Nepal 2nd Flush Sencha

My taste buds are spoiled when it comes to sencha and gyokuro… unfortunately this just isn’t that smooth and the astringent notes are very noticeable in this tea.

cookies sent this one my way and while i’m not ever going to reach for a green tea over a black, i do enjoying trying things that aren’t my usual go to teas. This one strikes me as sort of an average sencha. It didn’t knock my socks off but it wasn’t bad. I think there are senchas out there i’d prefer more, but this was nice to try at least. thanks cookies!

Working my way through my What-Cha samples. :) This time I’m trying two: Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Sencha Green, and Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Dew Drops Green. 3g for 8oz, 75C, first steeping 2min and 2nd 3min.

I don’t know, you guys, I’m so bad at green teas. The biggest difference I’m finding here is in the leaves. The Sencha has this cool pine-needle look, that unrolls into leaf pieces, stems, some buds I think. The Dew Drops are rolled into little balls, and unroll into leaf pieces. Once brewed, the tea smells and tastes like green tea, lol (see? so bad.) Grassy, green, maybe a tiny bit of sharpness but no unpleasant bitterness. I don’t think I could reliably tell them apart. A nice green tea but not particularly interesting to my (obviously uneducated) palate.

For some reason this was in my untrieds box, but I have tried it before. A lovely sweet sencha. Not extremely noteworthy, but delicious.

As I type this I can say I am feeling some improvement, I am certainly not back to ‘normal’ but I am getting there. Also as I type this there is a massive storm raging outside, power keeps flickering on and off, and the wind is howling. This could be the last storm I experience this year, it makes me a little sad since storms are my favorite kind of weather to experience. If I am lucky I will get to have some snow storms while I am visiting Pennsylvania.

Since it is Wednesday, that means it is time for a tea from What-Cha! Nepal 2nd Flush 2014 Sencha Green Tea is a fascinating green tea from Greenland Organic Farms in Nepal, and I admit, I had some confusion on what to do with this tea. Did I want to brew it like a Japanese Sencha in my Kyusu, Western Style in a teacup, or like a Chinese green in a gaiwan, not gonna lie, I sat for a few minutes with tea gear paralysis trying to decide what method to go with. I realizes my Kyusu was practically pouting from neglect so I decided to brew it Japanese style. While I was trying to decide, I spent this time admiring the shape and color of the leaves, they are beautiful, looking like a pile of pine needles on my tea dish, very impressive. The aroma of the needles is as beautiful as the leaves, very light and delicate with notes of chestnuts, fresh hay, mown grass, and an ocean breeze. I have such a weakness for teas that have a marine note to their taste or aroma, it instantly transports me to the beach and that makes me immensely happy. I think I am just going to sniff these leaves while I wait for my kettle to heat up.

Oh man, steeping the leaves makes the aroma so green! Like a delicious pile of grass, spinach, and kelp with a strong sea water note wafting out of the now warmed and soggy leaves. It has a great savory umami quality to it. The liquid is incredibly mild, with clean water and algae notes, it reminds me of the aroma of a clean mountain creek with vibrantly green algae growing in it.

The first steeping is very light! It tastes refreshing and clean, starting with a sea air and algae note and fading to grass and kelp at the middle. The end is a lingering taste of spinach, giving the whole tea a great mildly savory tone, good for people who only want a little umami.

As predicted I went for another steep, the aroma is a mix of green grass and kelp with a tiny hint of sweet nuttiness at the finish. The taste is very similar to the first, but instead of being delicate it has strength, like a refreshing sea air viking…ok, not like that, but you get the picture (I hope.) Leaving this tea to sit and chill (totally by accident, I fell asleep in my chair for about half an hour, happens to the best of us) I noticed it had an incredible sweetness at the finish of fresh chestnuts. This gave me an idea.

Cold Steeping Time! I really do not cold steep enough, I wanted to go all out this time and so I left my tea to cold steep in the fridge for a whopping 20 hours. The first thing I noticed when taking a sip was it had no taste, after realizing I was being kinda dumb (it was first thing in the morning) I shook it up and took another sip, ok that is some flavor! It is richly green and refreshing, like dew drops off of freshly cut grass mixed with kelp. Add in a nutty, yet surprisingly unsweet finish, and you have a delicious tea. I think my cold steep method might need some work still, since I bet if I steeped it for a shorter time it would be sweeter, or that could just be a product of chilling already brewed tea. Either way, this Sencha from Nepal was what I needed to clear my head on a hot autumn day.

For review and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2014/10/what-cha-nepal-2nd-flush-2014-sencha.html

I have really missed my time with tea and I am happy I picked out a good one today to get reacquainted. The last week has been basically Tetley and Lipton Citrus Green RTD. I like them fine but there is no depth. So yeah, for the good stuff today. I haven’t had Sencha in a long time. This one is a Nepali version of Sencha. Since I have no real working knowledge of Sencha I can only comment on the cup, free of all outside comparisons. Well except I don’t operate in a vacuum so I guess that can’t be true.

This has a steamed spinach aroma after pouring and the taste reminds me of either Chinese Mao Feng or Xinyang Maojian. It has that good bitter bite up front that fades into smooth grassy. What is different here is the grassy begins to be overtaken by a mineral note but before it completes the mission, the sip moves into a bright finish. I like this one. It is nicely complex and has many of the elements that amuse me in a green tea. It does have moderate mouth drying but doesn’t burn the stomach like astringent black teas.