Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms

Gyokuro intimidates me.

Like anything higher-end and expensive, I worry about doing it wrong and wasting something lovely. I’ve brewed a gyokuro only once before, and I was too stressed out to even really enjoy it.

But… I’m too tired to fuss over the details. This is the second to last tea in this sampler and I have more tea coming Friday from Den’s (sigh, I wanted so badly to reorder of my favorites from this sampler but I just can’t swallow $30 in international shipping costs right now), and it’s been such a week, I need to stop putting off the nice things.

This is definitely different from the other sencha. The dry leaves smell….deeper, certainly a darker green, and …..something else. Something I haven’t sensed before. I really can’t believe how deeply emerald these leaves are.

135F for two minutes and… the cup is …. strangely both very pale and very cloudy.

It’s certainly quite unlike any of the sencha. Astringency— is it really astringency? There a lot of it, but it’s also very mild, somehow, It make my mouth water but it doesn’t dry me out nearly as much. It’s full and rich and brothy, savory, something in the aftertaste is almost meaty. Not grassy at all. Fascinating.

The second steeping is brighter, a little thinner, a little grassier, but every bit as savory. The damp leaves smell like dried dates and maybe nuts?

There’s a nuttiness to the third steeping too, I feel like, the richness is starting to fade, but that alkaline-noodle-soup flavor lingers on and on.

The leaves are just so pretty, floating there under the water, almost blue-green, watching them is so relaxing, like an underground jungle. It makes me sort of miss when I kept heavily planted aquariums.

I don’t think I quite love gyokuro enough to justify the price, but it is always a unique and wonderful thing to try every now and then when I get samples.

It’s been a stressful week, and I am trying really hard to slow down. I tried the Spring Sun sencha earlier and was too rushed to enjoy it, there was just too much going on. So I am making a specific effort to pay attention, this time.

The wet leaf smells like… well, sencha. I am having a hard time focusing on anything deeper than that, but there is something different in there, the first word that came to mind was ‘butterscotch,’ though I’m really don’t think that’s right.

Oh, wow. Okay. This first steeping is cloudy and physically thick. I’m not sure what I expected, but that thickness, it’s so heavy on the tongue like… not quite like cream, I don’t get a creamy flavor, but in texture… it’s certainly something. It’s got a mild brothy flavor, a little savory

The second steeping is similar, with some higher notes this time, but that heavy texture is still there. I usually enjoy these textures, but right now it feels like it is commanding such full attention of my tongue that I can’t seem to taste it.

Further steepings seem to be more or less the same. I am inclined to blame my scattered brain rather than the tea. Or maybe I am just coming down with something. It wouldn’t surprise me.

Yet, the wet leaf still smells so full of potential, there’s an almost fruity sweetness there, the aroma of new buds.

When I take a tiny, tiny drop of the tea and roll it out as thinly as possible over my tongue, I can kind of taste past the texture and find flavors similar to the ones I am smelling. Or maybe I am just smelling them this way, hah.

I guess regardless of the outcome, at least the process of focusing on the tea and paying attention in general is still deeply relaxing.

I need to order more tea soon. Specifically, I need to find an everyday sencha so that I can maintain the habit on days when I just don’t have the mental capacity to fully engage with new teas. Or… maybe what I actually need to do is maintain the habit of fully engaging with any tea, on a regular basis, regardless of whether or not I feel like I am up to it.

I haven’t felt up to it in a while, but it forces me to relax, and I know I need that.

I love this like I love any houjicha. It does taste a little ‘cleaner’ compared to most houjicha, like, I dunno, less on the earthy side, more on the peanut-butter-toast side. I don’t know that I’d necessarily prefer it over the basic houjicha, but I wouldn’t mind having it in my houjicha rotation for some variety.

I am trying too hard to do too much at once. This tea makes me slow down.

It does have a beautiful deep sweetness. It doesn’t kick in fully until later steepings but when it does, it really blooms.

Or… maybe it was there all along, but I only paid attention enough to catch it in later steepings.

