Sugimoto America

Backlog

I had acquired a sample stick of this recently from Ohio Tea Co. when I stopped over to their new location a few months ago. I needed a kick on Monday for the new work schedule. I noted that this was “too thin; perhaps with smaller samples, less water is necessary.” There wasn’t much flavor, either.

Love this. Toasted barley, new spring growth and fresh wood chips. Really luscious texture, with nutty and umami filled green tea notes that are still fresh.

I could have sworn I saw someone review this as their “favorite gyokuro ever," somewhat recently, prompting me to order a sample… but that review is clearly not here, and I can’t find whatever it is I think I remember. Maybe it was not on Steepster. Maybe it was another tea and I ended up in a rabbit hole and came out with some gyokuro. It’s all possible.

I just recently saw a picture in my phone that unequivocally disagreed with a memory I had stored. It was a license plate — bold, clear letters on a stark white backdrop (or maybe it was black, ha). Not ambiguous. I would have bet money it held a different word. Brains are so weird. Trust no one’s neurons, not even your own.

Anyway. This is nice. Super vegetal, some lemony notes, umami. I don’t expect it will be my Favrit Gyo Evar once I start tripping through the endless sea of same, but a good introduction and a lovely sesh to come home to this morning.

I just received this tea in the mail from Sugimoto, my first time ordering from them. It’s been a while since I’ve gotten sencha–I really haven’t ordered any since pre-covid and O-Cha’s shipping prices were much more reasonable. Having heard good things about Sugimoto, I ordered their single-cultivar Sencha Fuushun which came out to $15/50g. They also included a sampler of their gyokuro and matcha, as well as some tea bags of their genmaicha.

My first steep was at 80c with 2.6 g of tea in my 150ml kyusu for 60s. This first steep was a golden yellow color and presented beautifully. Lots of immediate buttery hay on the palette with umami on the finish, with no notable bitterness. A touch astringent on the finish. The nose mirrors this identically. Very sweet.

My second steep was for 15s (more or less the time it took my stagg to finish pouring) at 80c. This gave stronger umami with the same milky, hay like sweetness. Almost tastes more like a kabusecha.

All together, a lovely tea and I would highly recommend buying it while it is still in stock.

Sipdown 134-2021
Can’t say I really loved this. Very strong seaweed flavor. Not super pleasant to drink. Steeped the last cup nice and strong and poured it over a bowl of rice topped with some umeboshi furikake. That was quite delicious, but can’t say I would purchase this tea again.

It’s been a long time since I’ve had a green tea like this, so I grabbed a little from a tea box. It’s quite grassy and vegetal. It tastes pretty fresh, though it’s not a flavor profile I gravitate towards. There’s something almost like pepper in there, but I think it’s some other herbaceous flavor. I enjoyed this more than I expected. I didn’t notice the sakura specifically, but it probably added complexity to the flavor.

This is a very typical green tea. Smelling it is very buttery and then a hint of grassiness. The butteriness is missing almost completely from the tea when drinking and is instead replaced with a slight bitterness at the end. The leaves are a very pretty blue-green color and are smaller than most other leaves, brewing up like spinach. The packaging suggested 140 degrees for steeping but I think this would have done better at either a lower temperature or lower steeping time since it did have a tad of bitterness.

Miss cookies was kind enough to send me a sample of this one (along with their Genmaicha powder). I must say, I was quite curious as to exactly how this would taste. The powder is very fine and it has a slightly greenish brown color, the same color I would expect to see in regular houjicha. It also smells extremely similar to houjicha and has a nice sweet roasted aroma. I used a half teaspoon of powder in 8 ounces of unsweetened soy milk.

Ooooh I could smell the lovely roastiness as soon as I popped the lid open on my Blender Bottle. Yum, this is delicious with the nutty and very slightly sweet soy milk! It tastes exactly as I would expect a houjicha prepared chai-style to taste. It’s roasty but not overpowering and the creaminess of the milk accents it perfectly. So good! :D

Cookies, if you’re reading this, try this one with milk! :D

This is certainly the lightest Hoji Cha I’ve had to date. I do tend to prefer mine a bit more roasted, but that’s just a personal preference. This one is really quite nice. Smooth and mellow with just enough of that roasty hojicha flavor present to keep it from being dull. If I had more than a sample I’d have tried less water/another tea bag but sadly I only had a one to play with. Overall it’s not bad at all, but there are other hojichas I would prefer over this one.

Sipdown 18/75

Backlog:

I got some of this year’s harvest of this tea (it’s now sold out.) What an incredible tea it is. Definitely one of the very best green teas I’ve yet to taste.

