Tokyo

I was lucky enough to get this tea from Deliriums Frogs. It is a nice tea with a bit of caramel, nutty green tea. The nuttiness may be from the sesame seeds. It’s a nice light and relaxing cuppa!

Nnnn, not particularly impressed with this one, though I’m going to experiment a bit with the steeping time and see if I get better results. I’m not tasting the toasted sesame that was mentioned in the description, though it’s still a serviceable green tea.

I am so incredibly sleep-deprived that I can barely orient my fingers around the keyboard. I’m doing my best to hang in there until about 8:00 or 9:00 tonight, but I’m already starting to list to one side. My ear hurts for some inexplicable reason, and I feel bloated. I just want to trade my body in for one that knows what it’s doing.

Anyway, my complaining aside, I tried this tea with breakfast this morning. Thank you Courtney!

I must say, however, that it felt as though I was drinking a completely different tea from the one everyone is raving about on here, because I got a very basic savoury green, with no hint of caramel (or even sesame) whatsoever. It may be the bits of tea that made up my tsp of it, who knows. Courtney was generous enough to give me enough to have this again, and so I plan on doing just that. Not an offensive tea at all, although so far isn’t calling to me. Just as well though, since it’s not like I need an excuse to buy even more tea! haha.

I’m going to jump on the bandwagon and say I love it the sesame seeds present in the dry leaf too. It looks like a pile of green leaves and then! Surprise!

I enjoyed this one a lot more once my cup cooled down. While still hot, I found the bancha a little marine-esque and while I was getting nuttiness from the sesame, I wasn’t getting any of the caramel that was supposed to be there.

Once it cooled, I ended up with something sweet, with the depth of caramel and the toastiness of sesame on a less-marine and more vegatative base.

I wasn’t feeling this one until it hit room temp, but now that I know I can get behind this just fine.

Thanks TranquiliTea!

The loose leaf is bancha sprinkled with sesame seeds. It looks pretty lovely, even though it doesn’t smell like anything.

The resulting liquour doesn’t seem to be much more engaging when it comes to the aroma. Actually it smelled like it was going to be very bitter. And there was this other note that I find I dislike in teas – and what I am guessing is caused by the caramel flavoring – that smells to me like old and forgotten socks that you find at the bottom of your laundry basket (Can you tell I was doing spring cleaning today?).

The taste… I really wanted to like this tea. I don’t know why, but I really did. Me and the Tokyo blend, forever. That’s how I imagined it. But it ain’t gonna happen.

Because, lo and behold, it tastes just like some average sencha (or in this case – bancha) with no flavoring whatsoever. It does taste smooth, much smoother than a straight sencha would, so I am guessing that would be the result of the supposed caramel. I think I got more hint of sesame and caramel in the first two or three sips. Then the whole brew just started to turn bitter, although not overwhelmingly so.

Next time I am going to play around with the steeping time – perhaps a minute would be enough? I’ll see how that goes. It is not a bad tea, it just doesn’t deliver what it promises, in my opinion.

Yay, a green tea that doesn’t just taste like water that I boiled spinach in! ;) The leaves are huge even when they are dry, and after they are steeped they are enormous. The liquor brews up super pale, and though the tea is slightly vegetal, it is also slightly sweet. That balance really works for me. The sweetness really only popped as the tea cooled down, but it makes the tea distinctive and enjoyable. I can only detect the sesame as an aftertaste; it’s certainly not a prominent flavor in the tea, but I’m not complaining.

Just to be upfront, I tend more toward black tea than green tea. But I try to be open-minded about trying new things, and this green tea is one I wouldn’t mind drinking more of in the future. Which is good, since I still have to finish off my sample.

The first bancha I’ve got my hands on in years. Has sesame and carmel. Very lovely roasted flavor.