Sakura Sencha

I got this as a surprise sample from Azzrian! I love sakura flavored teas, so I was kind of giddy upon finding it in my box. It’s been way too hot for hot-brewing tea so I decided to cold brew this—I actually meant to yesterday but it totally slipped my mind, so it was done overnight. I know some people are pretty specific about how long they cold brew stuff but I’ve found it nearly impossible to overseep anything in cold water so my usual time is 12+ hours, I put everything in around midnight and get to it when I wake up (I’m a night owl!).

The leaves for this are so pretty—dark, rich sencha interspersed with these perfect little pearls of cherry blossoms. It’s almost too pretty to put in water! But the smell is too enticing to just let this sit around. Sakura is a lot lighter than that heavy cherry flavor you can get from some teas (and I dislike that) so this blend is perfect for me. Iced it’s fantastic. You get the buttery sencha with the slightest hint of grassiness, followed by the delicate sweet floral taste from the cherry blossoms. It’s fruity, but so lightly so that it’s not at all overpowering. This is a dainty cup of tea for sure. Thanks so much Azzrian for letting me try out this gem!

LOVE this tea! Follow steeping instructions on can – yes JUST a 30 second immersion! Multiply your leaves per ounces you want to drink. Its a delicate tea and needs to be treated as such. I tried over steeping and failed, tried again per instructions and succeed. It is not a POW in your face flavor but the flavor is more than present when you do it the way they suggest. I ADORE this tea. It is cherry cherry and oh so yummy! A new permanent stash favorite!

This tea was sent to me by Azzrian. I have been waiting to try it when i would have time to use my gong fu set and do multiple steeps. Hopefully in the next day or two i will get to all the samples at last!

I wish I had seen the additional steeping instructions before I made this. I have only made one other sencha that I remember and the steeping parameters n this tea are very different from the Chinese greens I drink, with the exception of Chun Mee.

The dry tea is lovely. There are thin, straight leaves and little balls of color. Cherry blossom buds?
I am amazed when something says to steep it for such a short time but at thirty seconds this has a rich yellow hue. I immediately resteeped as they suggested with boiling water for fifteen seconds.

Hubby said the first cup was the best to him and the second too astringent. I did a third steep at fifteen seconds but with cooler water, and it still turned a pretty deep yellow and had a good bit of sour bite and astringency. After swallowing, a sweet taste rises from the back of the throat. Even now, several minutes after I have finished my tea, the sweetness lingers. Teas that do that fascinate me.

I am going to save these leaves and steep again tomorrow morning. I bet there are still two or three good steeps in here. Thank you, Azzrian! I enjoyed trying this one!

Ok, figured I should get going on trying my samples from Den’s Tea before my $3 off coupon expires!

I wasn’t in the mood for a straight green, so was eyeing up the genmaicha w/matcha until I noticed this one! Yes! Yum, fruity green tea. That’s what I want.

I’m not exactly sure how this one will turn out though – as I was waiting for the water to cool to 180F, I noticed that it indicated the volume of water should be 3oz. Three?! I probably have 10 or so in my cup! So I made a quick decision to split it in half, and infuse one, then the other. Soooo we’ll see. The teaball was an inappropriate choice due to water volume, as it turned out, because it wasn’t even fully covered… oh well.

The dry tea smells mostly like tart cherries. Yum.

First infusion (179F/1min):
The aroma is slightly sweet, and a little cherry-tart. Weak, but smells delicious. Woah. Hmm. How to describe the flavour. There’s a bit of cherry sweetness, but not much, and there’s a definite slightly seaweedy green tea flavour. Drat – I drank some oolong before this and just realized that the flavour is lingering in my mouth too much. Time for some Malted ChocoMate (?) Great, now I have malty goodness lingering in my mouth. Sencha Pear? Ok, that was probably the best choice. Now to wait out the lingering pear flavour.

…

Ok! Back to the tea. Oh yes, flavours much clearer now. A nice sencha base with just a hint of floral, tart-ish cherry. Really lovely, actually. I thought I wasn’t a big sencha fan (probably because it has usually been bitter or astringent for me), but this is neither, and quite tasty. Ok, my taste buds are getting confused. I’m tasting oolong aftertaste again. Maybe I’m getting it confused with green tea aftertaste? Maybe they are one and the same!? Ack!

Second infusion (180F/2min):
A bit more cherry here, and definitely more astringency than I’d like, but no bitterness. Should have gone with another 1 minute infusion, I think, not 2 minutes. I really like how subtle the cherry flavour is. I was expecting it to be more overpowering, but its probably much better just being light and subtle. I feel like this tea has at least 1-2 more good infusions to give me (but I think I’ll drop the time back to 1.5 minutes).

ETA: Third infusion
Light cherry flavour, but I can’t really taste the green tea anymore :( I think I used too much water, in part, and I may have worn it out with the last infusion. I must remember that greens can’t be re-steeped as much as oolongs (IIRC). Oh well!

I got this in a swap with brandy3392 a while ago and had kind of forgotten about it, but I recently saw a post on the discussions about how awesome and springy this tea was. Today being an unseasonably warm day (and in general it’s been crazy springy here) I dug it up out of my sample drawer and brewed up a cup.

