Yuuki-cha

This oolong was somewhat of a dissapointment to me. I missed the fact that it is lightly oxidised.
Unlike most other light oolongs the leaves is open and curled, looks wonderful. It is a wellproduced tea but im not so fond of the flowery/buttery oolongs. I want a roasted heavy oolong that gets you teadrunk! :)

There is a small sharpness to this tea. I would prefer an alishan if i had to choose.

brewed western style this time.

5g / 200ml glaspot, water from Kunzan tetsubin
1m@ 90C
2m@ 95C

Tried this most exellent light oolong westernstyle. I found that it does infuse very quickly. the 1m infusion was a bit to long as i got some slight astringency. This tea was a whole lot better gong fu style. Will try one more time with shorter infusions.

5g / 90ml celeadon gaiwan.
wash/15/15/25/35/15….. @95C

Wow. The first two infusions of this was just about the best light oolongs iv´e ever tried. Smoth floral and buttery. Just perfect.
The longer infusions ruined the smothness. But when i lowered the infusiontimes again. it came back :)
I would recommend keeping stepings to 10-15s until flavour thins.

On a sidenote, the dry leaf is beutiful. not rolled into balls like the usual “green” oolongs. But rather twisted and crooked. infuses quickly.

Been hectic as usual not much time for tea, at most a cup a day!
Oh well this time im taking some time to log a wonderful relaxing cuppa. :)

I am very very fond of the minty cinnamon flavour of japanese black teas and this one sure packs a punch. It is hsockful of flavour and high astringancy that perfectly balances the sweet. A hint of bitter cinnamon on the aftertaste and some fresh mint fills the whole mouth. Pure joy!

45s/1m/2m

kobiwako kyusu
45s@100C
1m@100C

Wonderful black tea. Full of cinnamon and a minty aftertaste. Overall it has a full bold body without any bitterness. Very pleasant astringancy. Second cup has a slightly more dry aftertaste that lingers on the tip of the tounge.
Perhaps the slightest hint of sweet dried fruit. I would say this is very much like a japanese assam ^^ Perfect for breakfast or early in the day.

My daughter decided to wake up early, so i was in the mood for a strong black tea.
Also i tried out my new Kunzan tetsubin! :)

5g / 200ml glaspot. Really should get around to get myself a nice oxidation clay kyusu….
45s/1m/1:15m @ 100C

The tetsubin adds a whole lot of flavour to the tea. Must be loads of iron. I almost feel i should use less tea. The aroma is stronger aswell as the aftertaste. Compared to my old electric plastic kettle this is just awesome.

The usual flavours are the. Heavy on the cinnamon, a fair bit of astringency. But well balanced.

5g / 200ml glaspot.
45s/1m/2m @ 95C

5g was just about right. The bitterness evened out to a very pleasant astringancy. Rest of the flavours still there. Would be interesting to try this gong fu style. many short steepings should yield a good result since the leaves infuses very well.

Was in the mood for a japanese black this morning, so i opened a bag of this little gem :)

6.5g / 200ml glaspot.
three infusions: 45s/1m/2m

First to cups was very powerful with heavy astringency bordering on bitter. The usual JP black flavours was all there. Cinnamon, slight ripe fruit. But with the addition of a flowery flavour.
Next time i will try 5g and see what happens. perhaps even shorten the steepings.

This tea reminds me alot of the Fuji black tea, only its a bit stronger.

Wonderful Tea. I am new to Sencha tea, but I can get into this. Round, slightly nutty. 1st steep 1min, and 2nd was 30sec with hotter water. I made it a bit light, but this tea is still round and flavorful. I recommend this for a good budget Japanese green.

A disappointment to me! Before trying this tea, I had the Organic Miyazaki Oolong Tea Baisen from Yuuki-Cha, which I loved and might be the best tea I ever had. So I was very excited to open up my bag of Koubi Shiage. The leaves of this tea look pretty nice to me, however they are accompanied by a relatively large fraction of stalks.

This tea is somewhat cheaper than the Baisen (8$ vs. 10$ per 50g), but tastes not much like it at all. I tried different temperatures and leaf amounts, but the quality stayed similar. This tea has little or no real ‘oolong’ taste, and little else to make it interesting either, and on me leaves the impression of just any average black tea, however with some oolong smell.

After brewing, the oils visibly shift on the surface of the cuppa.

The aroma is exemplar of hojicha, sweet and floral, almost fruity. Very strong, so much that it wanders about the room.

It has an immediately sweet taste, much the same as the nose, followed by a delicious roasted flavor – not a trace of smoke. A delicate sencha seems to play briefly before collapsing. It’s as though the roasting process were occurring in your mouth.

