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As we announced on January, this year marks our 10th anniversary of serving the North American Tea Market. To celebrate our anniversary and to show our appreciation for your love of green tea, we have prepared several gifts for you through 2010. The second is “Award Winning Premium Gyokuro”.
This Gyokuro was grown on the Omura farm in Asahina, Shizuoka and was harvested in 2009. The Gyokuro grown on the Omura farm won an award at the last Shizuoka Tea Exhibition. In fact this tea is a frequent award winner at the exhibit.
This Gyokuro is obviously one of the best teas manufactured in Shizuoka. Its taste is quite special and is likely a taste you have not experienced. One sip will enrapture you and you’ll wish that the powerful herbaceous and Umami flavor would remain with you just a little longer.
This is FANTASTIC!
:)
I received an EXTRA Surprise from Den’s Tea…one that is NOT FOR SALE!!!! This lovely lil gem! This award winner…this 10th Anniversary celebration tea!
It has an oh-so-slight aroma of fresh green fields. The taste is so light and airy, even! It’s VERY clean tasting and thirst quenching with a very small hint of earthiness to it.
I makes me think of sunshine!
This is wonderful! In every way!
Delicious! I found this sample sitting around. So light and green tasting. Clean.
This was my first experience with Gyokuro. I felt pretty overwhelmed by the flavor, it was a little powerful for me (but I loved it…it was just a lot stronger than I expected).
I did the steepings as follows: 5g loose leaf: 1) 2oz water @ 35F for 7 mins, 2) 2oz @ 120F for 2 mins, 3) 2oz water @ 160 for 1 min, 4) 2oz water @ 180F for 30 seconds, and 5) 2oz water @ 200F for 15 seconds.
For the first steeping, I poured the water to the side of the kyusu, instead of directly on top of the leaves, so that not all of the leaf was covered in water (there was a good little pile on top of dry leaf). Closed the lid, and waited. After a few minutes I opened the lid to smelled; the aroma was like seaweed or ocean, salty and a hint of sweet, and there was something present I’ve not yet encountered in a Japanese green (I assume that is because I haven’t had gyokuro before).
I sipped it very slowly, because every drop was FULL of flavor. It didn’t have the typical taste I have come to expect from the other Japanese greens I’ve had… but it was a combination of seaweed (almost salty in an almost irresistible way…so hard to describe because it didn’t taste like drinking salt either) a melon-like fruitiness, and a creamy-sweet that was at first very pleasant, and then ended up being very rich. This tea is VERY rich. If one were lucky enough to have an English pot full of several 8oz cups of this, I doubt one could finish it (though you’d want to!), it is THAT rich.
Subsequent steepings brought out further the overpowering seaweed/salty, melon/fruity, sweet/creaminess in different proportions (with the sweet/creamy and melon coming out more as the temp went up). There was so much going on, and I’m not really that good at describing it.
Like I said, this was a little overwhelming for my tastebuds, but was crazy good. I wonder how much 2oz would cost, if it were for sale?
I hope to get another chance to taste gyokuro like this, and I hope I haven’t ruined my taste for others by trying (I can only guess) one of the best out there!
