Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms

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Soooo I meant to make this one into a milk tea, but my husband was talking to me while I was pouring the water, and I added 16 ounces instead of 4. So it became a regular pot of tea, ha ha!

It’s a bit too much leaf for this preparation, so the flavor is sharper than usual and a bit too strong. Still so tasty though, with a lovely nuttiness and slight smoke alongside the toasty autumn leaves and firewood.

Happily, I still have a couple of other hojicha from Obubu, along with a few more by other brands!

Sort-of sipdown. This is the last of one 80g packet, but I still have some little sample packets of this from my subscription. I was happy when they started sending the subscription teas in individually sealed 5g increments, it should really help keep them fresh while I dawdle around, drinking other things… :P

Anyway, this tea. To me, it seems like a somewhat dark roast, as it has a rather intense and rustic roasted flavor. It’s almost slightly smoky with a bit of char around the edges over a nice pile of crunchy autumn leaves. I find myself thinking of sitting around a bonfire, bundled up against the brisk autumn chill. Perhaps roasting nuts in the embers, as this has a light nuttiness to it as well.

It’s supremely comforting, and so perfect for the season, although the weather here has been too warm for my tastes lately. I couldn’t be bothered to get out a kyusu this time to steep this properly, but I’ll have to do so in the future.

DIY Kyoto Obubu Advent Calendar – Day 1

I decided to do an all-Obubu advent for my unflavored option this year! I get their quarterly subscription box, so I am constantly swimming in Obubu teas that I never finish in a timely manner. I realized that I have enough of their teas to fill a whole 24-day advent with no repeats, so here we are! :P I divided the teas into 4 groups of 6 teas each, just to try to avoid having multiple of the same type of tea in a row (say, 5 sencha in a row or something). And then I shuffled each group before adding them to my wooden Fortnum advent calendar from a couple of years ago.

Starting off with a classic! I love genmaicha, and really any genmaicha is good in my opinion. The rice just has such a lovely toasty flavor. But Obubu’s happens to be my favorite genmaicha! I think it’s because the rice is quite prominent, and has more of a complex and nutty roasted flavor than some others. The bancha is also very smooth – sometimes bancha can have a sort of sharpness to it, but this one is mellow and sweet without any of those sharp edges.

Wonderful cozy tea for relaxing after work… :)

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Finished off my second big pouch of this tea. Such a great genmaicha, with plenty of roasty toasty rice flavor on a smooth and mellow bancha base. The combination of the lightly grassy, sweet, and haylike green tea with the rich and cozy rice is just (chef’s kiss).

Happily, Obubu sent some of this in the latest subscription package, which I just received yesterday. Perfect! :)

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Yum, such a tasty genmaicha.

I love genmaicha in general, but there’s definitely a range of quality. A lot of them have too much or too little rice, or the base is just not good. This one has a standard bancha base, yet it’s so tasty with mellow notes of sun-dried grass, hay, and toasted nori. Super smooth and satisfyingly brothy. And of course, the rice adds a rich, toasty, nutty flavor that makes it supremely cozy.

Yum yum yum. Happily I have another full-sized pouch of this to sip through! :D

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Finishing off my last sample packet of this after sending a couple off in swaps. But fear not, I still have two big pouches of it in my cupboard! ❤

Tasty, tasty, toasty rice! It has such a sweet and round roasted flavor with nutty and caramelly notes. And the bancha base is so soft and mellow, with a slightly sweet, dry grassy taste.

Comforting, cozy, yummy. I love genmaicha!

Happy National Popcorn Day!

I meant to have this a few hours ago, but then I got distracted by a coloring app… Oops. I blame whoever suggested it on Instagram.

