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This is a wonderful shincha. I ordered a quartet of these from Yuuki-cha this year, and have enjoyed them all. This one has sweetness, delicate vegetal flavors, and milder umami—less briny than many of the fancier shinchas. I am happy through at least 4 infusions in the morning, about 1 gram per ounce of water at 160 degrees in my kyusu, 30" to start, then 10-20", 30-45", 60-90 seconds.

I think I prefer the Honoyama to this one, but this and the Sayamakaori were both about equally delightful.

I put together a tea tasting note on my web site here (no adds, no sales, just plain tea notes with some photos):

http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/YuukiChaShinchas.html

Another delicious shincha. I ordered a quartet of these from Yuuki-cha this year, and have enjoyed them all. This one is very similar to the Sayamakaori—it has sweetness, delicate vegetal flavors, and milder umami than many of the other senchas & gyokuros I’ve tried. I am happy through at least 4 infusions in the morning, about 1 gram per ounce of water at 160 degrees in my kyusu, 30" to start, then 10-20", 30-45", 60-90 seconds.

I prefer the lighter profile of this one to the Tenryu Misakubo as well: it has less dominant umami, which permits more of the flavors that I prefer—the sweet and delicate vegetal tastes—to come to the fore. It does not have a lot of stamina, but in the morning I generally don’t have time for more than 4 infusions.

I think I prefer the Honoyama to this one, but this and the Okuyutaka were both about equally delightful.

I put together a tea tasting note on my web site here (no adds, no sales, just plain tea notes with some photos):

http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/YuukiChaShinchas.html

After a question came up about whether this was an oolong or a green tea, I decided to check by brewing again, and it was clearly behaving like a green tea, less tempermental than most, but clearly a lovely sweet delicate green tea, with just enough astringency to confirm its green nature.

Brewed up a thermos full of this one, and it retains its essential character of sweet, fruity, and mild herbaceous astringency very well despite the less than ideal brewing technique.

A very nice tea. Need to do a more formal gongfu cha session and report back!

A delicate and fresh smelling tea, with a classic Bi Lo Chun curly snail-shaped leaf, this green tea was quite inexpensive—‘from a new supplier’. I’m not sure it has the same stamina of the sample from Jingteashop.com from last fall, but still a lovely tea for the price. It does have potential for bitterness, so I am brewing it short and low temp, with a low leaf to water ratio—probably about 2 grams in a 5 oz kyusu. This is a great value tea.

What a lovely mellow tea. I started out with what looked like a small volume of green leaves in my kamjove, which had little scent, then added water and there was a strong scent of green peas. Lovely. The leaves expanded to fill their chamber almost entirely. The first steep was a little long and ended up overconcentrated, and I did find a little bitterness in it; but when I finished up a thermos full from these leaves, it ended up as essence of summer hay, warm and mellow, just lovely.

I can see this will be a keeper. I think it will be particularly nice of an evening, to keep infusing while doing paperwork, semi-gongfu cha, but also is going to be lovely for a thermos full when I have to be away from my desk for half a day or more. But I will watch that first steep.

I was particularly pleased with this one because I recently tried some “silver needle yellow tea” from Hunan which was just unbearably bitter for me, very unlike the couple of wonderful yellow teas I’ve had from other sources.

I was pleased to discover some of this in a stash in another office, and brewing it up this morning, i was interrupted a few times, so it ended up quite slapdash in my thermos, a little light overall, but even though I know it can be much better when I get it just so, it is still such a wonderful, forgiving tea that hours later in the thermos it is sunny warm welcoming with hay notes more than the fruity notes that predominate earlier. Nothing bitter or unpleasant even under these abusive conditions. Gotta love a tea like that.

First time logging, not first time drinking. This is a lovely, mellow, forgiving tea that steeps and steeps. I have infused a few grams of tightly furled balls and filled up my 1 quart thermos today, and there is still more to get from these leaves. Sweet, floral, haylike, beautiful.

Can’t give grams or ounces or exact temps today, because I’m brewing in the office with a kamjove and the other tools are elsewhere. But it is giving wonderful results even without that specificity. A good general starting point for me is about 1 gram per ounce, so 2 grams for a small 2 ounce gaiwan, and the wetted leaves will fill the cup.

Again finding this is one lovely green tea. I’ve been brewing it like an oolong, covering the bottom of my small gaiwan with the rolled leaves, and finding that they expand to intact leaves that mostly fill it. I use cooler water—160-170 degrees—because it is a green tea, and the flavor is more vegetal and less floral than the green oolongs, but it is as easy and flexible and forgiving in terms of slightly variable quantities of leaf to water, and varied steep times from 15 seconds to a minute or quite a bit more with later steepings. The steeps thus do vary in flavor and intensity but are never bitter despite that. I’ve brewed up several green teas in the past day (shincha!, korean green, dragon well) and each of those has reminded me that they need attention and respect to remain mellow and pleasant. This one just stays mellow regardless of my fumblings. Love that!

