Random self made theme: A tropical tea
So sometimes I just search keywords in steepster to find my next tea or tea company. Pineapple sencha was my latest craving and search term after having and running out of 52teas’s pineapple sencha from the spring/summer last year. Surprisingly the list of pineapple senchas in the database was pretty short. However, one from a company called Den’s Tea had a pretty high rating. After looking into it a bit, I happily saw they are still around in California! Woo! I definitely cruised through their selection on steepster and their website and found 4-5 teas to start with: Apple sencha, Grape Sencha, Yuzu kukicha, a Yame Fukamushi sencha and obviously the pineapple sencha. These came back in mid January and I had been holding off on them for a bit.
Today was the day though! (I may have naively opened all the flavored ones so I could smell them and decide which was right for the moment). And pineapple definitely won out. All of the teas smelled amazing and the sencha was a really rich dark green- I am very pleased with the quality.
Side note: I read the about me section and some of the articles from Den’s tea and they are also a business in japan. Den Shirakata is a third generation tea business owner and his japan company just turned 100 this year. They source their tea mainly from Shizuoka where he grew up. He went to school in the US and then in late 90s came back to start Den’s Tea in California. Pretty cool that his business is still going in the US 23 years later.
Preparation: Western- poured over ice
Tasting note: first steep 30 secs (after pouring) really sweet, with sugar cane and grass notes. Makes me think of fresh ripe pineapples. The first steep is darker and thicker and richer from the green tea and the pineapple is more syrupy. The green tea aspects remind me a lot of nozomi from the japanese green tea co.
Overall, really great first impression iced. I will have to have it just warm next time to compare.