This is a very good hojicha! The most flavorful I’ve had in a long while.

A second infusion is nearly as good as the first (second infusion brewed @ 200F)

(Prepared with 12g/16oz)

This is the first ‘good’ or ‘expensive’ oolong I had. I love this tea! At first I tried steeping it like a sencha (multiple short steeps for one cup, using 3-4 g), but didn’t get a balanced taste. I found out that for me this tea comes out best when steeped like a black, using around 3g for a pot of 2-3 average sized cups, however steeping at 80 C.

The leaves have a dry and soft, mildly earthy smell that reminds most of chocolate. After steeping, the tea tastes very nicely balanced and full. All kinds of taste elements are discernable (most of which I can’t name), drawing your attention to every sip, however coming together perfectly into one. It has that typical oolong malty-earthy sweetness, and every sip finishes with a very subtle and pleasant astringency and almost-bitterness. Even the color of this tea is interesting, which is a full brownish yellow with a very subtle green. A second steep of the same leaves was still enjoyable for me, but it did taste thinner and definitely not as good as the first one.

About a month ago I purchased Yuuki-Cha’s Organic Kumamoto Jo Sencha for the second time. As was the case last year I was not disappointed with my purchase.

Dry Leaf:
The leaves have a very grassy aroma (as is expected with a good sencha) and were mostly whole (unlike Yuuki-Cha’s Yame sencha that was mostly dust). An ordinary Kyusu should be able to filter our virtual all of the leaves (my Tokoname Kyusu worked liked a charm).

Steeping:
I steeped this Sencha three times. At first I steeped the tea for a little over a minute. The tea tasted wonderful and had a vivid green color. It seems that this particular sencha can withstand a longer than average steep better than most Japanese greens.

Taste:
This Kumamaoto Jo has a very subtle and pleasant taste. The grassy flavor was sweet and not overpowering. The second and third cups were still very flavorful but less pronounced than the first steep.

Overall the Kumamoto Jo is a great deal for a premium sencha that does not disappoint.

First infusion at 90C degrees, 1min+ – got almost tie guan yin :)
Next infusions are not so good, too light flavour.

But first infusion is great.

After trying Chinese Da Hong Pao, I’d say it’s basically similar taste.

I’ve got addicted to this tea!

It’s sweet, mellow, tasty, with light roasted aroma.

I am, unfortunately, not enjoying shincha #2 as much as I enjoyed shincha #1 (which was the Minekaori). However, I had a bad splurge impulse last week and ordered up some more shinchas (as well as cute this houhin: http://www.yuuki-cha.com/images/large/BZhouhin5943_LRG.jpg) so I have more to try. By the by, ordering from Yuuki-Cha is such a pleasure.

I’m finding that this one features a very fine line between not flavourful enough and too bitter. When I manage to brew it in that sweet spot, it’s very sweet but quite mild. It has a similar buttery hay flavour as the Minekaori, but milder. If I go a bit too long, it’s quire bitter. Still an excellent tea that I’m not sorry to have to finish up, but not a contender for favourite.

This is one of two shinchas I ordered from Yuuki-cha, and it’s made up the bulk of my at-home tea drinking over the past few weeks. It’s delightful, and I am quite taken by the novelty of drinking tea harvested only a couple weeks before I receive it! Over the past several months I’ve been drinking mostly Chinese teas, so this is a nice return to Japanese greens.

The leaves, post-infusion, are the most vibrant green ever. They don’t look spent the way less fresh tea does after steeping. The liquor is also an amazingly vibrant yellow-green.

While it’s steeping, it smells like delicious freshly-cut hay. It might be odd to term any type of hay “delicious”, but I grew up spending most of my time in stables and often helping bale hay, so I have good associations with the scent and have always found it really nice, simultaneously refreshing and comforting. The liquor after the leaves are strained smells a little more earthy, and more buttery.

The butter really carries over in the flavour. It tastes like snow peas swimming in butter. It has a nice, full mouthfeel to match and a savoury-sweetness. It’s moderately astringent, but not bitter at all. So lovely! I get three really solid steeps out of this.

It’s Shincha season! I decided to order a Fukamushi and an Asamushi (light steamed) sencha this year. For the fukamushi I decided to go with this tea from Yuuki-cha (therefore this note is for the 2012 new harvest) and for the asamushi I went with Den’s Hashiri shincha (which just arrived today!).

>Dry Leaf Appearance/Aroma
As a Fukamushi sencha, the leaves are mostly broken down into a mix of dust, small pieces, and extra fine needles. The color is bright vivid green with a super sweet fresh grassy aroma. The aroma is so delightful, that I sometimes just open the tin I have it stored in, just to smell the dry leaf.

