There are two dates on my Japanese tea and I cannot tell which matters

In short

Japanese tea packaging routinely carries a packing or processing date and a best-before date, and they answer different questions. The best-before is a shelf-life estimate the packer chose; the packing date is closer to a fact. Neither is the harvest date, which is the thing a buyer actually wants and which is often not printed at all — and for a category that fades as fast as Japanese green tea, the gap between those three is the difference between a fresh tea and a tired one at the same price.

Likely causes, in order

Most likely first. Answer the question under each one before moving on — several of these look alike in the cup and are told apart only by what was done to the leaf.

1. 1. The two dates are a packing date and a best-before date, not two versions of one thing

   Leaf quality

   Check: Are there two dates, one of them roughly six months to a year later than the other?

   Fix: The earlier is when it was packed and the later is the packer's shelf-life estimate from that point. Read the earlier one: it tells you how long the tea has existed, which is what determines how it will taste. The later one tells you what the packer was willing to put in writing.

2. 2. Neither date is the harvest date, and for green tea that is the one that matters

   Leaf quality

   Check: Does the packet say anything about the picking — a flush, a season, a year — as opposed to a packing month?

   Fix: Tea can be held in cold storage in bulk and packed much later, which is normal trade practice and not deception. It does mean a recent packing date is compatible with older leaf. Where a seller states the harvest year or the flush, that is a stronger claim than any packet date; where they do not, a recent packing date is the best available proxy and should be read as an upper bound on freshness rather than a statement of it.

3. 3. Matcha is the case where this matters most and is judged fastest

   Leaf quality

   Check: Is it matcha, and what colour is the powder — vivid green, or dull olive, khaki or yellowish?

   Fix: Colour is the most reliable quick signal available and it outranks any printed date. Milled powder has enormously more exposed surface than leaf and fades correspondingly faster, so an in-date tin can be visibly past its best. Judge the colour first and use the date to explain what you are looking at.

4. 4. The grade language on the packet is not a defined standard

   Leaf quality

   Check: Does the tin say 'ceremonial grade' or 'culinary grade', and is that doing the work of a date in your decision?

   Fix: Those are marketing terms rather than regulated classifications, and they carry no information about age at all. They are not a substitute for a packing date, a stated harvest or the colour of the powder. There is a separate record on the grade question specifically.

Tea types this applies to

• Green tea

Related problems

Sharing a cause category, a tea type or a brewing method with this one.

• My matcha is harsh and I think it is a cooking grade — A matcha bought to drink is dull-coloured, gritty and aggressively bitter, and the tin says culinary, cooking or ingredient grade — or says nothing at all.
• I think the famous tea I bought is not what it claims to be — A tea sold under a protected or famous place name — West Lake Longjing, Tongmu Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong, a named pu-erh village, Anxi Tie Guan Yin — does not match its descriptions, and the price was suspiciously reasonable.
• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• My Japanese green tea comes out cloudy — The liquor is opaque and deep green rather than clear, with fine particles suspended through it and a layer settling in the bottom of the cup.

Sources