As “tea geeks” (or whatever similar term you’d like to use -“tea enthusiasts,” perhaps?), it’s easy to get caught up finding the rarest teas or the finest and most authentic kind of a particular style of tea. If I see a pound of tea sitting on the shelf for $11, chances are I’m not going to give it a second thought because I have some $400/pound tea at home waiting for me. Yet, there are times I find myself drinking, for lack of a better term, cheap tea. And get this: I’m OK with it!
One such tea is Sunflower Brand (yes, “Brand” is part of their name) China Lichee (Lychee) Black tea. At the start of my tea journey, I bought a small tin of it and enjoyed it. The next time I bought some, I bought a gigantic one-pound tin. Now I know you should never buy a pound of any tea at once, but back then? It was cheap, I liked it, so I bought it. I still have that tin and it’s probably over ten years old at this point.
The tea is as far from “subtle” or “nuanced” as you can get. The flavor is best described as “harshly fruity” and packs quite the punch. It’s the type that a Folgers drinker might use to transition to tea. But it has three things going for it:
- It’s cheap.
- It brings back good memories of my early tea-drinking days.
- By some miracle of science or witchcraft, it tastes the same now as it did ten years ago.
While I’ll never say that I prefer Sunflower Brand China Lichee Black tea to a really good Bai Hao Yin Zhen, I’m coming out of the closet to say that, yes, it’s OK for a tea geek to let go of the pretense and enjoy the cheapest of teas from time to time.
(And just so you know: the tin is still 75% full.)
Good for you Ryan. I too have had similar experiences with “cheap” tea. Sometimes I’ll get samples sent to me and I end up ordering a few that I like. Much to my surprise, on a few occasions, my favorites turned out to be the cheapest ones. I’ve come to learn that the price does not necessarily reflect my taste buds. Despite my years of drinking tea, I’ve never developed the most sophisticated of palates. Yes, I can appreciate an exceptional Bai Hao Yin Zhen but I can also thoroughly enjoy an inexpensive green from one of my favorite distributors.
I had a similar experience with wine last year. I was invited to a blind wine tasting party. Everyone handed over their bottle to the host who placed it in identical brown bags and numbered it- keeping a list of your name along with the number. At the end of the evening, everyone was to have voted for their favorite wine. I had been getting some pretty decent wines from Trader Joes and was always surprised by the low prices they offered. I went to my wine guy and told him to find me the best wine that was offered at the lowest price. I paid $6.95. I imagine you can guess how this story ends. My wine won the contest over wines ranging in price from $65.00 down to my low priced wine. The wine closest in price to mine was $14.95. You can only imagine the response from the group. People were shocked to say the least. So in truth, taste is not always reflected by price. Now your Sunflower Brand doesn’t really fit this bill but obviously it is a tea that you get pleasure from periodically – apparently very periodically:)
Thanks for coming out of the closet Ryan and sharing your dirty little secret.
I think cheap tea gets a bad reputation since much of it is bad, so it is mostly earned. However, there are some decent ones out there. I really appreciate the consistency that they are able to produce year to year on large scale, that is not a trivial thing to do and I feel is underappreciated by many the tea elitists.
Be careful because we all know that cheap items from China have been found to be very toxic. There are news stories about toxic toothpaste. Toxic baby food. Toxic paint on toys.
Joseph, you bring up a valid point. Has there been any incidence of toxic tea coming out of China to your knowledge? When buying tea from China, I always trust a valued distributor of course, who has first hand knowledge of the farms where the tea is sourced.
Hi Ryan
I found an OLD tin of tea in a second hand store and bought the tin for interest sake. I then discovered that it was still sealed and had tea in it! The tin and it’s labels look very old and I wanted to know how old the tin and the tea would possibly be??
When I googled the tin your site and the picture of the Chinese lichee black tea sunflower brand came up and it is exactly the same tea-could you should some light on my old tea tin tea?
Thanks so much.
Candice Stevens
Plettenberg Bay, South Africa
Hi Candice — I want to say that I bought my tins in 1999 and a couple of years later, 2001 or 2002.