It has a crisp, fresh vegetal flavor, like snap peas and summer squash, maybe young asparagus. Not terribly grassy or chlorophyllic. This might make an exceptionally refreshing cold brew, actually.

There’s a… floralness to this one, a rich nuttiness and a sweet honey aftertaste. I really, really like it. Like. wow. What even is this? The most glorious thing in a cup. What makes it so different…? I have had so many… still good, perfectly satisfactory roasted teas, but this?? What other level of ambrosia is this?? I feel like this is the roasted-tea ideal I have in my memory and have been searching for, and until now have been settling for less. And less is still… really good, but this is a perfection I have only ever dreamed of.

I absolutely love how huge these leaves are. It’s just a lot of fun to watch brew. A very smooth and comforting flavor. I may actually pick up a bunch of this; it’s very budget friendly and might be the perfect after-dinner tea.

Smelling both the dry and wet leaves really made me want to sneeze, so I didn’t inhale too much.

The first steeping immediately coats the tongue. It’s thick and sour. Kind of a toasty aftertaste. which is weird. Maybe I should have washed my pot more thoroughly after drinking all those roasted teas. Interestingly it’s very mild overall, except when you’re hit with that… sour-astrigency? Maybe lot more sour than astringent, but it hits the back and sides of the tongue in such a thick and juicy way.

It’s…. extremely intense, though, I think a bit too much for me. Drinking it also gives me a weird…. headache/sinusy feeling, and a tickle in my nose, like I am going to sneeze. Is it possible to have respiratory allergies to tea? Did a bunch of pollen end up in this somehow?

I gave my housemate some of it and they also got the nose-tickly feeling from it, so at least it’s not just me.

I think this is the first tea in the sampler I just can’t drink past the first steeping. The flavor is complex and interesting, and I’d really like to explore it more, but it’s probably not a good idea to keep drinking a tea that is giving me such weirdly strong allergy symptoms. I don’t see any of the other notes mentioning this though, so maybe it really is just us for some reason. How odd.

I believe the Brightness tea I tried the other day was also a summer-harvest tea, so it’ll be interesting to see how this differs.

Dry leaves smell plenty grassy and dark green, sweeter, I think, than the last tea, and maybe there’s some milkiness in there. Wet leaves are foresty, mossy and…. why do I keep getting chocolate vibes in these teas?

For once, I don’t think I understeeped the first cup. It’s certainly…. interesting, starting out kind of sweet and brothy and turning astringent and … sour, like a hot and sour soup, maybe. It feels heavy and substantial in the mouth. The second steeping is a bit more immediate on the astringency but also… richer, more savory, less sweet. The sour notes are nearly gone, but seem to return in the third steeping, a umami-adjacent juiciness. It’s got some background grassiness, but that’s far from the focus. I’m not sure I can really define the focus, but it’s… it’s really good and just so interesting, competes with the Autumn Moon for my favorite tea in this sampler. I’d like to get more of each and try them side by side.

Looking at the website, it appears the only difference between this tea and Brightness is that Brightness is shaded for two weeks before harvest, while this tea is not. And I think I prefer this tea to Brightness, so maybe I just prefer unshaded teas? Brightness was still very interesting its own way, and might be excellent in certain applications, but this tea is more to my personal tastes, I feel. I love how so many of the teas in this sampler vary just slightly enough that I can start drawing conclusions like this.

I should start thinking ahead though, as I realize I’m about halfway through this sampler. While I still have enough houjicha to last me ~2 weeks, I should probably start shopping around for new sencha to try, given shipping can take a while. I’ll need to finish this sampler before I make any reordering decisions, so in the meantime I’m open to vendor or specific sencha recommendations, if anyone has any suggestions!

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.

Measuring out genmaicha for a session in grams doesn’t really…. work. The brown rice is so heavy. You have to at least double it, if not more. So, some adjustments had to be made to get a flavor out of this 5 gram sample packet.

