Morita #02: Sayama Sencha, Kakurei

I’m glad Yunomi recommended trying this tea with “warm” (140F) and hotter water. I tried it first with 160F water and steep times of 1m, 30s, 1m. It was grassy, with pretty decent astringency in the finish. There was a honey sweetness in there somewhere as well. Next steep was a little less astringent in flavor, but more drying in the mouth, and it sort of just fell flat on the final steep.

The tea really shone when I started with cooler water. For this second session, I used 140F water for steeps of 1m, then 30s. After that, I did 1m steeps of 160F, 180F, and 200F. The first two steeps were noticeably more balanced in astringency vs. sweetness. It certainly still had an astringent note to it, but was much more mellow with a stronger grassy sweetness. I think I also detected a bit of fruit on the aftertaste, maybe melon. The next three steeps, using progressively hotter water each time, were nice and smoothly sweet with grassy and vegetal spinach flavors. The last steep acquired a noticeable bitterness, but still wasn’t overpowering. The body was strong in all but the final steep using this method, as opposed to the other method, when the main thing I got was that astringency, without a very good body to the liquid.

Oh, yes. This hit the green tea spot this morning!

So buttery smooth, fresh and vegetal. Perfect balance of umami and zesty citrus brightness. I feel like it’m drinking spring in a cup! Too bad it’s been cold as fuzzzzzzz lately. I miss warm and sunny days ;/ what the hell spring?

You know, I’m really glad that I’ve started passing on unsatisfactory teas and moving on to better things, instead of trying and trying to love teas that I just don’t. It really helps me better appreciate teas of all varieties.

I was feeling kind of indifferent to senchas for a bit, after a lot of fairly generic fruit flavoured ones, and an awful, bitter sencha from DAVIDs. But this batch of teas from Yunomi has really got me appreciating senchas a lot more. This one is delicious.

The dry leaf is deep green, needle like and many different sizes, from a few mm to two or three cm long. Mostly smaller pieces though. It smells like seaweed and a bit nutty in the bag.

For this cup I went with 3g, 1min, 75C, 8oz. The liquor is quite green, and I’m really enjoying the flavour. The dominant note is honey, which is one of my favourite flavours to encounter in straight teas. There’s a hint of sweet grass, some umami and a bit of a broth-like quality. Not overly vegetal. Very, very nice.

This is extremely smooth – only the faintest touch of astringency that I notice on my cheeks, after almost a full cup. I could drink a lot of this.

This is another tea from the Morita sampler that Cheri sent me in a swap. It contained a sencha, premium sencha, aracha, and kukicha from the same grower (the Morita family). So cool to try all these different types of Japanese green! This is the standard sencha, and the leaves are long, thin, and needle-like. Color is a lovely and rich dark emerald green. They smell quite sweet and grassy with slight mineral and marine notes.

Once the tea is steeped, the aroma is sweet and creamy with a strong spinach note. I can still smell that slight sparkling mineral aroma as well. Ooh, this is actually quite heavy on the umami and seaweed aspects, which I did not expect. It’s very satisfying and reminds me of drinking a savory vegetable broth with dark greens and mushrooms in it. There is a definite mineral tone here, but it’s pleasant and makes me think of clear water from a mountain stream. I must say, this is the first tea that I’ve tasted a definite mushroom flavor in, and I like it a lot! The sip ends with a sparkling mineral clarity combined with lovely sweetness from the vegetables. Another lovely tea from the Morita family via Yunomi!