What luck! After my recent positive experience with this cultivar, I found another Saemidori tea in my pile of Nio samples, this time a gyokuro. I steeped 5 g of leaf in a 150 ml pot using 140F water for 120, 20, 20, 30, 40, 60, 120, and 240 seconds.
The dry aroma is of apples, squash, sunflower seeds, florals, and grass. The first steep has notes of starchy butternut squash, apples, slight florality, sunflower seeds, grass, and spinach. The tea is quite thick and has no astringency. The next steep brings more creamy squash and red apple, with a bit more greenness. Steeps three to five introduce asparagus, more spinach and grass, and some earthiness. I accidentally left the tea too long and got apple again, along with mild veggies, umami, and sweetness. The tea really never gets bitter and fades gently into sweet veggies and grass.
As Cameron pointed out, this is a very soft gyokuro that’s sweeter and less green/astringent than most Japanese green teas I’ve tried. The squash is a little weird, but it was more unexpected than anything else. Saemidori is turning out to be a winner for me!
Take an extra 10% off during their Black Friday sale with the code LEAFHOPPER10OFF (I get a small commission when you use this code).
Flavors: Asparagus, Butternut Squash, Creamy, Earth, Floral, Grass, Green, Red Apple, Spinach, Sunflower Seed, Sweet, Umami, Vegetal
