On Oct 28, 9:36*am, Thitherflit > wrote:
> Itoen is pretty convenient-- call their New York office, and their
> matcha shows up fast!
>
> I, too, realized that Japanese greens were on-line from Japan, and I
> have used Hibiki-an and O-cha. *Also like:
>
> http://maiko.ne.jp/english/
>
> There is a German guy who works with this company, Ralph Faerber. *He
> speaks great English, and it is because of him that the Maiko website
> has elaborate *English* (and German) explanations going. *I went to
> Uji about a year ago, and he gave me a personal tour of the tea
> fields, and took me to a restaurant that specializes in serving food
> that uses tea as a vegetable *I believe if you ever had questions
> about the tea you were buying, he would be able to give very grounded
> and intelligent answers.
>
> This place is especially proud of their gyokuro, but their sencha is
> good too, and I'm quite fond of their matcha. *I also buy shin-cha
> from them every May.
>
> As I recall, you place the order, then they contact you by e-mail with
> the shipping price, which you then pay separately. *I think the prices
> (even after shipping) are quite reasonable for the quality. *Shipping
> also seems fast.

Again, very cool, never knew about that one. Another I had forgot that
I came upon during my search was: http://aoitea.com which is another I
have no direct personal knowledge of but seemed very good as well.

I'd be interested if anyone has had the matcha or the gyokuro/sencha
from Upton tea, as I normally bypass them for almost everything due to
some issues I've had with quality and freshness in previous orders,
but since many of these are packaged and sealed at the producer, they
may be decent. I'll probably just jump in and make an order at some
point to test my theory, but if anyone has experience I'd love to know.