Sencha Fuka-midori

I think it’s crazy how my tea cravings change from week to week. Sometimes I want something fruity, other times, only dessert-y will do. Sometimes, I want pure and unadorned tea. I want to taste nothing but the leaf. Not too long ago, I would have told you that green oolongs are by far my favorite. These days, I’m having a renewed love affair with Japanese greens.

This particular tea tastes like grass and minerals. It’s full and brothy and also a bit drying, but not astringent. Sweet. The taste reminds me of summer somehow. I think I’ll cold steep the used leaves. Too tired for another cup now. :)

This tea reminds me altogether of why I love tea! There is no question of my feelings towards Japanese Sencha and this tea provides plenty of answers to the inquisitive mind of any newcomer to green tea. Plainly put, this tea is delicious!

The leaves are beautifully deepened and darker in hue of green and the liquid is a wonderful green lemonade color. The taste of the first pour is smooth and resembles a quality spinach smoothie. The 3rd steeping is my favorite, as it brings out the sweeter and floral notes of the leaves.

As wonderful as this tea brews, it’s making it very difficult to move on to the next round of tea tasting for the day. Thank you, Den’s Tea and your expertise for this fine sample!

Today was one of THOSE days. The kind where things keep going wrong and you start wondering what you did to piss off the universe. So it was clear that I would need two things when I got home: a piece of dark chocolate, and some good green tea.

1/3 of the cup in and I already feel so much better and relaxed. I love Japanese green tea. This sencha is a gorgeous dark green similar to the color of a gyokuro. I put two teaspoons in my steeper, filled it with water and watched all the beautiful leaves float up to the top. The liquor came out an almost dark olive green with a strong grassy scent. The tea tastes vegetal with a bit of sweetness and is getting more bitter as it cools. Mmmm.

Loose
Appearance: fine leaf, deep green sencha
Aroma when Dry: soft, sweet vegital
After water is first poured: sweet, (eastern) fragrant, lightly buttery
At end of first steep: sweet, buttery
Tea liquor:
At end of first steep: light green
Staple? Yes
Preferred time of day: any
Taste:
At first ?: even, creamy, sweet
As it cools?: starts getting bodied and brothy
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? Yes, with a powdery bodied sweetness

Second Steep( 4min):
gets very sour and soapy with a lingering quality

This came as another tea in my Den’s tea sampler set… I’m not a total fan of sencha although I do like a lot of other Japanese green teas. This was steeped for about 90 seconds in 175 F water. It is pleasant but very vegetal and spinach like with some definite savory notes and a bit of astringency in the finish. I have no doubt that this is an excellent sencha but I think it’s a bit too astringent and sour for me, I probably wouldn’t buy this one although it is very flavorful, delicious and fresh tasting!

This sencha is one of the loose tea samples included in Den’s Tea’s Green Tea Novice sampler. The dry leaves are lovely to look at – shiny, dark green needles of tea that have a full, savory sort of smell with hints of nuttiness. When I took the leaves out after they’d steeped they looked almost like pieces of fresh leaves that had been picked today.

The colour of the tea is a vivid lemon-yellow hue despite having a fairly short steeping time. The tea itself hovers somewhere between the grassiness of matcha and the flavour of cooked vegetables. It has a distinct savory undertone to it – I think someone else called it umami and I agree with that. There’s also a bitter tang on the end of each sip that leaves a bit of a sour aftertaste in the mouth. Nothing too horrible though, and the other attributes of the tea more or less make up for it in my opinion.

I’ve not had much experience with authentic, good-quality Japanese teas, but within my limited experience I can say that I think this is an excellent sencha and something that I might consider buying a full bag of one day.

I’m plowing my way through the Den’s Sampler. I’ve never had a Sencha before, and I’m still unsure whether or not I actually like green tea or not.

It smells like roasted and cooked vegetables. This is a medium bodied, lightly sweet tea. I’m not getting any of the bitterness that Den’s tea described. The aftertaste is very much like cooked vegetables. I think I like this best out of all the samples I’ve tried so far, but I’m still not in love with Japanese greens.

