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Mastress Alita drank Yokota Tea Garden: Sencha Tea Flower Blend by Yunomi

1253 tasting notes

Happy National Book Lovers Day! Today the prompt is to pair a tea with a favorite book or what you are currently reading.

Right now I’ve been (re-)reading the lengthy manga series Boku no Chikyuu o Mamotte ( Please Save My Earth ), which is one of my favorite series involving the complicated interconnected relationships between a set of people in modern-day Japan (err… it was the 80s/90s at the time of writing!) who discover they all share dreams of a past life they spent together as aliens studying the Earth in a moon base. Flowers and their symbolism play a large role in the story, so I wanted something floral, and preferably, also a Japanese tea.

Then I discovered that I have this (old) tea in my stash and have never tried it, and thought it would be a good fit… a sencha that is blended with the flowery blooms of the tea plant. The flowers are so interesting… extremely light, white, and fluffy, they somehow remind me of pieces of popcorn in the dry leaf. Once steeped, they pillow out and look quite pretty.

The scent of the brewed tea smells like warm butter and a sweet floral that smells closest to sakura to me, with a seaweed vegetal undertone. The tea has a very clean, green flavor: fresh grass, buttered greens, garden peas, and a more subtle umami seaweed note. Marine flavors aren’t a favorite in green tea and this one is extremely mild compared to other sencha I’ve had in that regard. The end of the sip is a sweet floral, but again, not overbearing… the closest I can describe the taste is a combination of honeysuckle with sakura.

It’s a very nice tea, and since I only managed to get around to it far later in the afternoon than I planned, I hope that Yunomi’s claim that this green tea isn’t as caffeinated as others holds true.

Flavors: Butter, Floral, Freshly Cut Grass, Garden Peas, Green, Honeysuckle, Sakura, Seaweed, Sweet, Umami, Vegetal

Preparation

175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 0 sec 2 g 12 OZ / 350 ML

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ashmanra
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The book sounds neat!

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ashmanra
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The book sounds neat!

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Bio

Hi! I’m Sara, a middle-aged librarian living in southern Idaho, USA. I’m a big ol’ sci-fi/fantasy/anime geek that loves fandom conventions, coloring books, simulation computer games, Japanese culture, and cats. Proud genderqueer asexual (she/they) and supporter of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m also a chronic migraineur. As a surprise to no one, I’m a helpless tea addict with a tea collecting and hoarding problem! (It still baffles me how much tea I can cram into my little condo!) I enjoy trying all sorts of teas… for me tea is a neverending journey!

Favorite Flavors:

I love sampling a wide variety of teas! For me the variety is what makes the hobby of tea sampling so fun! While I enjoy trying all different types of teas (pure teas, blends, tisanes), these are some flavors/ingredients I enjoy:
-Dessert/chocolate/vanilla/caramel/cream/toffee/maple
-Sweet/licorice root/stevia
-Vegetal/grassy
-Floral/lavender/rose
-Spices/chais
-Fruity
-Tropical/pineapple/coconut
-Bergamot (in moderation)
-Roasted/nutty
-Tart/tangy/hibiscus/rosehip

Disliked Flavors:

There are not many flavors or ingredients that I don’t like. These include:
-Bananas/banana flavoring
-Hemp/CBD teas
-Smoke-scented teas/heavy smoke flavors (migraine trigger)
-Perfumey teas/extremely heavy floral aromas (migraine trigger)
-Gingko biloba (migraine trigger)
-Chamomile (used in blends as a background note/paired with stronger flavors is okay)
-Extremely spicy/heated teas
-Medicinal flavors/Ginseng
-Metallic flavors
-Overly strong artificial flavorings

With the exception of bananas and migraine triggers, I’ll pretty much try any tea at least once!

Steeping Parameters:

I drink tea in a variety of ways! For hot brews, I mostly drink my teas brewed in the western style without additions, and for iced tea, I drink teas mostly brewed in the cold brew style without additions. Occassionally I’ll change that up. I use the https://octea.ndim.space/#/ app for water-to-tea ratios and use steep times to my preferences.

My Rating Scale:

90-100 – Top tier tea! These teas are among my personal favorites, and typically I like to keep them stocked in my cupboards at all times, if possible!

70-89 – These are teas that I personally found very enjoyable, but I may or may not feel inclined to keep them in stock.

50-69 – Teas that fall in this range I enjoyed, but found either average, lacking in some way, or I’ve had a similar tea that “did it better.”

21-49 – Teas in this range I didn’t enjoy, for one reason or another. I may or may not finish them off, depending on their ranking, and feel no inclination to restock them.

20-1 – Blech! My Tea Hall of Shame. These are the teas that most likely saw the bottom of my garbage can, because I’d feel guilty to pass them onto someone else.

Note that I only journal a tea once, not every time I drink a cup of it. If my opinion of a tea drastically changes since my original review, I will journal the tea again with an updated opinion and change my rating. Occassionally I revisit a tea I’ve reviewed before after a year or more has passed.

Inventory:

My Cupboard on Steepster reflects teas that I have sampled and logged for review, and is not used as an inventory for teas I currently own at the present moment. An accurate and up-to-date listing of my current tea inventory can be viewed here: https://tinyurl.com/xjt9ptx3 . I am open to tea trades (within the United States only!) at this time. Note that I will not trade teas that I currently have in a quantity less than 50g (samplers, 1oz packages, etc.) or any teas that are currently still sealed/unopened in my cupboard.

Contact Info:

Feel free to send me a Steepster PM, or alternatively, check the website URL section below; it goes to a contact form that will reach my personal e-mail.

Location

Idaho, United States

Website

https://teatimetuesdayreviews...

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