The scent of this Kirameki sencha is quite sweet and rich even before the dry leaves hit the preheated pot. Deep green leaves, 4.7 grams into my 5 oz kyusu.
1st infusion in my kyusu was with cooler water, 150 degrees, and absurdly short at 20 seconds (I was thirsty and impatient). Sweet peas, vegetal, but of course too dilute for best impression.
2nd infusion at 30 seconds, 155 degrees, much better, a hint of astringency behind the warm, vegetal, grassy sweetness.
3rd infusion at 45 seconds, 165 degrees, warm, sweet, grassy, delicious. A hint of that warmth of sun-warmed dry hay, not quite caramel, but deep and lovely.
4th 160 degrees, 90 seconds, milder than I expected for what was a longer-than-anticipated infusion—really seems rather dilute. That rich depth of the last infusion is not there, but what is here is sweet and pleasant, if not deep.
5th 170 degrees, about 2 minutes, and again, the depth is lacking but the surface is still good. I now really regret that first too-short infusion because this tea doesn’t seem to be giving me the many infusions that compensate for the first mistake.
Overall, another lovely tea, and I’ll be a lot more careful iwth the first infusions next time. 45 seconds is probably a better starting time, then 30, 60, 90, 2 min.