>Brewing Method
I steeped this tea 3 times in a small kyusu. First infusion using 158F water and 1 minute steep time. 2nd infusion 160F water and 30 Sec steep. 3rd 165F water and 45 sec steep.

>Liquid Appearance
1st cup was cloudy with vivid deep green color. 2nd cup was darker and cloudier. 3rd cup resembled the first one with a lighter color.

>Taste/Aroma
My first cup had a fresh mellow sweet aroma. The taste was wonderful, very tasty and super fresh. I can only describe it as a refreshingly grassy sweet buttery cup. It has a very light astringent finish, but with a very enjoyable and refreshing lingering sweetness in the mouth.

My second cup was not as aromatic as the first, and taste remained mostly the same but perhaps a bit thicker. The fresh sweet grassy aftertaste remained there though not as strong as the first cup.

My third cup had no aroma, lighter in taste, but still very enjoyable. The astringent finish became more prominent in this cup but still not very bothersome.

>Wet Leaf Appearance
Nothing special (as most of the leaf is already broken anyways) other than the leaf had a very vivid green color after 3 infusions.

>Overall
I enjoyed this tea a lot! I’m usually not always in the mood for the thicker, fuller bodied fukamushis, but this one is so tasty! I have been drinking it non-stop since it arrived on Monday. The leaf, the brew, everything about it is super fresh, sweet, and deliciously buttery, yum!

Wonderful tea with pure fresh green aroma. You can smell its freshness when you open a bag. I was pleasantly shocked that a tea can smell that green! It can be steeped multiple times, aroma always stays. Probably the best bancha I have ever tried. Taste is different from any other tea I have ever tried. For true tea lovers.

Got this in a trade with Auggie a little while back and am pretty happy with it. First Japanese red tea I’ve had.

2g/100mL with 95C water at 3-4-5 minutes followed up with 9g/450mL at 95C and three infusions of 3 minutes each.

I was honestly a bit off-put when checking out the leaves. Very irregular in size and shape (think poorly graded FOP Nilgiri or mid- to high-elevation Sri Lanka) with some disconnected yellow twigs. Dry fragrance is hay like, creating this unshakable thought of those twigs being bits of straw. The leaves are a nice glossy black, though.

In a larger pot (9g/450mL) the brewed leaves in the first infusion smack of Douglas-fir tips. I actually wish some of that came through in the flavor or liquor aroma, as I love Douglas-fir tips as a tea alternative. Citrusy, refreshing and laced with resinous piney aromatics. None of this comes through in the cup, neither in a smaller cup nor larger one.

Liquor is bright red-orange (Qimen-like) in the first infusion and much lighter orange (Second Flush Darjeeling-like) in the second and third brews. Aroma is very similar to orchids in the second and third while the first is more like the smell of multiple cherry trees in bloom.

Very sweet, very smooth.

Woody with a bit of underripe fruit. At this concentration I’m not getting the tartness I would if I bumped it a little higher, and I feel this is a bit more approachable. Rather than cherry, I get not-quite-ripe white peach. The first and second infusions are laden with cinnamon when brewed in a larger pot at the same concentration, while more flowery expressions come out in a smaller pot/gaiwan. The florals are a comforting mix of tulip, cherry blossom, and (especially in the second infusion) a resounding Cymbidium orchid aroma. Each subsequent brew is sweeter than the last. Light citrus notes come out as it cools and also are more obvious in the secondary brews. I want to say the third brew is like lemonade, but it’s much lighter than that – more like citron-laced water with a sprinkle of white sugar, a drop of honey, and some orchid petals stirred with a stick of Saigon Cinnamon. There is a woody-malty undercurrent shared by all, but it is only a light base flavor that sort of turns to a sweet barley tea aftertaste.

Overall, this does have some similarity to a mellow Second Flush Darjeeling or a very good and lighter Autumnal Darjeeling or Medium Elevation Ceylon with very little astringency at all, but the body and smooth mouthfeel is more akin to a Taiwanese red… The closest tea to this that I’ve had would actually be Sun Moon Lake Assam-cultivar Taiwanese red. Mouthwatering, smooth, full-bodied goodness with a definite sweet side.

Not the most spectacular tea around, but very tasty. I’ll be looking to buy more of this next time I see it offered.

WOW. Very sweet, very buttery mouth feel. Green flowers, green sea. Zero astringency.

More of a sea-grass (vs. vegetal/grassy) and mineral taste than other gyokuro. Calming, little to no astringency. Smooth, interesting.