Sencha Kyoto Cherry Rose Green Tea

Got this from LefTea – Thank you so so much!
It went to a good home, let me tell you.

We brewed one heaping perfect teaspoon (if that makes sense), in the Steeper with not quite boiling water. mmm no bitterness, great quality green tea for Metro teas, I’m happily surprised! I love the buttery sweetness of sencha, it’s my favorite by far, in the green family. Yum. Even the boytoy is liking it tonight, and he’s not a green tea fan.

The rose taste and smell is mild next to the sweet syrupy smell of cherries! What a delight. A nice mild taste, if it didn’t SNOW 5 FEET today, maybe I could try it iced. _ Maybe next year. haha!

I picked this one up at the Bottom of the Cup tea room in the French Quarter in New Orleans. I’m pretty sure that this is the same blend, though Metropolitan Tea Company was never mentioned, heh. The cherry flavor was a little strong when I drank this hot this morning, but the big pitcher I made of it iced this afternoon really hit the spot! I suspect the same will be true of the three flavored blends I picked up at the Spice and Tea Exchange. I will say that the packaging at the Spice and Tea exchange is a lot more attractive and professional looking. They use 1 oz ziplock bags with pretty labels. This one was in a sealed cheaper looking bag with a cheapo looking label. The teas inside are similar in quality though :)

I was brewing this at my normal 3m time and I’ve found it comes out a bit bitter for my taste. Seeing someone made it at 1.5m in the review makes me wonder if that was the problem. At any rate this isn’t a terrible tea, I’ve been using my generic green tea to supplement it when I make it to make it a little less bitter. I’ll have to try making it for less time. I wasn’t realizing Sencha was a different blend of tea. facepalm

Cold brewed this overnight since we’re supposed to be under a heat advisory today. I got this from the Strawberry Festival at Bean and Leaves in Long Grove, IL because it smelled AMAZING! I’m not normally a huge green tea fan as I find they always smell amazing but are less flavorful than I would expect from the smell but I couldn’t pass this one up. I’m not sure that this is the exact tea since they don’t share who their suppliers are but it looks like it so I’ll just go ahead and rate this one.

There’s something…off…here. I can’t put my finger on it but something just tastes a bit off. It could be a combination of things: my palate is currently sullied with some Apple Jacks (dry, my breakfast of choice at work), I could still have a bit of toothpaste mouth, I added some splenda and that sometimes interacts with tea in a weird way, or my perfect teamaker might need to have its filter cleaned since I primarily make blacks and mates in there.

Aside from the off-ness, I do like aspects of the tea. My last sip there was an almost textural change to the feeling of cherry juice (makes sense, right?). I think the flavor is there, but I may have messed it up a bit. This is only my second batch of iced tea too so there may have been some user error in there.

I think I’ll like this one better warm. Perhaps I’m just not an iced tea person.

The flowery smell is really overpowering. It’s making me nervous about tasting this. Alrighty, here we go…okay, not as bad as I thought. The initial taste is actually much more subtle than I was expecting. Leaves a distinct aftertaste of flowers, though. A tea to have on it’s own, as I can’t think of anything it would pair with. I think next time I brew this I would steep for only 2 or 3 minutes to try and avoid the overwhelming aftertaste.

I got this as a Christmas gift from my brother, who knows I’m interested in tea. I’m usually skeptical about mixing anything sweet like flowers or fruit with such a delicate green as Sencha, and even more skeptical about the packaging steeping instructions (fully boiling water, 3-7 minutes). I resorted to my knowledge of traditional Sencha, and steeped as follows:

1 heaping teaspoon
175 F
1.5 minutes

The result was a very flowery-smelling tea, with a rather bitter non-sweet flower/cherry flavor that rests high on the tongue. It was difficult for me to taste the grassy flavor usually associated with Sencha, and the actual tea flavor (as opposed to the flower flavor) was reminiscent of a simple, rather low quality green tea. Perhaps different steeping times or temperatures (such as the seemingly absurd ones on the package instructions) would result in a different taste.

not doing it for me.

This is straightforward but awesome. Vegetal sencha, cherries and rose petals. Well balance, very flavourful, not at all astringent. A bit of sweetness and some moments where the flavour was strong enough to make me think artificial, but its actually quite an authentic cherry flavour, with less tartness.

This flavour combination has been a love of mine for a very long time, and this one does it well.

A nice, mild tea. The Cherry Rose petals give it a great aroma. It’s nice on a cold morning.