Mellow Monk

Quite vegetal (think buttered steamed asparagus) on the first infusion, and mildly astringent after that. Surprisingly flavourful and long-lasting for a karigane!

First infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz water, 60 deg., 45 sec.

Second infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz. water, 60 deg., 1:30 min.

Third infusion – 5 g. per 5 oz. water, 60 deg., 10+ min.

This is extremely good Sencha. The Price is fantastic as well! I would recommend this to anyone. Brew it a few times too! Don’t use too hot of water or over brew.

Another awesomely awesome tea from Mellow Monk. This tea is sweet, grassy, tangy, citrusy, earthy, buttery, smooth, creamy, and yummy. The taste of this tea depends on the amount of yuzu peel to tea ratio I steep. Sometimes, it tastes more sencha-like, where it’s more sweet, grass, earthy, smooth. Other times, I get more citrus and tanginess and it tastes almost like a creamsicle. I really like it.

I typically make a flavored tea for my thermos when I go to school, and this one holds up really well in it. Again, my only gripe about this is the amount you get for the price, but I’m really enjoying Mellow Monks teas! I also would like to apologize for the sudden surge of notes and that they are so short. As I’m sure most of you know, sometimes life gets in the way of what you would like to do…in this case too much school prevents me from visiting you awesome people. But, there’s always some really awesome teas that you just have to share with everyone, and I had a slight break to let you all know about some of these awesome teas I’ve been drinking!

After having had Top Leaf, someone suggested I try this one. I’m glad I did. This tea is fantastic. It’s predominately grassy and seaweedy, it’s brothy, and has that wonderful umami taste. Yum! I’ve been drinking this almost every morning for about two weeks now. I can also get it to resteep very well at least four times before the flavor starts to diminish. I love this tea so much, my only gripe is that it’s not all that cheap for the amount you get, but I do love it, and I do like their eco practices.

For some reason my allergies have been going haywire today. I removed gluten for a while and then ate something with wheat in it yesterday. I’m not sure what the connection is but I guess I’m leaving the wheat alone for the time bring. I picked this tea for the afternoon because green tea always helps with my allergies and this is fresh and bright tasting. I also got a very nice second steep out of it.

I do have a lot of this so I tried cold brewing it yesterday and am drinking it today. I’m pretty happy with the results though it does remind me a lot of spinach. Cold spinach soup? Anyway, I like it!

Green tea of the mid morning here. This is another sensational, fresh & beautiful tea from Mellow Monk. I took this to work with me to concentrate on finishing it off (so I can justify buying more stuff from Mellow Monk!)

Some teas just seem to lift your spirit and this is one for me. I was also reflecting this morning on how much happier I am than I was almost a year ago. I’ve been doing a lot of work on myself through spiritual practice and opening the heart and it seems to be working. Sending out lots of love to the Steepster universe! :))

The weather is beautiful today but I think my allergies are going haywire, after 2 cups of tea and a coffee this morning I am still tired. Just popped a Sudafed and thought I’d drink some of this delicious green tea.

I have been very impressed by the quality of Mellow Monk and highly recommend their products!

I decided I was going to try cold brewing some of this last night as an experiment; I always have problems waking up in the morning so figured one less thing to do in the a.m. would be a good idea.

The experiment was a success, it tastes pretty good this way. I don’t know how thrilled I am about drinking cold plain sencha, but it was nice warmed up in the microwave for 60 seconds. I hope I have not offended any tea purists with that statement!

I thought I had rated this before but I guess not… I will do a proper tea brewing and tasting of it soon. For now I can say it is very clean and vegetal tasting.

This is a first-rate fuka: clear and clean in the cup, crisp and fresh on the tongue. It has the usual taste elements of a good-quality fuka as well. Excellent, but pricey.

First infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz water, 65 deg., 3:00 min.

Second infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 65 deg., 10:00+ min.

Thank you for the lovely sample Alphakitty! The leaves have a beautiful deep green color. The aroma is slightly vegetal and sweet with hints of butter. It’s sweet and has a bit of a buttery\vegetal taste to it. I want to say that there is a bit of a light(and I mean LIGHT) citrus flavor in the background. I reeeaalllllyyy enjoyed this tea. It’s been a minute or two since I’ve had a nice green :]
Thanks again!

Finally decided to take the plunge and buy this tea. I’m glad I did. I figured it was more or less a sencha and it pretty much is. It’s a little different in that the grassy-spinach taste is a little subdued compared to the in-your-face senchas I’ve had. I was a little disappointing to have found absolutely no umami factor in it though.

Even with that, it is very creamy with a hint of some juicy quality. And I think there was a slight note of pistachio. I got some sort of nut note and while trying to figure it out I kept thinking pistachio. It may not be pistachio but the color of the tea kept making me think of the green nut! Either way…pistachio!

Speaking of color, the dry leaves are a nice dark emerald, wet they become this bright, vivid, vibrant emerald green. It was very pretty. Even the infusion had a greenish cast to it, very cool, kind of like a sencha or genmaicha infused with matcha powder. This is why I think I was coming up with pistachios and not some other nut…so much green!

I found a slight hint of astringency, but it wasn’t the typically blech bitter-astringency I always taste. This was a silky-astringency. It was actually quite pleasant. I never thought I would say astringency in tea being pleasant…I abhor astringency. But this was just a slight drying of the mouth with a bit of a silky mouthfeel. Very pleasant, what I always thought astringency could be but never actually found it to be, at least not in green teas.

