Decaf Sencha

This was an interesting one, and I am so happy that I could try it out! I’m really sensitive to caffeine, so I can only have it before noon if I’m going to get any sleep that night. I just recieved my first gaiwan, and it’s been saddening me that I can’t use it in the afternoon.

I’d like to send a big thanks to Dr. Jim, for the opportunity to try this tea! I’ve tried Harney & Sons before, but the teas I’ve tried haven’t impressed me. This one may have changed my mind. It’s smooth and surprisingly light – a sweet straw note that’s just a tiny bit nutty. I think this will work nicely for my purposes!

(1.6 grams, 6 oz water): Light nose with straw aroma. The taste is light and crisp with notes of straw and grass. Initial impression: not very strong; Short finish. Developed a bit more flavor as it cooled but still not very powerful. I like this tea because it reminds me of a sauvignon blanc wine (which my doctor has forbidden). Not sure if a green tea afficionado would like it. I tasted this with the Upton decaf china green, and initially the power of the Upton decaf just blew me away, but after a while I began to appreciate the delicate tart flavor of this tea. In fact I bumped my rating a couple of points.

Just saw my first tasting note on this one. It’s from four years ago. So this is an OLD tea (yes, it’s the same tin of tea from 4 years ago). It’s obviously not as strong as it used to be in flavor, but it’s still definitely drinkable. It’s got a brothy, nutty, toasty, vegetal profile. It’s decaf, so it has that flat decaf tinge in the aftertaste, kind of like what a box of dry pasta smells like. But since it’s H & S, the leaf is such good quality that I don’t mind it.

I’m drinking this because I’m primarily after the health and mood benefits of green tea, so the flavor is secondary to me anyway.

Shame on me — I picked this one up thinking it would be closer to a typical Japanese sencha, but even the picture here shows it to be Chinese — leaves that are less tightly rolled and more of a greenish-gray color than a deep green. Brewed, this tea produce a nuttier, vegetable flavor profile instead of the grassy, savory, sea-air profile I like in my sencha.

It’s not bad by any means, and I’ll try it again later on its own merits, but I was expecting more of a typical Japanese green tea with this — just a PSA.

I am on a diet that only allows me to have one caffeinated drink per day, so I ordered a bunch of decaf teas from H&S. I bought this so I could mix it with their roasted buckwheat tea to make a makeshift decaf genmaicha. It’s not bad at all! You can definitely taste the wheat in this, but it still has that toasty, seaweed flavour. This will definitely work as a good decaf substitute for the regular version.

Does look and taste very like sencha, but with far less particulates and caffeine.

This tea is simple, yet satisfying. The aroma of the brewed tea is lightly grassy, but the taste is surprisingly sweet with a slight hint of grass in the aftertaste. I could see myself ordering more of this.