Hishiwa

I have had this a few times, but this steep is significantly good enough to warrant a full review.
The initial sip is very green, but washes over your mouth with a slight sweetness and a slight seaweed flavor. This is not a terribly spinachy or umami sencha. The brothy feel is less from the savory elements and more from the addition of matcha, which is serving as a thickening agent. If you really look, you can find a bit of bitterness at the back of the sip, but it is so slight that it makes the tea juicy instead of astringent.
I really enjoy drinking this. It is an obviously green tea that does not have a super dominant flavor profile, as something like a dragonwell would. It comes off as fresh and green and slightly sweet, in addition to comforting and warming. I love these feelings, so I enjoy this tea, though I would say it is particularly special.

Sipdown (125)!

Sample comes from Liquid Proust!

Tried this for the first time and finished it off by making a pot of it to sip on during my Sommelier class. I didn’t think I’d like it that much, but by keeping to a pretty short steep time I think I managed to produce a brew I was really quite happy with.

The predominant thing about this blend was that it was very buttery and creamy with some really nice, lovely nutty and marine notes and a bit of a mellow, sweet vegetal flavour. It reminded me a little of stewed spinach or green beans to some extent. But also seaweed. And I think the matcha added this tiny little kick of floral flavour too. Overall, it was a very pleasant and rich pot of tea – one of those ones that makes me question why I don’t drink more green tea (other than matcha) than I currently do.

Have you ever experienced a green tea that made your mouth feel dry but when it cools down it’s quite refreshing?
Well… that’s this tea, but it’s very odd because I would never associate anything with matcha to be more refreshing cold.
This tea looks ugly because matcha powder sucks the vibrant green out of any tea its powdered on. Once it cooled down I checked the leaf and saw what I had guessed from the taste. This is some mid grade stuff, it’s not bad and it’s not the best so it’s that kind of tea you just drink wen you don’t want to critique tea or even think about what you’re drinking.
I’m not sure why it taste refreshing cold but dry hot… should such a thing change the scoring or do I just look at the positives?