Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms

Sending some to Azzrian but couldn’t pass up a cup while doing so! Woot!

WOW!

Many Houjicha’s I have tried seem to taste and smell quite similar. This one from Obubu smells like you think it would but I have to say the flavor is much different but in a VERY good way!

This Houjicha is very sweet! Almost juicy, even! There is an incredible smoothness to it too! Near creamy! It also reminds me of spring and summer -a very natural and beautiful flavor. I like this very much and am enjoying it as I type this!

This was an amazing surprise!

This is the first matcha I’ve ever had, although I have had matcha-flavored foods (green tea gelato was delicious!). I guess I can’t really compare it to any other matcha, but I must say this tea is DELICIOUS! The smell is amazing and the taste is super sweet, and very thick. Great tea!

Such an interesting tea, quite good flavors and a light peppery aroma.
I have been working my way through my sample pack from Obubu, and thought I would make this one today as it is so very warm and humid. I followed their recommended brewing instructions, using my kyusu to hold the entire 5 gram sample. Nice grassy fragrance to the dry leaves, and mix of leaf size as this is aracha (unsorted) tea straight from the farm.

1st steep: 30 seconds at 185F, yields a really nice light emerald green liquid, with slightly peppery aroma to the wet leaves. I can’t resist drinking this hot, saving the second steep for “iced” tea. It has a really nice vegetal taste, with more spinach flavors and grassy undertones. No kelpiness, just a real nice earthy green flavor.
2nd steep: quick 15 second steep at 185F, then poured over ice. This is truly where this tea shines. It tastes amazingly good, refreshing and ‘sparkling’ — but definitely not too sweet. It is beautifully clear, and an appealing gold-green.

I am cold brewing the remaining leaves to see if I can stretch this sample, not only because I am frugal, but because I am really liking this tea! This one is going on my shopping list…

Another very nice tea from Obubu Tea Plantations in Kyoto. I have been drinking this today using the parameters specified by Obubu, and it makes for a very pleasant set of infusions of a very bright and lightly buttery character. Nice vegetal taste with only a slight touch of bitterness in the first steep. It doesn’t take much imagination to taste the “early summer sun shining brightly.”

A really nice healthy green taste; It goes well with food, but I am enjoying it all on it’s own!

The aroma of the dry leaves and stems is very pleasant, with a grassy vegetal quality that is reminiscent of fresh cut hay and autumn breezes. The stems in my sample were quite prominent, and sturdier than those in the Yanagi Bancha sample I had tried previously, but the leaves were very fine, and a beautiful dark green.

Using my kyusu I did three extractions of this sample, all using approximately 3.5 ounces of water:
1st steep: 45 seconds at 180 F
2nd steep: a quick steep of only about 10 seconds at 180 F
3rd steep: 30 seconds at 180 F

The wet leaves have an amazing aroma, unlike any sencha I have tried before. An almost peppery quality like mustard greens, but this does not come through in the tea. All three infusions were of similar quality in being a bright yellow green, clear, refreshing and well balanced. There are some nice grassy undertones and a softness that is similar to many spring time pickings.

This would make a nice accompaniment to almost any meal, but is very pleasant to drink all alone. Another very nice tea from Obubu. :)

I received my sampler from Obubu Tea and what a beautiful sampler it is. The packaging is artistically done, and all text is in Japanese, so if you may have to do a bit of detective work matching the inscriptions to translations provided on the guide provided. It is filled with different versions of Sencha, Genmaicha, and several different roasts of Houjicha. All great temptations, but I chose to start by brewing up this Bancha and am very happy I did!

Time to load up the sample into my kyusu, and take a few deep breaths of the lovely aroma of the dry leaves and stems. A bit like alfalfa hay, and a real sweetness that is hard to explain, but nice to experience.