Edited: still haven’t reached the end of the flavor from these leaves, now at least 8-10 steepings in. I do like my teas somewhat diluter than many, but this is still amazing for a green tea. Very oolong-like in this too.

A nice straightforward green tea.

Another wonderful series of infusions today. This tea just keeps giving and giving.

The only problem I have with it is safely breaking up the very dense brick of tea.

Another lovely series of infusions. Sweet, mellow, vegetal, just right for the evening.

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The leaves are exceptionally sweet smelling, and the longest of the beautiful leaves of the three shinchas I’ve tried so far (Honoyama and Tenryu Misakubo). The liquor, as before, is bright, light and beautiful.

5 g leaf, 5 oz kyusu, water 160 degrees x 30", 15", 30".

First impression is bright, light, sweet, vegetal, very much to my taste. No time today for a full formal note, but it may be a while before I get to that.

First infusion 30" 160°F/71°C with 4.8 g tea in a 5 oz (150mL) kyusu, 2nd infusion 15 seconds at 168°C/76°C, 3rd infusion 1 minute at 135 °C/57°C (cooling too much in Kettle, got careless). All delicious.

This has been a bit of a breakthrough tea for me. I first tried it as a sample and was put off by the bitterness. Then I tried it again as part of a tasting group and worked out a way to enjoy it: I prepare it like a green tea—lower water temps. The bitterness is still there around the edges but I slurp this one up, avoiding tasting right with the tip of my tongue, and get the wonderful sweet rich flavor in the back of my throat, a little smoky, a touch earthy, and go through infusion after infusion.

I bought a beeng of this one because I want to age it and follow the changes to see how the bitter flavors change with time. I am not working with selected temp & humidity conditions, nor did I buy multiple beengs—just playing with the idea of aging more than anything else.

I like to give this one a quick boiling water flash rinse, then let sit to hydrate with the water that clings to the chunk of cake, about 2-3 grams in my small gaiwan, infusing about 60-75 mL, while the water in the kettle cools to the desired 170-180 degrees. Then, a bunch of short infusions, 10" or less at first, up to 30+" by the time I’ve done a dozen or two.

I’ve even done this one as a bulk brewing for my thermos, to share with colleagues at work during the afternoon, and gotten a good response. The hard part will be keeping enough intact for some semi-meaningful aging, to watch the young sheng turn into mature puerh.

This is probably the 4th time I’ve brewed some of this wonderfully delicate tea, but I goofed in a way that probably limited the potential of the infusions significantly: I used a too low leaf to water ratio, and I was let the water cool too long before the infusions—too much attention to the camera setup as I was working on photographing what I was doing. In spite of that, the tea was good!

Leaves are twisted, large, green to black, with a light sweet scent.

2.2 grams of leaf into my 6 oz glass pot, because the leaves are so pretty as they unfurl.

1st infusion 175°F/79°C 30", sweet, hay, floral, but too light, should have been longer.
2nd infusion water closer to 160°F/71°C (let it cool too long, misjudged), let it go nearly 2 minutes, again a very light, sweet, floral infusion.
3rd infusion 175°F/79°C several minutes, similar—light, sweet, floral.
4th and 5th infusions were with water just off the boil, several minutes’ steep, and were still lovely.

I’d try water closer to 195 and 30" steep with 3-4 grams of leaf for the same pot next time around; or 2 grams in my 2 oz gaiwans, same temp/time recs as above.

Honoyama Organic Shincha from Yuuki-Cha today, my first tasting of this one.

Dry leaves are needlelike, very dark, rich sweet vegetal scent

4 grams of tea in 5 oz preheated kyusu

30" 160°F /71°C sweet, vegetal, delicate

10" 160°F/71°C umami, sweet, vegetal, nothing overpowering,

30" 168°F/76°C sweet, vegetal, hint of astringency aftertaste

1 minute 168°F/76°C sweet, vegetal, no astringency

a 5th infusion, with water that had cooled to 130°F/54°C in the kettle, for about 2 minutes, was losing steam, very dilute, but still sweet, vegetal, mellow.

Leaves after infusion are light green, small, few are entirely whole, but not very small pieces, with mild vegetal scent

This is wonderful, wonderful stuff, and my tastebuds are dancing with happiness.

I can’t remember which grade of the Tung Ting I bought at TenRen at this time—I think one of the best—and today I infused it in bulk to fill my thermos for work. So this note does not reflect trying to get the absolute best from the tea, but of it’s service filling a very practical need. The leaves are dark, tightly rolled, and smell like the dark roast TGY that I used to drink all the time. It tastes a lot like that TGY too, dark earthy toasty, quite nice and mellow. Good stuff, but not terribly special.

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Another day, another lovely series of infusions. This is a very very nice tea.

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