Premium Long Jing (Dragon House Ebay store)

Bit of a conundrum today, what is the point of me drinking mediocre tea? Ok, if I'm away at work and the environment isn't conducive to enjoying the finer points of tea.. fine. Drink the 100g for £10 stuff.

When I'm at home though I don't think I should settle for anything but good tea. It's ok to just want to saviour the finer things in life right?

Speaking of 100g for a tenner, how about 100g for £12? A while back I went down to Teapigs in Brentford and purchased some of their Dragon Well and Mao Feng teas. The idea was that I wanted to see what level of tea this company was actually producing, which in my own eyes was the bee's knees not so long ago. I also ordered some of the lowest grade Dragon Well and Mao Feng from an online Ebay store, both companies were around the same price mark and the exercise was to compare quality.

I'll post a comparison picture of the Mao Feng when I am home, it's good for a laugh.

The Long Jing doesn't look so green in this picture but it's alright, little bit twiggy too so I'm expecting it to be machine processed. It has a similar taste profile to Teapigs Long Jing, fresh grass with a lemon zest and slightly buttery. I'm not going to hang about dissecting this tea, it's not special enough to be worth it really.

The real question here is a moral one. Would I be happy to sell this level of tea at my own tea bar? For sure the casual punter would love it and think it's all rather good, but the reality is that it's not all that swanky. I am rather torn on this subject.