This is such a pretty and good tasting tea, definitely worth trying out.

I had this yesterday and it was delightful! I would like to pair it with or use it in soups soon! I’m thinking about Cauliflower…what do you think?
What about tweaking this one to incorporate?
http://blissfulyogajourney.blogspot.com/2013/02/cauliflower-soup-blomkalsuppe-mail-call.html
It was part of my Norwegian Foods Week last week!

Oh my! This aroma – DRY – is AMAZING! You have your wonderfully fresh and crisp and clean Mellow Monk Green Tea with Sweet-Juicy-Citrus-Yuzu! WowZA! The dry aroma – alone – is enough to put me in a trance!

BUT…then…

I added the water!

The infused aroma is unbelievable, too! It’s somewhat the same but with a few minor additions! I can now pick up on a Creamy-Vanilla-HONEY type aroma…somewhat like a Creamsicle! Then there are hints of blossoms/floral notes! What surprise! What WONDER!

The infused liquor is a yellow-green with a slight grey-ness trying to hide throughout! I can now smell a bit of lima bean and/or spinach as well!

I’m totally LOVING the aroma both dry and wet!

YUM! The flavor…is…totally dreamy! Completely creamy! Slightly Green-buttered-veggies! Citrusy and honey-esque! OMG! This is better and better the more I drink it!

Unbelievable! I can’t compare it to others! The green tea base is perfect! The Yuzu is perfect! The texture, aroma, everything…honestly, I can’t imagine this ratio and recipe being changed or tweaked!

My goodness! I’m glad I have a lot of this! I will be sharing with LiberTeas and Azzrian – my awesome Sororitea Sisters…FOR SURE!

WOW!

100.

Never tried this but it sounds very interesting to taste.

Mellow Monk really wasn’t high on my list of tea companies to order from until I looked at their web site. I liked the idea of all their teas being grown by small, family-owned farms, imported directly from Japan. All of their teas are first flush. I also like it that all their tea comes from the southern island of Kyushu, which never had high levels of radiation last year. I’m impressed that MM only chooses teas that are popular locally and not primarily produced for export. They shipped really fast. My tea arrived safe and sound but I’d appreciate a little sturdier packaging than a plain, brown kraft envelope.

So, a black tea from Japan seemed like such an anomaly that I had to try it. Upon opening the pouch, I am hit with a slightly smoky scent that reminds me a bit of a Formosa Keemun and/or Dark Roasted Oolong. The dry leaves are short and mostly chocolate brown with a smattering of chestnut colored tips or bits of twig in the mix.

The brewed leaves smelled a bit like a Taiwanese Ruby Red-slightly malty and minty. The liquor is fairly light-darker than a FF Darjeeling, but not much else. It has hues of burnt orange, amber, and chestnut brown.

The flavor is very smooth, zero bitterness or astringency, and about as mellow as you can get with a black tea. As for specific notes, I am having a hard time gleaning those. I can’t say that my cupping mimics what MM describes. To me, it tastes mostly similar to a Formosa Keemun (not exactly like) but I feel like I am still figuring this out. I think my rating number may change the more I drink this.

Brewing based on MM’s instructions, I got two cups of tea. I think maybe I can get a third if brew a little longer.

I wouldn’t recommend this based on the smoke alone, because I don’t think there’s enough of it for those who really enjoy smoky notes. However, if you like milder black teas or just enjoy the idea of a black tea from Japan made with green tea varietals, you may like this tea.

This is the first of the teas I’ve ordered from Mellow Monk, and I’m extremely pleased! :) The tea base itself is great and smooth, and the nuttiness of the toasted rice make this a nice tea suitable for any time of day! Can’t wait to try more teas by them.

It’s a sipdown!

Finished off a pouch of this today. I will miss it but am going to try and drink some of my other green teas before I buy anymore. My skeptical bf thinks I buy way more tea than I can drink. Of course he is right… lol

see previous notes for more info on this tea

hmm. not much more to say about this one aside from the fact that it is sooo delicious and one of my favorite Japanese green teas. see previous notes for more details.

This is one of my favorite Japanese green teas and I will be getting some more when it runs out… see previous notes for more info. I am really enjoying it today, it’s so fresh and sweet tasting for a sencha.

Green tea of the morning – yeah I brought this one to work and I sure do like it. :) It’s a bit pricey but you can get 2-3 steeps out of it. Come on theanine! Do your job. ;-)

This came in my recent order with Mellow Monk so I thought I’d try it out today…

This was steeped for around 90 seconds at approx. 170F (I was guesstimating)

Ooooh, I really like this! A light green sencha with white stems. My tea liquor is a light chartreuse color. This is exceedingly mild and mellow, perhaps because of the white stems? It ha a definite brothy, vegetal tone with slight notes of seaweed and a sweet finish with a tad bit of astringency, a slight grapefruit element here.

I’m a big fan of Japanese green teas and this one is really nice! Mellow Monk describes it as luscious and I would agree. It just kind of rolls around on your tongue in a delightful manner. One of my favorite senchas to date.

Sipdpwn today! How sad…
I have loved this tea and the snowy garden, I think I will end up buying more of both eventually. So delicious. Today I iced this and put in one sugar packet.