Sakura Sencha

LOVE this tea! Follow steeping instructions on can – yes JUST a 30 second immersion! Multiply your leaves per ounces you want to drink. Its a delicate tea and needs to be treated as such. I tried over steeping and failed, tried again per instructions and succeed. It is not a POW in your face flavor but the flavor is more than present when you do it the way they suggest. I ADORE this tea. It is cherry cherry and oh so yummy! A new permanent stash favorite!

I got this in a swap with brandy3392 a while ago and had kind of forgotten about it, but I recently saw a post on the discussions about how awesome and springy this tea was. Today being an unseasonably warm day (and in general it’s been crazy springy here) I dug it up out of my sample drawer and brewed up a cup.

I really don’t like cherry-flavored things, but I requested this sample because all the reviews put an emphasis on how buttery it was and lightly floral, and not really that cherry-ish. I mean, it’s cherry blossom, not cherry fruit. I was still a bit nervous, but the aroma of the steeped tea allayed that fear. It smells oh-so-buttery with that sweet, cookie-ish scent I have come to really love in green teas. There’s perhaps a very light floral in the scent but it does come out in the flavor. Most of the flavor I get is the buttery, very tasty green tea, but there is also a lightly tart fruity floral note in there as well. It’s really not like cherry to me, which is good if you ask me. I would guess this sample is relatively old (at least last season’s blend), so I wouldn’t be surprised if I was missing a few things given that this is a green, but nevertheless it is still delightfull. I may have to get more of this, and try more tea from Den’s!

I tend to horde stuff if I know its exclusive. When I was looking for a tea to drink tonight I realized I had this one only a couple times. I mean, this one is seasonal, so I can probably get more early spring, so why not drink it?

Love the cherry floral flavor in this tea. Now I want to bake cookies /random

This tea was sent to me by Azzrian. I have been waiting to try it when i would have time to use my gong fu set and do multiple steeps. Hopefully in the next day or two i will get to all the samples at last!

I wish I had seen the additional steeping instructions before I made this. I have only made one other sencha that I remember and the steeping parameters n this tea are very different from the Chinese greens I drink, with the exception of Chun Mee.

The dry tea is lovely. There are thin, straight leaves and little balls of color. Cherry blossom buds?
I am amazed when something says to steep it for such a short time but at thirty seconds this has a rich yellow hue. I immediately resteeped as they suggested with boiling water for fifteen seconds.

Hubby said the first cup was the best to him and the second too astringent. I did a third steep at fifteen seconds but with cooler water, and it still turned a pretty deep yellow and had a good bit of sour bite and astringency. After swallowing, a sweet taste rises from the back of the throat. Even now, several minutes after I have finished my tea, the sweetness lingers. Teas that do that fascinate me.

I am going to save these leaves and steep again tomorrow morning. I bet there are still two or three good steeps in here. Thank you, Azzrian! I enjoyed trying this one!

I decided to have this again today and play around with the water temp. I must have gotten into the lower temp range because it is mainly tasting of buttery sencha (and I mean REALLY buttery) with a slight florally sweet aftertaste. I don’t know which prep I enjoy more: lower temp (more sencha) or higher temp (more floral)…but I suspect that I will decide on my preferences based on my mood for the day. This stuff is really good.

Ok, figured I should get going on trying my samples from Den’s Tea before my $3 off coupon expires!

I wasn’t in the mood for a straight green, so was eyeing up the genmaicha w/matcha until I noticed this one! Yes! Yum, fruity green tea. That’s what I want.

I’m not exactly sure how this one will turn out though – as I was waiting for the water to cool to 180F, I noticed that it indicated the volume of water should be 3oz. Three?! I probably have 10 or so in my cup! So I made a quick decision to split it in half, and infuse one, then the other. Soooo we’ll see. The teaball was an inappropriate choice due to water volume, as it turned out, because it wasn’t even fully covered… oh well.

The dry tea smells mostly like tart cherries. Yum.

