If you try to buy green tea in a supermarket – even in a very large one – there is a good chance that you will only find one type of green tea: the ‘green tea’ type on the package. The green tea that these packages contain is of the absolute lowest quality and therefore they can best be avoided. Instead, you should try to buy your tea from Chinese markets or food stores, or order it via the Internet, because you can then choose from the full range of green tea.

So what different green teas are there? Well, the most common green tea in Western countries is low-quality gunpowder – that’s the stuff you usually find in the supermarket. It is used because it is cheap and stays fresh longer than other green teas because of the way it is rolled into small balls.

The most popular green tea in China is Dragon Well, or Lung Ching, a bright green and fairly expensive type of tea. Many consider it the best green tea, but because it is expensive and not much is produced, it is prone to imitation – make sure you trust the person from whom you buy this tea to sell you the real thing.

In Japan, green tea drinkers prefer Sencha, a sweeter green tea. It’s cheaper than Dragon Well, more the type of tea you could drink every day, but it’s no worse. Sencha is also more easily available here than Chinese green tea, and there is also a slightly cheaper version called Bancha.

The sweetest type of green tea is Macha, the tea used in Japanese tea ceremonies. It is very expensive and very beautiful and tastes more like a luxury dessert than the daily tea you are probably used to – in Japan it is a popular taste of candy and ice cream. If you ever get the chance to drink Macha, it is worth trying, because it is the king of green tea.