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Dry leaves smell very.. deeply green, very chlorophyll-rich, with that bitter edge that tends to accompany darker greens, like chard and lacinato kale. Wet leaves remind me of a pond overgrown with algae and teeming with life.

Despite my attempt to brave my fears and not understeep this, letting it sit a whole 15 seconds longer, the first steeping is still quite mild, slightly green-bitter at the backend, otherwise, vaguely pondwater flavored.

The second steeping explodes. Green peas and spinach, a slight nuttiness and a vegetal sweetness, a pretty intense green flavor that makes me feel like I am getting a lot of vitamins in this. I don’t know how much of that is actually true. I guess for one they’d have to be water soluble nutrients, and probably only in very small quantities, equating to those in a mouthful of spinach at most. But, no matter. I’ve never been into tea for any alleged health benefits, but it’s a nice perk when it happens.

There’s a hint of a crisp mineral-ness to this too, brightening the dark-green depth just enough. I keep coming back to “pondwater” and believe me when I say I mean that in the most affectionate way. The minerally and algal flavors just meld into something I can’t think of a better way to describe.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s agreeing very well with my empty stomach. Some green teas are just… like that, and I don’t entirely know why. Maybe I can narrow it down, though, if I keep taking notes.

I will say, I am also getting a very relaxed headiness from this tea, what I used to (and I guess may as well still) call “tea-high.” It is also something that some teas do better than others, for reasons I’ve never really narrowed down. I think in the past I’ve most commonly gotten it from younger sheng, and once very intensely from a mid-grade silver needle. I’m uncertain if I’ve ever gotten this from a sencha before. It’s interesting. But for all I know, it’s nothing to do with the tea, and more to do with other biochemical factors of whatever else is going on in my body at the moment. I’ve never really scienced it out that far.

I really need to start noting whether or not I would purchase more of this in these notes, because otherwise I am going to forget. I think only very rarely do I re-purchase tea, though, it’s so much more fun to try new things than familiar things, even things that I know I love. And when I do want to repurchase tea, it’s usually for the comforting factor of it rather than the complexity or interest of it, and the comforting factors are usually factors that are present in teas of lower grades, so it becomes a matter of finding the most budget-friendly version of the tea rather than the version that most perfectly encapsulates what I am looking for.

And tea is so darn seasonal, really, especially sencha. who knows if a repurchase of this tea would be from the same harvest, it might be entirely different! But I guess one can assume that summer harvest teas from the same farm would at least retain similar enough characteristics.

Anyway… as for this tea, I’m not sure I would go out of my way for it, but if I did end up with more of it, I think I might like to try it with a hearty, smokey stew, or some kind of campfire-meal. It just tastes like such an outdoorsy sort of tea. I’d also like to try cold-brewing it, I think.