My Den’s order came today! Talk about super quick service. I reallllly want to try the matcha, but it’s too late in the evening for that. So I decided to try this out first, which came in my sampler.

This is pretty freaking great. As I’ve said a million times before, I generally don’t love green teas. But this is sweet, soft, and so soothing. There is a bitterness at the end of the sip that I don’t love – I’m not sure if I steeped too long or if that’s supposed to be there; Den’s website does mention a bitterness with this sencha.

This is the beginning and end of my sample, since I made a whole pot. Will report back on the next steep.

This is a beautiful Japanese tea. I got this in my sampler from Den’s (yay!) and I have just enough left to share a pot, so the s.o. can tell me I am right. I followed the ‘traditional’ parameters as best I could, but doubling the volume of water and tea to accommodate the Americanness of my current teaware.

This tea has a humid vegetal, roasted seaweed nose that I can’t get enough of. Humid seems like a crazy thing to say about a smell, but I know what I mean! ;) It smells how I always thought rainy Japanese coasts would smell when I was a kid, based solely on National Geographic photos. It smells actually quite close to the roasted seaweed snack it just inspired me to open, though without the sesame oil.

HAH! Oh yeah, and it tastes good too. Three steepings in and I am quite happy, pleasantly buzzed, and still trying to figure out how this can have a little bitterness in the finish without being unpleasant. It actually adds quite a bit to the overall character of the tea, just a touch of bitter, a touch of sweet, and a richness to the mouthfeel that I associate with umami.

Oh, and ignore the prep details at the bottom, they are wrong. I am on my iPad and it refuses to play nice with the sliders on here.

This is another sample from the novice sampler that I bought some time ago…

The leaves resemble the Gyokuro leaves from SpecialTeas… they are very slender, deep forest green, and smaller than most Sencha leaves I’ve seen. At just 1 minute’s worth of steep time, the liquor is a beautiful celedon in color. And the flavor is just as lovely!

The flavor is very vegetative, sweet and absolutely delicious. It has a very pleasant mouthfeel that is a bit thicker than most green teas that I’ve encountered.

I will say this about Den’s – they KNOW Sencha!

This is my first loose leaf from the Den’s sampler, and already the greens are growing on me. The dry leaves here are a really rich emerald green color, and the liqueur is a pretty spring green. The flavor is green, of course, but a very savory/sweet richness; a little bit umami, I’d say. There is a hint of bitterness, but just a hint, at the beginning of the aftertaste. The lingering taste is sweet and mouthwatering.

This is delicious for what it is, but I’m not sure that I like greens enough in general that I’ll be buying a larger quantity yet. I’m trying, though!

3 steeps and counting, though they only suggest 2, all around 1 minute steep times.

/Super Sad Owl

I had a pouch of this from my Den’s tea sampler. I decided to try it this morning and hopefully review it for my tea blog.

I guess I was a little too tired this morning, and I set the water to boil and overcooked this tea into a bitter, undrinkable pot. Of course, I used the entire pouch.

Sigh. Maybe another time, Sencha Fuka midori.

Ultra mega steep failure. Life got in the way and I completely forgot that I put this to steep, so this got a horrifying ten-minute steep. So down the drain that went and I just redid is properly.

Back to business. The second this touched my lips, I thought, “Wow, that’s buttery!” However, the aftertaste is a little on the vegetal side. It’s not bitter at all and leans towards the sweet side. With each sip, the butteriness subsides and the vegetal side of this takes over (and I personally don’t care for that).

It is nevertheless very well-balanced and excellent quality. I can see why this is a bestseller.

Den’s tea sample number three. Compared to the organic sencha of last night: these leaves look similar — feathery and delicate, but are a bit darker green. I had thought the organic sencha leaves smelled vegetal last night, but it’s interesting, compared to these they smell less vegetal and more, for lack of a better word, herbaceous. The liquor looks similar, a chartreuse color with tiny particles suspended in it. The aroma is similiarly cabbagy/spinachy/asparagussy, but more buttery and not grassy at all.

