Jing Tea is Tastier Than Green

I keep reading about the beneficial effects of green tea. How it might protect against certain cancers. How it can reduce the odds of having a heart attack. How it might stave off rheumatoid arthritis.

Being a staunch hypochondriac, I go out and buy a bag of these desiccated lawn shavings after each new report. I screw up my face and sip the bitter medicine. I imagine the polyphenals destroying nascent cancer cells, reaming my glued-up arteries and rebuilding my crumbling cartilage. After a couple of days of this bitter liquid, I give up. My cupboard is full of barely-used packets of green tea.

A couple of weeks ago, a company called Jing sent me some tea samples. I was mesmerised by their exotic names: pre-rain Jun Shan silver needle yellow tea, bohea Lapsang supreme, jasmine pearls. They smelled as exotic as they sounded and they tasted even better. I got through the packs in no time.

When I met Ed, the founder of Jing, at his office in the Oval, he told me that you can get up to five infusions out of a single pot. And there I was, chucking the leaves away after the first pot.

Ed runs regular tea tastings at the Jing HQ (a stone’s throw from Oval Tube station) for £30 a go. It’s a great session. Ed is incredibly knowledgeable about tea and has a passion for the stuff that’s infectious.

‘I’m not on a mission to destroy builder’s tea,’ he said. ‘But you can drink fantastic quality tea for a few pence a cup.’

Ed seemed horrified that I drank tea only for the health benefits, but he admitted that many of his customers are interested in the health aspect too. He recently commissioned a laboratory in Germany to conduct tests on his teas to see which contain the most EGCG (the health giving ingredient).

And here I thought I knew something about tea. I was told that the rule of thumb is: white tea contains the most EGCG, then it’s green tea followed by black tea (I hadn’t even heard of yellow tea and puerh tea at that point), but Ed dismissed this belief as ‘nonsense’. (You can check the actual results of the study on the Jing website).

Then Ed brewed up some fresh oolong. 

‘Smell that?’ he said, holding the freshly infused leaves up to my nose, ‘Can you smell apricots?’

I could. It was a million miles away from my crappy lawn shavings. I would never have believed that being healthy could taste so good.

Jing Tea
Canterbury Court
1-3 Brixton Road
Brixton
SW9 6DE

Tel: 020 7183 2113

Image courtesy of Jing Tea