Sencha of Brightness

Dry leaves smell very.. deeply green, very chlorophyll-rich, with that bitter edge that tends to accompany darker greens, like chard and lacinato kale. Wet leaves remind me of a pond overgrown with algae and teeming with life.

Despite my attempt to brave my fears and not understeep this, letting it sit a whole 15 seconds longer, the first steeping is still quite mild, slightly green-bitter at the backend, otherwise, vaguely pondwater flavored.

The second steeping explodes. Green peas and spinach, a slight nuttiness and a vegetal sweetness, a pretty intense green flavor that makes me feel like I am getting a lot of vitamins in this. I don’t know how much of that is actually true. I guess for one they’d have to be water soluble nutrients, and probably only in very small quantities, equating to those in a mouthful of spinach at most. But, no matter. I’ve never been into tea for any alleged health benefits, but it’s a nice perk when it happens.

There’s a hint of a crisp mineral-ness to this too, brightening the dark-green depth just enough. I keep coming back to “pondwater” and believe me when I say I mean that in the most affectionate way. The minerally and algal flavors just meld into something I can’t think of a better way to describe.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s agreeing very well with my empty stomach. Some green teas are just… like that, and I don’t entirely know why. Maybe I can narrow it down, though, if I keep taking notes.

I will say, I am also getting a very relaxed headiness from this tea, what I used to (and I guess may as well still) call “tea-high.” It is also something that some teas do better than others, for reasons I’ve never really narrowed down. I think in the past I’ve most commonly gotten it from younger sheng, and once very intensely from a mid-grade silver needle. I’m uncertain if I’ve ever gotten this from a sencha before. It’s interesting. But for all I know, it’s nothing to do with the tea, and more to do with other biochemical factors of whatever else is going on in my body at the moment. I’ve never really scienced it out that far.

I really need to start noting whether or not I would purchase more of this in these notes, because otherwise I am going to forget. I think only very rarely do I re-purchase tea, though, it’s so much more fun to try new things than familiar things, even things that I know I love. And when I do want to repurchase tea, it’s usually for the comforting factor of it rather than the complexity or interest of it, and the comforting factors are usually factors that are present in teas of lower grades, so it becomes a matter of finding the most budget-friendly version of the tea rather than the version that most perfectly encapsulates what I am looking for.

And tea is so darn seasonal, really, especially sencha. who knows if a repurchase of this tea would be from the same harvest, it might be entirely different! But I guess one can assume that summer harvest teas from the same farm would at least retain similar enough characteristics.

Anyway… as for this tea, I’m not sure I would go out of my way for it, but if I did end up with more of it, I think I might like to try it with a hearty, smokey stew, or some kind of campfire-meal. It just tastes like such an outdoorsy sort of tea. I’d also like to try cold-brewing it, I think.

Sipdown! (11 | 420)

Finishing off an old packet of this one. Still has plenty of flavor left though!

It’s a very savory sencha, with a lot of deep-steamed vegetal notes. Mostly intense, slightly bitter greens like kale or chard, layered with umami.

It’s pleasant, but a bit heavy and one-dimensional compared to other Obubu sencha I’ve had recently. I see it’s a shaded tea which explains the intensity of flavor. But it’s not one I would order as they have many other sencha that I like more. :)

This was a rather odd tea. It had a slight fenugreek like smell that reminded me of a green oolong starting to go stale. The smell persisted from the dry to the wet leaf and down to the flavor of the steeped tea. It didn’t have any of the usual grassiness or umami, just a strong underlying note of cruciferous vegetables.

Looking at the other reviews on here, I suspect there was something off as others seem to have had a completely different impression of this tea.

This will be the first sencha tea to brew and review in my new tokonome kyusu, which is absolutely gorgeous (and my first kyusu). I bought an expensive one because I wanted to be set with one that was really my tastes and not be tempted to buy another down the road. If anyone is curious, it’s this one: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-teapot-Tokoname-Umehara-7-78oz/dp/B00CD8NPTU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1413654555&sr=8-1&keywords=kyusu+shoji

Anyhow, on to the tea. The scent of Sencha of Brightness is intoxicating after letting the leaves sit in the warm kyusu for a minute. The smell is of sweet corn on the cob, peony flowers and toasted almonds. It’s smelling eerily similar to my all time favorite tea, Kenyan Silver Needle. Let’s see how it brews up.

The brew is a delicate spring green. The taste is sublime. It has an incredibly smooth mouthfeel… and this may sound weird but the texture reminds me of yogurt. It’s velvety and thick. The flavor has a mellow nutty start that changes to a slightly green and vegetal one with afternotes of cooling mint sensation. I can easily see why this Sencha of Brightness was named from the idea of sparkling light reflecting on cooling waters. The tea is very mellow with almost no astringency, only a slight bit in the finish.

On the second infusion the taste is much more mild. It’s still quite sweet and there are little notes of seaweed and grass like one might expect from sencha. The third infusion is also rather light in flavor and tastes similar to the second. I may have used a lower amount of leaf than I should have.

This tea was humbling. I really like it a lot.

This was my one indulgence for June which just arrived today … YIPPEE! I’ve always wanted to try the Obubu tea sampler pack and now I have the time to try them all and even write tasting notes. :) I love Japanese teas so I can’t imagine I’ll have anything too bad to say about the selections.

I picked this one at random from the sampler pack, I knew I wanted to try a sencha but I wasn’t sure which one. It has such a lovely name. I steeped this for 90 seconds and it has a very light colored infusion, one that I might associate more with Chinese tea than Japanese. The aroma is lightly vegetal and a bit flowery.

For a sencha, this is very mild. The description says this tea is made with more mature leaves so perhaps that is why. Also they claim it is good as an iced tea, so I’ll have to try the rest of my sample that way. For now I’m enjoying it hot. The flavor is very mild and sweet. It has some light grassy notes but also a bit of sweet vegetables like corn. I don’t think I’ve ever had a Japanese tea that’s this mild before, no astringency whatsover. It’s very tasty and soothing, like floating away on a green tea cloud.