I should really drink this tea more often. I love genmaicha and I have two big bags of it for some reason. And this is such a yummy example of it, with a mellow and sweet bancha base. In a lot of genmaicha that I’ve tried, the base tea is overly grassy and just not great tea. But in this version, I love the base as well as the rice. It has a bit of a dry grass note, but also a lovely nuttiness to it. And then there’s that delicious toasted rice adding a sweet and rich grainy flavor…

Nom! :)

Normally I would steep this in a kyusu, but I’m feeling lazy tonight and had a craving for genmaicha. So Western-style it is! I think this is my first time trying Obubu’s genmaicha, though I ordered it back in May or June. I don’t know why I don’t drink genmaicha more often, I really do love its toasty flavor. This one has impressively long and flat bancha leaves mixed with cute little grains of rice.

Yum. This tea has such a clear sweetness to it, and it lingers long in the aftertaste. The bancha is dry and grassy, as you might expect, but also mild and sweet with none of the roughness it can sometimes have. Now and then I get little pops of roasted seaweed, in the most pleasant way. The rice has a delicious and rich toasty flavor that does not taste burnt, nor does it overpower the tea. It has an almost caramelly effect, especially combined with the overall sweetness of the blend.

So comforting and relaxing on this chilly, rainy day (the high was in the 40s, in Texas!). I don’t often steep teas more than once at this point, but I’ll be making an exception for this one. I saw that Obubu now has a houji-genmaicha on their website, and I definitely need that in my life!

DIY Kyoto Obubu Advent Calendar – Day 17

Is it bad that I never remember which sencha from Obubu is which, LOL? They have so many! XD This is a shaded spring sencha, Zairai cultivar. I didn’t realize, I guess they only have two shaded spring sencha? For some reason I thought more of them were shaded, but they seem to mostly vary in cultivar.

Annnnyway. This is lovely! You can definitely tell that it’s a shaded tea, it has a more intense and concentrated vegetal flavor that’s somewhere between a classic sencha and a gyokuro. Thick, silky texture as well, with a fair bit of viscosity to it. This one is like a concentrated vegetable shot – all deep green veggies like spinach and kale, but it also has a soft sweetness to it and a creamy undertone. Something slightly fruity in the finish, maybe a tart plum or even passion fruit.

Delicious, as all of their teas are. Now, to forgot all about this and have no idea which sencha this is next time… ;)

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This cup came out deliciously squashy, somewhere between zucchini and kabocha varieties. Also plenty of lovely savory umami of course, but it’s not quite as intense as past steepings. Some gentle nuttiness as well.

Lovely! Giving me autumnal vibes with those squash and nut notes. Happily, as usual with Obubu teas, I have more of this LOL. :P

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Yay, another set of old Obubu subscription tea finished off! I still have many, many to go. This tea was from the last shipment in 2019, if that gives you any idea… >>

I’m really grateful that these teas are individually packaged in 5g pouches, because even when they’re old (over 2.5 years old, in this case) they still taste good and have plenty of flavor. If it had been a single larger package, I maybe would have opened it and it would’ve been a sad wisp of a tea by now. So thank you Obubu, for saving me from myself! Also, it’s very convenient for steeping because it’s pre-weighed.

Anyway! This is a rich and powerful tea, because it’s shaded for two weeks before the harvest. So it has an almost gyokuro-esque intensity to it, and concentrated vegetal and umami notes that make you feel like you’re drinking some kind of nutrient-laden vegetable broth. Most prominent for me are steamed spinach and creamy kabocha, with a powerful yet smooth kombu-like umami undercurrent forming the foundation. There’s a whisper of light grassiness and gentle astringency at the tail end of the sip that give it a nice refreshing finish.

It’s tasty. Kabusecha is not generally my favorite, I prefer a lighter sencha most days. But I do still enjoy shaded teas like this one, they are always so satisfying because of the rich flavors and thick, viscous texture. Good thing too, because I still have 3 more batches of this tea in various packaging… XD

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Another cold brew sipdown, finishing off a large 80g bag of this tea from a couple of years ago. Happily I still have more in my stash!

This has a lovely vegetal-yet-nutty flavor profile when it’s cold. I don’t remember finding as much nuttiness when it was warm, and it’s quite refreshing to sip on. The vegetables are spinach and edamame for sure, maybe with a bit of bok choy for good measure. Lovely for these hot days!

