Mmm, that’s better. I used a lot less tea and cut back the steeping time and that improved things immesurably. One thing I’ve been wondering is if this tea is a gyokuro? It doesn’t say anything about it in the tea’s description, but the I’m sure I read that the process of shading the tea (as described here) was what produced the gyokuro’s flavour.
The tea has a smooth, savoury flavour that tappers off into a mildly grassy aftertaste, not nearly as grassy as most Japanese teas tend to be, though. The savory flavour is quite strong, almost like a slightly salty broth – miso soup maybe. Okay not quite, but you get the idea.