1st steep: 30 seconds at about 190 degrees F
2nd steep: 15 seconds at about 190 degrees F
3rd steep: 30 seconds at about 190 degrees F

Now this is real aracha (http://www.obubutea.com/tea-info/aracha/), in the best way possible. It is nicely refreshing in being both mildly sweet and mildly savory. I found myself chewing on a couple of the twigs/stems just to verify this is where that fascinating sweet flavor is coming from. This may not have the refined complexities of the higher grade teas, but for me it is a really pleasant connection to the tea plantation, and I look forward to the other samples to follow!

A lot more savoury and less bitter than I was expecting, especially as I brewed this tea with near-boiling water. I really like this tea – it has a surprisingly strong taste for a sencha, very vegetal and buttery as you might expect, but with more umami than I would have expected. The taste becomes less rounded and more bitter as the tea cools.

I drank this iced. I love love this tea. Tastes like buttery spinach. Used 1 tablespoon for 16 oz. This is my kind of sencha. No real astringency, slight sweetness.

I prefer the darker roasts, but this is wonderful iced. Very tasty, toasty and refreshing. I really like their series of houjichas. Wonderful diversity! Cold brews nicely too.

This was a tasty little genmaicha. Satisfyingly roasty, but nice and sweet. It tasted lighter and brighter than others I’ve had.

I was not expecting to like it. I read in the reviews the word “smoky” and mentally wrote this tea off. Wow, this tea makes me rethink houjichas! Deep, robust, very chocolately. So dark and yum. It’s a sweet kind of smoky likeness. I’m going to try the latte recipe on Obubu’s website. That sounds pretty delightful with heat of the summer day.

Check out my video-review here: http://healthyprofessionals.blog.com/2011/06/05/the-tea-show-episode-9-sencha-of-the-spring-sun-obubu-tea/

very good lots of umami good for sushi or any light fish dish

very good lots of sweetness and alot of fun to make

Wow… this tea smells so nice! It’s a toasted, popcorn scent. The green tea is long and thicker than I’m used to. I had to taste the dry tea as I love to eat the American Tea Room’s genmaicha. It wasn’t as great for eating, unfortunately, and I’m not familiar enough with the different kinds of green tea to be able to point out the difference.

I don’t know the exact temp, boiling, then waited a few minutes for the water to cool down. I steeped it for a while as I wanted it strong. About five minutes. It’s excellent! It’s nutty, rich, not bitter (which I had worried about a bit, being a green.) The green tea is so nice. It’s strong, yet smooth and fresh. It’s a great combination of flavors that create a very different, very delicious type of genmaicha.

I’ve been wanting to try this for a long time, so I finally ordered some sakura tea from Obubu Tea.

The tea has a very delicate cherry scent, with a salty undertone, and tastes similar. The taste is much stronger than I expected from a single blossom: uniquely floral and refreshing, mildly sweet, with a hint of salt. You can also add the salted water you soaked the blossom in back into the tea to taste, which makes the flavour stronger and saltier.

If you have glass teaware, I recommend using it with this tea so that you can watch the blossom unfurl itself when you pour on the hot water. You can get several infusions out of each blossom – I’ve drank this tea several times now and usually get four or five infusions out of a single blossom.

I got the sampler from Obubu. I went for this tea first, since it was perfect for making into iced tea. The leaves are very interesting. They are very rough looking. I brewed the recommended away. It’s very thick tasting, so I added more ice. It has a nice, strong flavor. I chugged the sample in less than 2 minutes. Rebrews 2 more times.

It seemed lightly grassy. I would drink this again, though I am more interested in what else they have to offer.

Another fantastic Sencha from Obubu. So smooth, sweet and with a lovely fruit note that hits the palate toward the end of the sip. Beautiful.

Very nice. I think this is only the 3rd genmaicha i’ve had, but this is easily the best. The toasted rice isn’t too overbearing, like has been the case in the previous genmaichas. Very drinkable.

So far so good. Nice and sweet, but with a backbone of complexity and depth. Looking forward to figuring this tea out and really getting it to sing.