and come back with tea that reportedly cost hundreds of dollars per tin.

I tried it. It tasted like tea.

 

[vertelselaar]

Green Jade Snails bio, lovely tea, very delicate.

 

[poikkeus]

I was trading teas, and got a really good tea as part of the bargain. I got half a bag of Da Hong Pao, an extremely fine version of tea that comes in all sorts of grades and qualities.

This tea wasn't what I'd ordinarily have purchased, but it really opened up my eyes to the quality out there. Some oolong is hundreds of dollars a gram.

 

[NotThatMatt]

I worked in Beijing about 12 years ago; I was the only American guy in the office. I was a nondescript Lipton drinker, but I started developing a taste for Green tea while there. The tea seemed entirely different from what I'd had here. They also just throw leaves in a cup and pour and sip, sip and pour all day on that cup.

I didn't sleep much but really enjoyed it.

A co-worker noticed my interest and decided to take me tea shopping. I found tea for ~$200/lb as @Legion describes. And that's in Beijing! Where dinner for 6 might have run $20. And beer was 25 cents.

That was the most amazing tea I've ever had in my life. I tried to stretch it for as long as I could when I got home. It was depressing when it ran out. It's probably best that I don't have regular access to a temptation like that.

I tried to share some of the tea with my co-worker as an appreciation for basically looking out for me while I was there. He adamantly refused. He couldn't stand the idea of getting spoiled by it, and then having to go back to his everyday tea.

As he explained it to me, they harvest so many parts of the plant. The high-priced finished product is taken from the best parts of the plant. The everyday stuff could be part leaves, part twigs and branches. So, yeah, there is a big difference in teas. Even when the label says <blah, blah> variety.

 

[Fiend606]

Gyokuro Asahi. It was something like 60 bucks an ounce. It was the best green tea I ever had. It was like a fresh green spring morning concentrated in a cup.

 

[Texican]

Last year my wife and I visited Japan and went to Toraya, a traditional confection shop in Tokyo. I ordered a matcha that was around $15 a cup.

It was like drinking spring in the Texas hill country.