The dry leaf resembles slender, long, green needles. Beautiful. These have been hand-rolled. Amazing, the craftsmanship that goes into this tea. This tea requires a very low temperature (just 100°F) and I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes. The tea is very pale but very, very flavorful. Sweet and a thick texture.

This tea is really, really awesome!

Rich, buttery, grassy, creamy. I infused the leaves three times and the third infusion was my favorite. After that, I even ate the leaves after dressing them lightly with sesame seed oil and a squeeze of fresh orange.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/05/25/temomi-shin-cha-green-tea-from-sugimoto-america/

Backlog:

This is a really good Genmaicha with Matcha. The Genmaicha tastes fresh and nutty and sweet, and the Matcha adds just a touch of creamy sweetness to the cup. I received this Genmaicha with Matcha in the most gorgeous Washi Paper covered tin. It’s absolutely beautiful and very well made.

It’s a really good Genmaicha with Matcha. The flavor is everything you expect from a top-notch Genmaicha. Sweet, nutty, smooth, and soothing. Nice.

Here’s my full-length review of this tea along with photos of the gorgeous tin: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/05/21/product-review-genmai-cha-with-matcha-green-tea-washi-gift-set-from-sugimoto-america/

Backlog:

I love, LOVE, love these tins from Sugimoto America. They are absolutely gorgeous! And they were well crafted too, the patterns in the paper line up perfectly, these weren’t just slapped together haphazardly. I like the care that went into the tin.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for packaging. Especially when it’s a gorgeous tin like this.

And what makes it even better is that the tea inside is a great Sen Cha. Sweet, buttery, and notes of grass. Not overly vegetative and not quite as bitter as some Japanese Sen cha teas that I’ve encountered.

Fresh, vibrant, and a very lovely, appealing taste. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/04/19/sen-cha-green-tea-washi-gift-set-from-sugimoto-america/

Tea of this afternoon is a matcha latte. I used soymilk for this and added cardamom per the suggestion of one of my Twitter friends. I also used my cheapo milk frother. This is just as good as any Starbucks matcha latte for about 1/8 of the price…

Good news also, my fracture is healing according to the doctor. I will be at home for 3 more weeks convalescing and drinking lots of tea. :)

I got this matcha yesterday in Japantown. Normally I go for the Maeda-en standard grade matcha but they were all out, so I thought I’d get this instead. I mostly use matcha in tea lattes and smoothies so I didn’t see the point in getting anything ceremonial grade. I had some this morning when I woke up: in a pineapple/banana/soymilk/chia smoothie. That was super tasty!

Then I decided to try some of this the standard way using the ceremonial matcha bowl and whisk. Drinking it plain, it is definitely bold and grassy with bitterness. When it comes to drinking matcha plain, you definitely get what you pay for. I’ve had some really nice ceremonial matcha that’s naturally sweet and delicate but almost 3x the price. I wasn’t expecting this to be great on its own, but for mixing with other things it’s fine.

Lately I feel like I should be trying to drink more green tea just for the health benefits especially theanine. That is difficult when black teas are clearly my favorite!

Anyway I picked this up in Japantown yesterday. I got the mesh teabags but I don’t think I’ll create a new entry for it.

I steeped this for 60 seconds and got a vivid neon green color. This appears to be a fukumushi sencha, according to the Sugimoto website. I’m getting mostly gentle grassy notes with a bit of nuttiness and a slight astringency in the finish… It’s far less “seaweed” like than some other Japanese green teas I’ve had, but not the most flavorful fukumushi I’ve had. You can definitely get two steeps out of these teabags. This is a good everyday tea, however I prefer the bagged sencha from Den’s.

Had a small one-serving pack from them. I may have not gotten to see how good the flavor could have been because I made cups for me and my wife (12 oz, when this teabag was probably made for 6oz or so).

I couldn’t tell Matcha was added because it was a very light color (usually the tea I’ve seen with Matcha added is a neon glowing green color). Anyway, it was very smooth, good…seemed like a typical Genmaicha, with apparently some Matcha added.

However, after 3 steepings (the first two had the most flavor), I squeezed out the teabag (the sample wasn’t loose tea), and a small amount of very dark green water came out. I tried that and it was so sweet and very delicious. If the whole tea had tasted like that it would have been amazing.

I’m going to refrain from giving this a number, since this one try I may have skewed things by ignoring the amount of water. But like I said, if the whole tea had been dark like the small sip I squeezed out of the bag, and had tasted like that…it would have been some incredible stuff.

I’ve not had a better Genmaicha. Holds up under rebrewing better than I’d thought it would.