Sencha Fuka-midori

Yum! Trying to sip down this stuff so I can open my fresh bag of sencha from Yunomi.us. Sip, sip sip…. :)

I really really love using my new glass tea pot and I want to brew everything in it! It could be my imagination or pure coincidence, but this tea has consistently tasted better when brewed in my (glazed) kyusu than when brewed in my glass pot. I suppose it makes sense, after all, a Japanese tea in a Japanese pot :D

This is the last of the sample that I got from Den’s novice sampler.

Buttery, sweet, fantastic! I wish all Sencha teas could taste as good as this!

Mmmm. This is a great palate cleanser. Clean, toasty, roasty goodness. Green tea at 9pm probably isn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but I needed something proper and savory to get out the taste of my previous drink. Definitely something that I’d like to keep in stock if I can actually get my numbers under control first.

I think it’s crazy how my tea cravings change from week to week. Sometimes I want something fruity, other times, only dessert-y will do. Sometimes, I want pure and unadorned tea. I want to taste nothing but the leaf. Not too long ago, I would have told you that green oolongs are by far my favorite. These days, I’m having a renewed love affair with Japanese greens.

This particular tea tastes like grass and minerals. It’s full and brothy and also a bit drying, but not astringent. Sweet. The taste reminds me of summer somehow. I think I’ll cold steep the used leaves. Too tired for another cup now. :)

This tea reminds me altogether of why I love tea! There is no question of my feelings towards Japanese Sencha and this tea provides plenty of answers to the inquisitive mind of any newcomer to green tea. Plainly put, this tea is delicious!

The leaves are beautifully deepened and darker in hue of green and the liquid is a wonderful green lemonade color. The taste of the first pour is smooth and resembles a quality spinach smoothie. The 3rd steeping is my favorite, as it brings out the sweeter and floral notes of the leaves.

As wonderful as this tea brews, it’s making it very difficult to move on to the next round of tea tasting for the day. Thank you, Den’s Tea and your expertise for this fine sample!

This sencha is one of the loose tea samples included in Den’s Tea’s Green Tea Novice sampler. The dry leaves are lovely to look at – shiny, dark green needles of tea that have a full, savory sort of smell with hints of nuttiness. When I took the leaves out after they’d steeped they looked almost like pieces of fresh leaves that had been picked today.

The colour of the tea is a vivid lemon-yellow hue despite having a fairly short steeping time. The tea itself hovers somewhere between the grassiness of matcha and the flavour of cooked vegetables. It has a distinct savory undertone to it – I think someone else called it umami and I agree with that. There’s also a bitter tang on the end of each sip that leaves a bit of a sour aftertaste in the mouth. Nothing too horrible though, and the other attributes of the tea more or less make up for it in my opinion.

I’ve not had much experience with authentic, good-quality Japanese teas, but within my limited experience I can say that I think this is an excellent sencha and something that I might consider buying a full bag of one day.

This one from my Den’s sampler pack; it gives me a chance to compare it to their Fukamushi sencha. The dry leaves are dark and feathery light, and exude a clean vegetal scent with an interesting top note. What is that? It’s very clean, so clean in fact it reminds me of soap!

1st steep: 180 degrees, 60 seconds. Like lots of different green vegetables all rolled up into one. I taste broccoli and spinach, slightly sweetened. Den’s tasting notes indicate a slight bitterness, but I’d go so far as to say very slight. There’s also a slick background of roastiness – one coat of paint on the walls of the room the veggies are sitting in.

2nd steep: boiling, 15 seconds. It’s amazing how far these leaves transform themselves during the short second steep. They are now bright green and easy to make out as large pieces of torn up tea leaves. Beautiful! The aroma is great – I want to put butter on that scent and serve it up with brown rice. The taste: much more pronounced astringency this time, sweetness toned down, vegetables still very much present.

I like this tea, slightly more than their Fukamushi.

Today was one of THOSE days. The kind where things keep going wrong and you start wondering what you did to piss off the universe. So it was clear that I would need two things when I got home: a piece of dark chocolate, and some good green tea.

1/3 of the cup in and I already feel so much better and relaxed. I love Japanese green tea. This sencha is a gorgeous dark green similar to the color of a gyokuro. I put two teaspoons in my steeper, filled it with water and watched all the beautiful leaves float up to the top. The liquor came out an almost dark olive green with a strong grassy scent. The tea tastes vegetal with a bit of sweetness and is getting more bitter as it cools. Mmmm.

My Den’s order came today! Talk about super quick service. I reallllly want to try the matcha, but it’s too late in the evening for that. So I decided to try this out first, which came in my sampler.

This is pretty freaking great. As I’ve said a million times before, I generally don’t love green teas. But this is sweet, soft, and so soothing. There is a bitterness at the end of the sip that I don’t love – I’m not sure if I steeped too long or if that’s supposed to be there; Den’s website does mention a bitterness with this sencha.

This is the beginning and end of my sample, since I made a whole pot. Will report back on the next steep.