More Obubu fun today! Another of my lingering 5g packets from a sampler pack. This one had a lovely dry scent, very sweet and alfalfa-like. I did three steeps – 60s, 15s, and 45s.

Where the Spring Sun was energetic, this was a more mellow and calm sencha. It had a subtle grassy sweetness along with more vegetal notes of spinach and green peas. The vegetal flavor here was quite concentrated as well, though less so than Spring Sun, with plenty of rich umami character. This had a lovely texture as well – thick and silky smooth. There was almost no bitterness at all, which was quite a contrast with the previous sencha. A slightly shorter finish as well, with soft vegetal notes in place of florals.

It’s interesting how even though a lot of the notes are the same between the two teas, they had very different characters. I’m sure I’m not describing it well, but hopefully as I drink these teas more often, my palate will improve.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CJXSpNHgXN7/

(P.S. – Are my Instagram links working for other people? I get an error when I try to visit them…)

I spent the morning updating my cupboard. I haven’t really been drinking much tea since I was last here, but I did sign up for the Obubu tea club before visiting their farm in Wazuka, Japan last fall. My husband and I got married last October and took a trip to Japan for 18 days for our honeymoon. Of course, I had to visit a tea plantation while I was there! It was a great experience, the staff were all wonderful and the setting gorgeous. Plus we got to sample several teas! Would definitely recommend the tour if you are ever in the area.

So anyway, I now have a ridiculous stash of Obubu teas, mostly from the subscription box which is a generous amount of tea. Please feel free to send me a message if you’d like to try a sampling of their teas!

Had a lazy session with this tea on the couch (or tried to, as the pugs tried their best to sit in my lap…). I used a ~200ml kyusu that I also picked up in Japan and did three steeps of 60s, 10s, and 30s.

This is a shaded tea, so it has a somewhat intense and umami vegetal flavor. The first steep especially had a nice intensity, and strong spinach and cooked green bean notes. It felt very thick and silky on the tongue, with a nice creamy quality. There was a touch of pleasant bitterness and light astringency at the tail end of the sip, and a lingering umami aftertaste on my tongue. As it cooled, I picked up more seaweed notes and perhaps a hint of apricot.

The second steep was lighter and sweeter, still with the same vegetal notes but with less intensity. The third steep was a bit too light, I should have steeped it longer than I did. The vegetal notes gave way to a grassier flavor, and it was the sweetest of the three steeps.

Definitely a very satisfying tea, with a nice savory vegetal flavor up front giving way to more sweetness in later steeps. It reminded me how much I love Japanese teas! I’m not going to rate it for now, as I’ve been out of practice so I don’t have a good point of reference.

(here’s a couple of Instagram posts from our Obubu trip):
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4gUNC-gTBt/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4gVwpEAUyS/

Now this is ONE cool tea. I recommend steeping this in a glass vessel so you can see the magic unfold. You just take one single cherry blossom, pour hot water, and wait 5 minutes. In that time you can see a beautiful cherry blossom expand. Now, after this, I’m reading mixed directions. Some say to transfer the cherry blossom to another cup and pour hot water in that, making a new cup of tea – because the original cup will be VERY salty. You are supposed to add the salt to taste. That is recommended if you’re not a salty hot beverage person, or if you just want to taste the cherry blossom in your tea and nothing else. The cherry blossom tea on it’s own is actually very pleasant, fruity, and slight hint of sweet. You could of course use more cherry blossoms for a more powerful flavor, but I like the subtlety.

As for the original salty broth, it’s actually very pleasant on it’s own. Fair warning the salt does overpower the mixture if you drink it straight. You can also add “the salt mixture to taste” to the original cherry blossom brew and the taste is MUCH tamer. It’s really all about what you’re in the mood for.

Highly recommend this tea – if only for just the novelty (or should I say “novel tea”) of it.

It’s recommended to soak the flowers in warm water for five minutes before use to remove excess salt. Of course you can save the salt water to add into the tea once it’s brewed.

Directions are rather simple: Two Flowers and 195F/90C water.