I did not get any bitterness in the taste, which was vaguely reminiscent of steamed broccoli, right when it turns that very bright green color and is still al dente. There’s a mildness that isn’t quite sweetness.

I’m not really sure which I like better, but I’m giving this one just a tiny bit higher rating because it seems to have just a tad more depth.

This is a wonderful buttery vegetabley green. No bitterness. So glad I got the sampler from Den’s so I could try some Japanese green teas! They are fast becoming my favorites.

This is my first Sencha. I am excited to try it out!
I thought I would try this out western style first. It brewed up to a pretty grass green color. There are a lot of tiny leaf fragments in this tea that made it through the filter, so my cup has a lot of floaties; doesn’t bother me though. I’m hoping I didn’t get the water too hot, as my digital thermometer died.
:(
My first sips are pleasantly ‘green’ and sweet. That’s about all the flavor I’m getting. I like it but I’m assuming I need to add more leaf, like Dens has kindly suggested in their brewing instructions. I will save that for next time; for now I like it the way it is! I was craving Japanese tea after lunch today. My two sisters and I went to a local sushi and grill place. I ordered tea, and they brought me this really pretty cup ; at first sip I knew it was genmaicha! Anyplace that serves genmaicha as their signature tea is my new favorite! :-)
I will rate this now but may change it when I try it with more leaves next time.

Yummy for breakfast, with my PB&J sammich. I actually left my packet of Sencha Fuka-Midori at a friend’s house and only recently retrieved it, so for almost a month I was drinking mostly chinese greens. Today, reunited with my tea, I was reminded why there was a time early this year when I just HAD to have my morning sencha at the office. If not, I’d get really snappy by 9:30 a.m. You do not want snappy. I have pointy objects in reach at my desk.

To be completely honest though, I can’t really tell the difference yet between this tea and my cheaper Japanese supermarket sencha. Can’t afford the premo stuff now either, which is a shame, what with Shincha season around. But for now, I love this for what it is: a good staple.

And oh crap I forgot to try this out with my banko houhin. (d’oh!) Next time.

PS. I have to make a not-so-secret confession. After my second steep I peered into my kyusu and those slices of leaves just looked so delish so I reached in a pinched me a bit and gave it a nibble. heh-heh… It’s actually not bad. But I still felt sheepish about it, for some reason. But why should I? I’ve read you can really eat the leaves anyway. So there’s nothing wrong with me, right? Right?? Gah. Joins Tea Leaf Eaters Anonymous

I can see why this is Den’s best selling Sencha. It’s sweet, vegetal, and not too bitter or astringent (when brewed according to Den’s instructions). I absolutely love a good green tea, but I’ve had trouble working with Sencha in the past. It’s so easy to over steep or to steep with the wrong temperature. Even following guidelines have given me mediocre results in the past. This one has a very slight bitterness, but it is a welcome addition to the sweetness. My husband really likes it too :)

ETA: This tea does leave a lot of powdered debris in my cup with lend to more bitterness as I near the bottom. It seems that Dens has a thing for powdery greens.

This one from my Den’s sampler pack; it gives me a chance to compare it to their Fukamushi sencha. The dry leaves are dark and feathery light, and exude a clean vegetal scent with an interesting top note. What is that? It’s very clean, so clean in fact it reminds me of soap!

1st steep: 180 degrees, 60 seconds. Like lots of different green vegetables all rolled up into one. I taste broccoli and spinach, slightly sweetened. Den’s tasting notes indicate a slight bitterness, but I’d go so far as to say very slight. There’s also a slick background of roastiness – one coat of paint on the walls of the room the veggies are sitting in.

2nd steep: boiling, 15 seconds. It’s amazing how far these leaves transform themselves during the short second steep. They are now bright green and easy to make out as large pieces of torn up tea leaves. Beautiful! The aroma is great – I want to put butter on that scent and serve it up with brown rice. The taste: much more pronounced astringency this time, sweetness toned down, vegetables still very much present.

I like this tea, slightly more than their Fukamushi.

Tried a sweet style first steep and hot water second steep and combined them-umami syrup! Killing dual cravings for sweet and savory at once. Too tired to speak with first person pronouns.