First infusion (179F/1min):
The aroma is slightly sweet, and a little cherry-tart. Weak, but smells delicious. Woah. Hmm. How to describe the flavour. There’s a bit of cherry sweetness, but not much, and there’s a definite slightly seaweedy green tea flavour. Drat – I drank some oolong before this and just realized that the flavour is lingering in my mouth too much. Time for some Malted ChocoMate (?) Great, now I have malty goodness lingering in my mouth. Sencha Pear? Ok, that was probably the best choice. Now to wait out the lingering pear flavour.

…

Ok! Back to the tea. Oh yes, flavours much clearer now. A nice sencha base with just a hint of floral, tart-ish cherry. Really lovely, actually. I thought I wasn’t a big sencha fan (probably because it has usually been bitter or astringent for me), but this is neither, and quite tasty. Ok, my taste buds are getting confused. I’m tasting oolong aftertaste again. Maybe I’m getting it confused with green tea aftertaste? Maybe they are one and the same!? Ack!

Second infusion (180F/2min):
A bit more cherry here, and definitely more astringency than I’d like, but no bitterness. Should have gone with another 1 minute infusion, I think, not 2 minutes. I really like how subtle the cherry flavour is. I was expecting it to be more overpowering, but its probably much better just being light and subtle. I feel like this tea has at least 1-2 more good infusions to give me (but I think I’ll drop the time back to 1.5 minutes).

ETA: Third infusion
Light cherry flavour, but I can’t really taste the green tea anymore :( I think I used too much water, in part, and I may have worn it out with the last infusion. I must remember that greens can’t be re-steeped as much as oolongs (IIRC). Oh well!

Sip down! Well I just ordered more online, so I should have it back in my cupboard in a few days. I was savoring this tea. I love the light floral slightly cherry flavors mixed with green.

I got this as a surprise sample from Azzrian! I love sakura flavored teas, so I was kind of giddy upon finding it in my box. It’s been way too hot for hot-brewing tea so I decided to cold brew this—I actually meant to yesterday but it totally slipped my mind, so it was done overnight. I know some people are pretty specific about how long they cold brew stuff but I’ve found it nearly impossible to overseep anything in cold water so my usual time is 12+ hours, I put everything in around midnight and get to it when I wake up (I’m a night owl!).

The leaves for this are so pretty—dark, rich sencha interspersed with these perfect little pearls of cherry blossoms. It’s almost too pretty to put in water! But the smell is too enticing to just let this sit around. Sakura is a lot lighter than that heavy cherry flavor you can get from some teas (and I dislike that) so this blend is perfect for me. Iced it’s fantastic. You get the buttery sencha with the slightest hint of grassiness, followed by the delicate sweet floral taste from the cherry blossoms. It’s fruity, but so lightly so that it’s not at all overpowering. This is a dainty cup of tea for sure. Thanks so much Azzrian for letting me try out this gem!

I love cherry flavored sencha teas, especially in the spring time.

The aroma is very vegetative but with a pleasing cherry note.

The flavor is very nice – the cherry sencha teas I’ve tasted in the past possess a stronger cherry flavoring, but are often on the verge of being too sweet or too much like cherry cough syrup. The fruit flavor here is lighter, but much more natural tasting.

The sencha leaves are very fresh tasting. Strong vegetative quality.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this flavored sencha.

Another tea that has a bunch of positive reviews here on steepster and another tea from LiberTEAs…I’m very grateful! :)

This has a very delicate smell and had I not known that it was cherry blossom I would probably still be trying to find the words to explain what exactly it was that I am smelling. But it’s Green Tea and Cherry Blossom indeed!

I really love the pretty little pearls laying perfectly on top of the green tea leaves in this loose leaf mixture. They glitter and dance thanks to the intense fluorescent bulbs above my desk cubicle. The after-infusion liquid is the perfect green tea color. Perfection…what ever other green tea should strive to be color-wise. Okay…I might be over selling it a bit but not by much. I really think the color is perfect tho.

The taste is thirst-quenching and tasty…slightly floral and sweet. It’s a true delight!