Had a small sample of this along with my first order from Den’s, and when I finally ran out of my Gyokuro Kin and Sencha Shin Ryoku, I knew it was finally time to give it a try.
This tea is everything you would expect from it: loud and Grape-y. While a lot of flavored senchas seem to have a misting of fragrance or a handful of dried flowers, the Grape sencha is laden with dried cranberries, grapes, and flower petals; making it a particularly fragrant brew.
My first infusion was a little hot and long (180 for ~2 minutes in my kyusu), and made the somewhat overbearing. The directions say “boiling” for “30 seconds,” but I altered it a bit with slightly cooler water (165*) for 1:25. This made the tea leaves come through a little better, and allowed the “grapiness” to spread across the infusions a little more uniformly.
All in all, a very fruity, fun sencha. I prefer the crispness of the Rose sencha, but this tea certainly makes good on its promise.
