Ken Durocher

This is the first matcha I’ve ever had, although I have had matcha-flavored foods (green tea gelato was delicious!). I guess I can’t really compare it to any other matcha, but I must say this tea is DELICIOUS! The smell is amazing and the taste is super sweet, and very thick. Great tea!

Delicious! This tea has a grassy, earthen smell in the bag, and a grassy, floral sent once brewed. The color is a nice bright green and the flavor is a near perfect balance of sweetness and bitterness (the good kind). Obubu doesn’t disappoint!

Approximately 3 grams of tea for 3oz of water at 70C for 1.5 minutes for the first infusion, then 3oz 80-90C water after that for 30 seconds for further infusions.

This is a nice, cheap, everyday tea. The flavor is really good for bancha, and the leaves are big and whole.

I deviate from Obubu’s “standard” steeping method a little, I use 3 oz of boiling water to about 4g of tea for 30 seconds for the first infusion, then 3oz boiling water for 15 seconds for the other infusions. The brew is tasty. A bit tart, with a good mix of bitter and sweet. For the price, a really nice tea!

This is my first tea from Obubu, and it is quite delicious.

The leaves are large! I’m used to rather broken leaves with Japanese tea, but these are mostly whole. Being aracha, there are stems in it, but I love the flavor of the stems, so I like it even more.

The smell of the leaves, both before and after brewing, is AMAZING. I can see why it is called “Sencha of the Wind”. It smells like a sweet spring breeze. The color of the tea is a nice yellow-green, and the taste is nice and sweet, with a slight fruity flavor.

I don’t follow their “sencha expresso” brewing instructions, instead using my own. 2-3g of tea to 3-4oz water for 1.5 minutes. 30 seconds for the 2nd and 3rd infusions. Unlike some teas, the flavor really lasts on the 3rd and even 4th infusions.

I hope to try more teas from Obubu. They have a nice lineup, and are very “open” about their work on the site, and have good communication on Facebook/Twitter.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, Obubu recommends you eat the leaves after steeping. I tried it, and they tasted surprisingly good. I splashed a little soy sauce and rice vinegar on the leaves, and they tasted quite a bit like spinach. I think I felt the caffeine more, though.

EDIT 2: The more I brew it the more I like it! This tea is really growing on me. Easy to brew, always a consistent flavor, it’s great!

I had never tried this company, but their teas looked nice, and so did their website.

I ordered their Yutaka Midori breed, named “Ichigo Ichie”. The tea shipped quickly and came wrapped in heavy green paper and Japanese calligraphy, and the tea itself is in a metallic based paper pouch (similar to many other Japanese tea vendors), only this one is resealable.

The tea is deep steamed, and has quite a few small pieces, but smells very fresh. I brewed 2g in ~3oz water at 170F for 30 seconds. The color is a nice greenish-yellow, and surprisingly little “dust” in the cup for being so deep steamed. The flavor is pretty strong and tastes a lot like hazelnuts, and has a hint of roasted flavor, with a little sweetness after.

I might have to try some of their Yame teas later, to see how they compare.

Had to buy this tea when they offered 20% off for reddit users. I’m not disappointed!

The leaves have a strong smell, almost like a gunpowder green. They also look somewhat similar to gunpowder green, with their rolled shape.

I used my own brewing parameters: 2g for ~3oz water at 175F for 1 minute. The color looked good, a nice bright yellow, and had a nice buttery smell. The taste at first was kind of like a Chinese green with some earthiness, but as I continued to sip, I found more of a smooth buttery flavor come out. I personally like a little more vegetal flavor to my green tea, but it’s still very nice.

For $10, this is a really nice tea. Comes in a nice resealable metal pouch. The shipping was also really fast (Ordered Friday night, got it Monday afternoon).

This tea is really nice. I was a little weary of organic teas, as I heard they could be less flavorful, but this one definitely isn’t! First infusion is a nice yellow-green, with a sharp but sweet taste. Second infusion is cloudy, soupy and umami-packed, as it should be. The price is also cheaper than some other teas, while still having all the flavor.

The tea was packaged in the usual type of bag, however it seemed to be vacuum packed, as it was air tight and you could feel the tea packed together inside. On the packaging is a drawing of what I assume is the owner of the tea farm, along with her son. It’s nice to see the faces of the people who dedicated their time to making your tea.

I got a free sample of this with a recent Den’s Tea order, and decided to try it.

