I did a bit of an experiment today, and brewed this at a really low temperature to see what happens. The aroma of the tea was softer than usual, and it was actually more pleasing as it wasn’t overpowering.
The taste of the first infusion was perfect. There was no astringency, no bitterness, and only a hint of grassiness in the taste. Truly this is a prime example of a Sencha.
The second infusion was a flash infusion, steeped for 30 seconds, and was very similar to the first, but the taste of the tea was a bit mellower, with the grassiness fading further. The third infusions was actually bordering on being sweet while still having a touch of grassiness. This was also a flash infusion, but it still produced excellent results.
The fourth and fifth infusions were very mellow, with no grassiness and were sweeter than previous infusions. The taste became very generic during the fifth infusion, which signaled the end of the session.
I think that the bottom line of this little experiment, is that this tea benefits greatly from brewing at low temperature and with short infusions. This resulted in a fantastic tea, which was even better than I remembers, and which certainly earned it’s top place among my teas.