Visual
Dry Leaf: Shriveled petals and leaves. Vibrant pink petals, brown steams and leaves. Grains of salt apparent.
Wet Leaf: The petals opened up to reveal pale pink coloring. The stem and leaves are showing a hint of green.

Smell
Dry Leaf: Fruity vinegar (plum and cherry), floral. Slight mineral(?)
Wet Leaf: Same as the dry leaf

Tasting: Salt with hint of plum vinegar. Floral and light cherries.

Wow, okay, this roast is much too dark for my taste. All I’m getting is smoke. So much so that it’s kind of overwhelming. It’s not necessarily a bad thing and I’m sure that if you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll love it, but this really isn’t for me.

This tea was pretty meh all around, I would say. Now, I’m not saying that because it compares unfavorably to nicer sencha or even gyokuro, because that wouldn’t make sense. This one didn’t stack up particularly well with a couple other similarly-priced and underprocessed teas I’ve tried from Yunomi.

The leaves were very interesting in appearance – you could say ugly or just “different.” They had a crisp grassy and nutty aroma when dry – after the first steep, they smelled like steamed spinach.

The flavor was pretty weak really. Some crisp grassy notes, along with a bit of a green spinach-y flavor. Getting three steeps out of it was a bit of a stretch, but they were all decent tasting. This tea wasn’t much more than drinkable. I think it might have done better on a warm summer morning, but even then I’d likely prefer even a cheap sencha.

I’m completely stunned at how gentle this hojicha is! It’s not smoky at all – the leaves smelled slightly green dry, toasty warmed and post steep. The taste of the tea reminds me of a seed mix I use for my oatmeal, and leaves a strong floral finish across the tongue! I’m really loving it, although it doesn’t have nearly the richness I look for in a hojicha. Kinda thinking about buying more to experiment with…

This tea is taking me back to my childhood summertimes in an agricultural town, and it is such a winner from the sampler!

It is deeper than the Spring Sun, though maybe a little less complex. Dry leaf is gorgeous – a few shades of green varying in the leaf, and smelling like fresh cut grass (a big summer signifier for me). In the warmed kyusu, that became the scent of hay, then finally in the cup, a very vegetal taste – big leafy greens, like a rich salad in a cup.

I did not find this particularly astringent, though there were light notes to the bitterness (think kale stem), and more savory than sweet. Absolutely pair this with something bolder in flavor, as it has the strength to cut through.

Starting to think I’ve ruined my palate, even though it has been hours and I’ve had plenty of other beverages between trying the Hojicha Dark Roast and this Kyobancha. I still taste something mushroomy.

There is a light sweetness to it; not nearly as toasty as I would expect from a roasted green. Definitely vegetable notes.

The liquor is a nice burnt orange colour; the broad dry leaves were beautiful to look upon. It’s smooth to drink.

This tea made me nervous when I opened the bag, because the only scent I got out of the dry leaf was mushrooms, which I despise. The moment they hit the warm kyusu, I began to smell smokiness, which deepened as it steeped to campfire, and finally into a charcoal taste in the cup. It’s almost Lapsang Souchong-esque, but instead of Pine, I taste Cedar.

It feels not unlike a french roast – almost overwhelmingly dark, but leaving a sweet finish. As it cooled, it tasted a little fishy as well? Finally leading back to that initial mushroom taste. Blergh.

Not bad overall, but this is a sample I doubt I’ll buy more of this sample, just because of my feelings about shrooms.

The first thing I noticed about this tea is how intensely smokey it is compared to my usual Hojichas (Harney & Sons, MEM Tea Imports). The size of the leaves impressed me too; again, I am used to teas that run on the kukicha side, or using fairly small broken leaves.

It brewed a nice cup – heavy on the wood/cedar scents, though I can definitely see where one gets tobacco from the wet leaf. A little thickness on the tongue, but not much in the way of mouthfeel. We did a second steep (~2 minutes) that felt almost espresso-esque. Roommate commented that she might want to try this longer steeping in her next bowl of chazuke – too bad we drank the whole sample!