I decided to splurge and buy 1 oz of expensive Chinese green tea and 1 oz of a more moderately priced green tea. Bought from a US website but tea shipped directly from China.

I receive the tea and decide to try the more expensive tea first - actually, it's the only one I've opened so far. The tea looks pretty good. Well, it looks like tea. It's green. That's about the extent of my expertise.

I take a pinch of the tea and put it in a mug. Pour hot water (yeah, I know, not boiling, etc.) And I let it steep for a while. Then I sip it. It tastes like hot water with a hint of some flavor, the tea, presumably. To call it mild would be accurate, I suppose. But somehow I expected something that would be more, I don't know, notable. I know it's not black tea, and I certainly know it's not coffee. But it tastes nothing like the commercial green tea (Yogi, Tazo, Bigelow).

On the one hand, I feel smug and self-righteous for cutting back on coffee and drinking green tea (again, yeah, I know, it still has some caffeine), but I'm half wondering if there's something of the emperor and his new clothes. Here I am praising myself for my exquisite good taste, but the kid who proclaimed that the emperor was naked is laughing his ass off because I'm drinking barely flavored hot water.

So -- am I brewing it right? Is the mild taste right? Don't refer me to websites. I've been to tons of them, and they all repeat the same guidance, and even the site where I bought the tea isn't much more helpful. So if anyone has experience with Chinese green tea, feel free to weigh in and set me straight.