I put the bag in a mason jar (32 oz) and then filled it with filtered water, put a cap on and stuck it in the fridge. I shook the jar a little once about half way through the 1 hour brewing. When I first opened the package, I though “this smells like toast bread” and then after it brewed and I tried a cup, it tasted almost exactly like having buttered toast and coffee.

The flavor is good, you don’t really taste it until after you swallow. Because of this, it’s a little weird to drink it…sort of tastes like drinking a cold cup of coffee. The flavor is good though, and it is quite refreshing. Couldn’t be simpler to make, and quite fast too.

Wow, this tea is really good. Fresh, almost citrus leaf smell, good dry leaf color and nice bright green brewed color. Tea is sweet but with strong umami.

Just got some of this since it’s on sale. First brew, used about 3oz water to 2.4g tea, for 90 seconds at 150F. The color is light yellow and very clean, almost no “dust”. The taste is…similar to a Chinese tea, like a good Dragonwell. There is just the right amount of bitterness and plenty of umami. Not as vegetal as some…this is a little more on the floral side. Overall, a very good tea, but a little expensive at it’s regular price.

Oh and as always, the extras Den puts in the order make it just that much better. Got a free sample of Mugicha (barley tea) that I’ve always wanted to try.

This tea was very good. Part of the fun of drinking this tea is knowing that it’s from the oldest continually running teashop in the world! It’s flavor is very similar to Kukicha, but with a touch of Sencha flavor too. You can kind of alter the flavor depending on how you brew it. A little hotter and you get more “twig” flavor (nutty and tart), a little cooler, and you get more sencha flavor.

This is a great tea! It’s from the yutaka midori breed, and has a very similar flavor to Yutaka Midori, only not as “bold”. But since this tea is also $8 cheaper than YM, it’s quite the bargain for a very good tea.

Yutaka Midori isn’t just the name of this tea, it’s also the breed, and this breed is known for it’s good flavor. O-Cha’s Yutaka Midori is great. Very green, vegetal, grassy and delicious. Multiple infusions with great flavor/color. Probably the best Sencha you can find.

I ordered the free sample of this tea, and it came in surprisingly quickly. The sample was just the right amount to fill a 4oz gaiwan.

It smelled very floral, like a garden of flowers. I poured it into my gaiwan (which filled it about 1/3 full) and then poured about 190F water over it for a rinse, and dumped it out. Then I filled up the gaiwan and let it steep for 30 seconds before pouring it into a cup. The color was a greenish yellow. The smell was very much like the dry leaf, floral and almost fruity. The taste reminded me of gunpowder green tea, only less harsh, and a lot smoother. After I finished the first cup, I re-infused, and found the leaves to have expanded a lot. They were all the way up to the lid of the gaiwan! The next 3 or 4 infusions were done at approximately 30 seconds. They all came out almost identical, and tasted good.

I typically drink ONLY green tea, so an oolong was a nice change. This Tie Guan Yin is pretty green, literally in between green tea and black tea, in both taste and fermentation. It’s a really nice tea if you aren’t a fan of black tea, but like something a little more…“brisk” than light green teas.

Currently my favorite tea. Den’s Kukicha is like a sweet, nutty tasting sencha. Relatively easy to brew and affordable.

Tastes better than the Fuka-Midori, a little more complex, yet mellower. More expensive, however.

Simple and easy to brew. Affordable and still tasty.

I had heard this tea was “strong” so I hesitated to try it, but once I did I was not disappointed! It’s flavor is “strong”, but not bitter. It simply has a strong tea flavor, similar to that of sencha, but with a different feel in the mouth. Very tasty.

A very nice medium quality sencha. Affordable and delicious.

Plain genmaicha is nice, but this genmaicha extra green gives it a slightly more sweet green tea flavor, and really balances it will.

My good friend Ben sent me some of this tea from Seven Cups, and it’s FANTASTIC. I love Long Jing, and this is some of the best. This comes from the original Long Jing bushes near the Dragon Well (where the tea gets it’s name) and it has a very fruity, almost creamy smell. The infusion is sweet and kind of creamy as well, and even sitting in a gaiwan it doesn’t get very bitter. It’s a very expensive tea, but nice to have for special occasions.

I have the loose leaf version of this, and it’s great. Smells like Honey Smacks cereal when brewing, and has a distinct, savory flavor.

For the price, this tea is great. Deep steamed, so I steep it quick so it doesn’t get too thick or bitter.

Nice roasted, smoky flavor. Delicious to warm up with at night since it has little caffeine.

I use near boiling water, for only 30 seconds.