It’s really been a few years since I had a genmaicha. The delightful aroma of the wet leaves has me wondering why. It’s so satisfying, savory, nutty. The toasted flavor is entirely different from the toasted flavor of houjicha. Something in it just feels…. extra nourishing.

Sticks!

I think it’s very cute that each of the different types of kukicha in this sampler has a different little bird on it.

It smells like. roasted sticks! With maybe a hint of sweetness. But mostly roasted. Actually, it smells a tad burned. Like if I smelled this when I pulled something out of the oven, I would be a little concerned.

When you add the water, it definitely looks like mud. Kukicha is already a weird tea to explain to your family. Roasted kukicha, even more so. Luckily, no one is home to judge me.

When I went to smell the wet leaves, something in there was…. I dunno, it had a cooling sensation, like maybe something mentholy? I sniffed it a few more times, trying to figure out what it was. I inhaled deeply. And then I sneezed. A lot. So much, my ears were ringing!

I hope I am not somehow allergic to something in this stick-tea. That would be a shame. Well, if I have an allergic reaction and die, I hope whoever finds me thinks to read the screen I am sitting in front of and realizes what the culprit is.

I really need to figure out words to differentiate between different roasted flavors besides Roasted. I guess it’s kind of a roasted grain flavor, like mugicha, but more chlorinated. That’s not the right word either. But I’m unable to pinpoint exactly what I am thinking of. There’s just a hint of effervescent freshness I get every so often, I think I am associating it with something in Tiger Balm or some kind of cleaning product. It’s not unpleasantly chemical or anything, I just wish I could identify it.

It’s dry, in a wood-y type of way, which for some reason is more tolerable with stick-teas. It feels more like a flavor that belongs.

In the third steeping that I left longer than intended, I was pleasantly surprised by a mouthful of …cocoa and cinnamon, almost, rich and dark. I think I really am just very shy of oversteeping and probably not letting these teas reach their potential. Another reason that I should have ordered two of these samplers, hah.

The astringency becomes more pronounced and less pleasant as it cools; this tea seems to be at its best (and most comforting) when it’s piping hot.

Four or five steepings in and my favorite part is the raisin-sweet aftertaste on the roof of my mouth. And… it is comforting. I don’t know what it is about these roasted teas that sometimes just deactivate my racing brain. I guess all teas do that to some extent, but there’s something extra in roasted teas.

This is also making me want to make gimbap for dinner. Sometimes green teas stimulate my appetite and sometimes they suppress it, I really don’t know why, or which. But I think in this case, the comfort of this tea is nudging me towards comfort food, so I think I will go start some rice.

Now this one smells quite grassy, the dry leaf somewhere between hay and lawn clippings, but also something else, maybe a bit damp and mulchy, soil-y, and… oh, well, I guess this is literally named “earth.” That tracks.

The wet leaf smells about like what I might just call “classic” sencha. Like one whiff of this would probably make anyone go, “oh yeah, that’s sencha.” Someday maybe I’ll have better words to describe this, but all I can say is that the scent is quite directly attached to a specific memory.

First steeping is quite mild, but I got a lovely surprise melon rind or cucumber note amid this grassiness.

I think I chronically under-steep my first steeping, but the second always seems to be where senchas really wake up. Another note about this tea said it would be good with sushi, and I feel like I agree. While I’m not finding anything fantastically bold or stand-out about this sencha, it’s just overall pleasant, with the grassiness and borderline savory brothiness I tend to favor in sushi-sencha without too much astringency.

I am gradually starting to relearn the visual differences in these teas. The leaves in this one are substantially smaller compared to the leaves in the autumn harvest tea I had the other day, which makes sense. Not especially small, but the autumn harvest tea had some impressively large leaves in it. This tea also seems a bit more fragmented than the last, but maybe that’s also just a common appearance with smaller leaves. I’m not sure what amount of stem-iness is common in these teas, but it feels like there are fewer in this spring tea. Hm, now I kind of wish I had photographed the leaves of prior teas for later comparison. Maybe I’ll start doing that.

