The Tea Crane

Good aroma. Slight dark chocolate. The mouthfeel is incredibly smooth. Literally feels silky. Even the after taste, which is slightly astringent leaves you feeling silky. The umami is fairly high but there is a crisp and clean feeling that reminds me of rain washed fresh vegetables. The powder is very soft and sifts easily. The color isn’t the greenest I’ve seen but still close to jade. Great taste to the dry powder. I generally drink mine as thin tea but I can see this also being good for thick tea with sweets on the side.

Very nice gyokuro. Preparing as directed gets you a very well-balanced, crisp flavor.

This tea is full of surprises.
I have tasted several organic matchas to find that they have a soft flat flavour, almost no umami or sweetness and a strong antrisgency. Nothing to do with Akatsuki.

The powder is bright green with an intense aroma. When and easily forms a dense froth easily after whisking. The flavour is intense, complex, and eating a small sweet before drinking it enhances the range of flavours.

To my surprise I got the best results when preparing the tea with hot water (85-90ºC) unlike other matchas I have tasted.

I prepared it more like usucha (3 g /60 ml). Tried it also more concentrated (3,5 g/60 ml), its flavour enhanced but my body dit not take this amount of tea kindly. The recommend ratio is 4g/30 ml, but it is too much for me. Guess its caffeine content is high.

When I bought this for some reason I thought it was 2016 harvest, it was Spring 2015. This means in my book it has a shorter shelf life. It is fairly good. It’s got a slightly sweet, slightly vegetal taste to it with little bitterness. Overall it is very good tea.

I brewed this one time in a 350ml Kyusu teapot with 9.3g leaf and 175 degree water for 1 minute. This approximated the Yunomi instructions which were for a 100ml vessel.