Side note: I've managed to duplicate the flavor of regular lipton by brewing Bai Hao for about an hour and then reheating it in a microwave. Hahaha! That soun

Side note: I've managed to duplicate the flavor of regular lipton by brewing Bai Hao for about an hour and then reheating it in a microwave. Hahaha! That sounds about right. I've had your standard western tea product only a handful of times in the last few years. Each time I've come away surprised by how impotent and un-tea-like it was. It took me a couple of years to develop a taste for the flavors in good tea; I go back to the regular stuff, and find it surprising that all the subtlety is missing. When you look at how it's made, the tea you get in the grocery store is analogous to hot dogs: broken pieces, leftover dust, dried out old bits with all of the potent oils and interest gone. If you're just lookin' for a meal, hot dogs will do ya, but don't let me hear you go comparing them to steak. Though they do make some high quality tea bags these days. I've never seen them in a grocery store, though. Good tea bags have whole tea leaves in them, not dust. And a serious giveaway is that they're HUGE -- tea doesn't give you the right flavor if it doesn't have at least a coffee mug worth of space to unfurl in.