By steeping 4 or 5 (I’ve lost track), it’s mellowed out into an array of boiled vegetable flavors, I’m getting bok choi and lima bean, maybe a hint of not-unpleasant collard-bitterness. I have been doing these tea sessions on an empty stomach lately, and I feel like it helps me tune into the flavors a little more, in the way that everything tastes better when you’re hungry. So far I have yet to get an upset stomach from this practice, though I have been warned some teas can do that.

It says on the packet that these teas were harvested from 30 year old tea trees. I wonder what flavor differences there are between old and new trees? I don’t see anything advertising “young” trees, so I am inclined to think that the older trees are more favored. Some very brief initial research shows that older teas are greatly favored in the puerh world as they impact how well a tea ages, but I am not sure what their role is in un-aged sencha. Hmmmm.

If I regret anything about ordering this Obubu sampler, it is perhaps not ordering two. It might have been fun to drink one session going in blind, as I often try to do, and a second after reading through the tasting notes and having a better grasp on what others find in each tea, and see if I can find similar flavors. A form of.. I dunno, mentally calibrating my tastes, I guess.

Really, it’s just nice to be mindfully tasting tea like this again. The last time I was in this habit, it was nearly a decade ago and I was coping with… a lot. Tea kept me grounded. Life is a lot easier now in many ways, even if it’s a little harder in others. I don’t necessarily need the tea habit as much now, but… I just really love it. And it’s nice to be finally enjoying a period in my life where I can do things that I love because I love them, without them needing to fulfill some practical function to be worth doing. I’m so grateful for that.

Dry, these leaves smell… almost fruity, like a dried fruit, but only just barely, in a sticky way, maybe a little nutty, maybe dried watermelon with the seeds still in it. Wet, there’s a …creamy and maybe vaguely chocolatey undertone? I dunno. Something in it just briefly reminded me of warm chocolate chai lattes I would make on hot summer nights back when I lived in the south, sipping before bed, listening to podcasts.

But this is a sencha, not a chocolate chai latte, so I’m not sure what scent-note exactly is slinging me into that memory.

Sipping it though, wow, it really is creamy though, somehow. While also being astringent enough to dry up the roof of my mouth and back of my throat a little. Just… how interesting. There’s a flavor I’m getting right before the astringency hits that I wish I could linger on a little longer. It’s so interesting. Maybe almost nutty, but.. I dunno. Spicy isn’t right either. I really don’t know why I’m getting chocolate vibes from this, but I am, definitely. But not like, sweet chocolate or overly dark chocolate, maybe more like a cocoa butter flavor. I dunno

The aftertaste is like… very fresh steamed broccoli. Very fresh, before it starts getting that cabbagey flavor. Or maybe edamame. Hmm.

I forgot how fun this is, hah, just pressure-free trying things and guessing flavors. It’s been such a long looooong day at work and I’m not technically done yet but I missed lunch, so a tea break felt in order.

Whoof, the second steeping is very astringent, but after I get used to it, it feels like a stronger version of the first steeping, that creaminess is really something, you could absolutely convince me I was drinking a latte right now if my eyes were closed. Maybe an oatmilk latte, specifically, there’s definitely some grain flavors to this, like a hearty, whole, filling grain, maybe some hot cereal, or a matcha latte with buttered toast. And… there’s that interesting fruity note again, maybe just a light, juicy acidity.

The third steeping is starting to wane but I think that juicy acidity is getting a little stronger. Something in there for a second reminded me of lotion. The creaminess is fading and the graininess is starting to take over a little more.

This is the first time in a very long time that I am actually drinking higher end, not expired sencha. Was it always this good? I am excited for the rest of the teas in this sampler, if they are anywhere near as fascinating as this.

Yes, yes, and yes.

Houjicha, my beloved. I have been craving this for months.

