Hankook TeaPowdered Green Tea, Teuksun, 3.53 Ounce

Below, is my previous review of this tea from a few years ago. Since then, Hankook Tea has graciously sent me a free half size package of this tea again, and I've taken the opportunity to reevaluate this tea and my thoughts about it. I really did appreciate the concern this tea vendor showed for my experience as a customer and tea drinker.I casually prepared this tea in a bowl with a chasen. I wasn't able to get the finer foam that one gets from matcha, but I did manage to produce a layer of medium-sized bubbles. The liquor color was a deep, pea soup green, and the initial fragrance was of grass and mostly hay.My sips had the same astringency and gritty "bite" that I remembered from before, but I could also pick up the faint light brightness that the vendor mentioned. Even when trying to be objective and fair to the tea for the grade it is, I think it's still difficult to forget the taste of fine matcha, and I think I let this be a source of bias for my previous review.This is no matcha, but I've also had this tea many times since Hankook graciously offered it to me a few weeks ago, and I can't say that my experiences have been unpleasant. If you're trying to wake up in the morning or get an afternoon pick-me-up, this will do the trick. Also, it's convenient to put a tiny bit of it into cold water for instant iced green tea. Many thanks to Hankook for letting me try this again!-----------------------------------------------------------------I spent a lot of time reading reviews of this powdered tea on other websites because I'm generally paranoid about buying tea on Amazon, especially powdered tea and matcha. I read that this was partially shade grown. I've also had normal Teuksun Sejak so I figured this tea would be at least as good as that.I realize this isn't supposed to be matcha (like Hankook Tea's Gamnong Matcha, which I like), but this is supposed to be of higher quality than typical powdered tea on the market, and higher quality than the normal powdered green tea Hankook Teas carries.The color was not very good. A pale brown. It tasted kind of like sand. If Teuksun Powdered Green Tea is this bad, I can only imagine how bad Hankook Tea's standard powdered green tea is. I'll probably never try it. I don't dislike Hankook Tea. Like I said, I like their Gamnong Matcha and their sejak grade loose leaf teas. Maybe I got a bad batch with this powder.