I had a number of places scoped out to order houjicha from, but of course, I can’t order just houjicha. I mean, I could, but the baseline shipping costs make it feel… not really worth it unless I am ordering several pounds. But several places that offer free shipping with an order minimum have suspended that (a relatively minor, if still somewhat disruptive side effect of living in interesting times). After going back and forth between a few places and waiting longer than I would like to see if the shipping situation changed, someone directed me to Obubu. Not specifically for Houjicha, though I was pleasantly surprised to see the selection, but because I was asking around looking for sencha-specific ‘tea of the month’-type clubs. While their membership program is less an ‘of the month’ club and more like a harvest-based farmshare program, truthfully that’s really a lot closer to what I’m looking for, and makes a lot more sense for sencha specifically. I’m…very intrigued, but figured I should try their tea out first. So despite shipping equating to nearly $20 usd, the most I’ve ever probably paid to have anything shipped in the last 15 years, I put in an order for their 18-serving sampler pack, 80g of basic-roast houjicha, and a futanashi kyusu. Not that I really need another kyusu, but I’ve never had a lidless kyusu before, and it was so darn affordable (cheaper than the shipping, certainly).

Everything finally arrived the other day, and I was thrilled. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such an extensive sampler before. As I was trying to figure out what to try first, I noticed the bottom seam of the dark roast houjicha packet was starting to come undone and a few leaves were escaping. At least that made my choice easy.

In smelling the dry leaves, the first thing I notice past the obvious toasty notes is a faint sweetness. When wet, the first thing that comes to mind is “mushrooms.” Quite different things, there. The liquor itself is… good, but nuance beyond that comforting toastiness I have been craving for so long is eluding me. The first cup I may have understeeped though, I forget this isn’t nearly as delicate as typical sencha. Further steepings seem to bring out a deeper sweetness underneath increasing earthiness, with just a touch of that chewing-on-a-pencil wooden-astringency, but the dominant flavor is definitely that toastiness.

It pretty much hits on what I like about houjicha. Something about the toasted flavor just deactivates my fight-or-flight response and makes me feel cozy and safe. Yet the analytical side of me can’t help but wonder if tea is affected by roasting in a similar way that coffee is, wherein the more it is roasted, the more it just starts to taste like … roastedness, losing any other nuances. In truth, I should have tried the basic roast at least once first to have a baseline to compare this to, but oh well. When I was initially browsing the store page, I was pretty intrigued by the concept of a Dark Roast houjicha, so I’m glad I got to try it.

This kyusu, by the way, is also quite nice. The pour seems better than my other kyusus (which, to be fair, are also inexpensive mass-produced pots), and I am really enjoying the soft, rounded shape. The spout is also wide enough to easily fit a bottle brush and I feel like I can actually see all around the inside, so it should be easy to keep clean. It’s larger than I need, but nothing stops me from filling it only partway, and I prefer that to the recurring problem I seem to have of overfilling my smaller kyusus and making a mess trying to pour them, hah. I think I’ll stick to using this one for a while.

Sipdown! (15 | 467)

Finishing off the last sample packet of this from a 2020 subscription package.

It’s intriguing that they call this an oolong. I’m not sure what the difference is versus their sencha – both say they were lightly steamed, rolled, then dried. Nevertheless, it tastes like a delicious light sencha to me. Very smooth even thought it was steeped for two minutes, sweet and creamy with a slight evergreen aftertaste. Overall it’s quite light and fragrant with hints of floral. I will say the color is different – a sort of light golden brown versus green.

Anyway, quite enjoyable. I have a newer batch of this tea as well, so I’ll have to see how that ones tastes.

It took only one sample for this matcha to win me over. Officially, one of the best matchas I’ve ever had which is even more impressive considering how old the sample was.

The dry powder smelled fresh, sweet, and fragrant. It frothed easily and had a rich green color. Although I intended to make a latte with it, I first tasted the prepared matcha and was surprised by how delicious it was on its own. Smooth and creamy without any bitterness and the in-your-face umami of most matcha. It’s the only matcha I’ve ever been able to tolerate on its own. Was tempted to have the rest of it straight but decided to go ahead and have it as an iced latte. A little sweetener, a few ice cubes, and a splash of oat milk and it was outrageously good.

Definitely going to hit up Obubu for my next matcha order. Thanks for the sample Cameron B

Sipdown! (8 | 105)

I was surprised to find that this was my only batch of this tea when I went to mark it as a sipdown in my spreadsheet! I guess I never noticed that Obubu must not include it often in subscription shipments. So yay, I get to remove it from my Steepster cupboard! \o/

It’s a tasty sencha, but not one of my favorites from them. It’s interesting because it’s a shaded tea, but it’s a summer harvest instead of spring, which makes it quite different from some of the other kabusecha I’ve had recently.

It does have a bit of that cheek-puckering intensity to it, but noticeably less so than something like Sencha of the Wind. It also has a bit more bitterness, and rather than the flavor reminding me of steamed spinach, it’s more cruciferous in nature – maybe like brussels sprouts combined with cauliflower. There is a much more noticeable astringency as well, even midway through the sip, and overall the flavor is grassier and less sweet.

Still a good tea, just not my preference from Obubu. Though to be honest, they have so many different sencha that it’s difficult to remember which ones I like best… XD

Sipdown! (11 | 420)

Finishing off an old packet of this one. Still has plenty of flavor left though!

It’s a very savory sencha, with a lot of deep-steamed vegetal notes. Mostly intense, slightly bitter greens like kale or chard, layered with umami.

It’s pleasant, but a bit heavy and one-dimensional compared to other Obubu sencha I’ve had recently. I see it’s a shaded tea which explains the intensity of flavor. But it’s not one I would order as they have many other sencha that I like more. :)

Mastress Alita’s Monthly Sipdown Challenge: a tea with spinach/artichoke notes

Sipdown 1/26

Another one of the green teas that I bought during a random craving. This one is really nice! None of that weird latex flavor I get in so many green teas. This is fresh, vibrant, and spinachy.

Sipdown! (8 | 417)

So I was saving my last packet of this to send to a friend, but I got my fall subscription package today, and inside were five more packets! So I’m finishing off this last older sample and I’ll send out one of the fresh ones.

Just wrote a note about this yesterday so I don’t have much more to say. I think this is a very well-balanced sencha that’s easy to drink. It has a nice combination of freshness and umami without being too heavy, and a creamy nuttiness that’s really yummy.

Another not-technically-sipdown note. I only have one more sample packet of this one, and I’ll be sending it to an Instagram friend as part of an Obubu sampler. Spread the Obubu love!

I haven’t been drinking many sencha or Japanese teas in general lately, so this just blew my mind when I took a sip. I guess I forgot how much I love sencha and its depth of flavor. This is so rich and buttery, making me think of kabocha or butternut squash as well as nuttier notes of edamame. Umami is there of course, but somewhat subdued. There’s a lot of vegetal sweetness here, and even as the tea cools not much bitter to speak of. Also some dry grass and hay, but in a sweet and comforting way, like lying in a pile of fresh, clean hay. Spinach lends depth and a nice, rich bottom note alongside the buttery squash.

Second steep has a touch more astringency and is a bit more refreshing with grass and nori notes. Still scrumptious!

So much nom. And there was much rejoicing.

My first time trying an autumn picked sencha. I didn’t even know this was a thing. Gotta hand it to Obubu Tea Farms for such an eclectic selection.

The appearance of the leaves is one of the strangest I’ve ever seen in Japanese green tea. It’s a mixture of twigs, stems, and flat yellow and green blade like leaves that sort of resemble a broken dragonwell. The leaves emit a strong seaweed aroma. Once heated, this turns into kelp and popcorn.

The brewed tea produces a light green, clear infusion. Gentle toasted nori and sakura flavor. Slight umami. Very smooth. Subsequent steeps bring out brothy notes along with more seaweed. It remains smooth and full bodied without any bitterness.

This sample is quite a few months old by now. Curious as to how it would have tasted at peak freshness.

Thanks for another interesting sample Cameron B