I really don’t like cherry-flavored things, but I requested this sample because all the reviews put an emphasis on how buttery it was and lightly floral, and not really that cherry-ish. I mean, it’s cherry blossom, not cherry fruit. I was still a bit nervous, but the aroma of the steeped tea allayed that fear. It smells oh-so-buttery with that sweet, cookie-ish scent I have come to really love in green teas. There’s perhaps a very light floral in the scent but it does come out in the flavor. Most of the flavor I get is the buttery, very tasty green tea, but there is also a lightly tart fruity floral note in there as well. It’s really not like cherry to me, which is good if you ask me. I would guess this sample is relatively old (at least last season’s blend), so I wouldn’t be surprised if I was missing a few things given that this is a green, but nevertheless it is still delightfull. I may have to get more of this, and try more tea from Den’s!

Another tea that has a bunch of positive reviews here on steepster and another tea from LiberTEAs…I’m very grateful! :)

This has a very delicate smell and had I not known that it was cherry blossom I would probably still be trying to find the words to explain what exactly it was that I am smelling. But it’s Green Tea and Cherry Blossom indeed!

I really love the pretty little pearls laying perfectly on top of the green tea leaves in this loose leaf mixture. They glitter and dance thanks to the intense fluorescent bulbs above my desk cubicle. The after-infusion liquid is the perfect green tea color. Perfection…what ever other green tea should strive to be color-wise. Okay…I might be over selling it a bit but not by much. I really think the color is perfect tho.

The taste is thirst-quenching and tasty…slightly floral and sweet. It’s a true delight!

I love cherry flavored sencha teas, especially in the spring time.

The aroma is very vegetative but with a pleasing cherry note.

The flavor is very nice – the cherry sencha teas I’ve tasted in the past possess a stronger cherry flavoring, but are often on the verge of being too sweet or too much like cherry cough syrup. The fruit flavor here is lighter, but much more natural tasting.

The sencha leaves are very fresh tasting. Strong vegetative quality.

Overall, I’m very pleased with this flavored sencha.

I am ready for Spring and after drinking this I want Spring to be here right this moment. This has a really nice flavor. The sencha and the cherry flavor blend together in an excellent way. Neither one overpowers or sticks out above the other. The cherry flavor is not fake at all which really surprised me. I have another cherry flavor tea in my collection that is so incredibly sickly sweet and fake that I really have to be in the mood for. This one however is perfectly refreshing, green, and sweet reminding me of Spring.

I just restarted the 30 Day Shred, completed day two yesterday, and today, I am so sore that I can barely walk, so I’m taking the day off and enjoying some tea.

The second I snipped open the sample packet of this, the sweet aroma of cherry danced around me. It was definitely the fruit (more like a cherry candy, though) and not sakura. But sniffing the tea up close, it was straight up Sencha. In all its vegetal glory.

Venturing into the area of taste, this is very fresh, and well, Sencha-y. Slightly vegetal, but not as much as I’d expected. But then there’s the cherry gently woven into the tea base. It’s so subtle. Slightly tart, but just barely so. The more I sip this though, the less cherry I get. I think as this starts to cool, the remnants of the cherry slowly fade into nothing.

It’s a pleasant, buttery cup.

This tea reminds me of spring and spring can’t come soon enough for me this year! The sencha is the dominant taste with a slight floral tone to it. I was a little nervous about the floral part because I do not like floral teas but this is very light. The cherry is a tart taste but light and balanced with the buttery green taste and floral notes. This is SPRING! I like it!!!

First of all, a huge thank you to LiberTeas for giving me some of her stash of this currently-unavailable tea.

The tea is fascinating to look at – dark green, shiny, needle-like leaves of sencha and tiny little dried sakura blossoms still bright pink in colour. The tea has that fresh, grassy sencha smell, but I can also smell a delicate floral, slightly cherry-ish, scent.

The cherry blossom flavour could stand to be a bit more prominent, although I like that the tea isn’t tasting like fake cherry cough-syrup. It’s just a very natural, delicate, floral/fruity hint at the start of each sip. It’s actually easier to taste it in the second steep when it isn’t competing with the slightly unami flavour of the sencha.

Ok, I admit it. This tea terrifies me. I love cherries (bing to be exact), but I hate almost anything else cherry flavored. But… I also love things that are seasonal and since Japan is known for their cherry blossoms, I knew I had to at least give it a try.

Prepared as suggested. 2g/3oz water. The aroma of the dry leaf isn’t as strong as I was expecting and smells of cherry sweet tarts, not of cough syrup as I feared. When steeped the liquor is a gorgeous yellowish green. Surprisingly the sent of the cherry is gone leaving only that of the sencha.

Hmmm… I’ve only had one other flavored sencha from Den’s (their apple) and the flavor of this one just doesn’t compare. The cherry is very light and is more of the blossom rather than the fruit. I’m not sure I’d like it if it was stronger, but I have a feeling that a person looking for a cherry flavored sencha will be disappointed.

FINALLY!
I freaking almost waited a year for this tea and it is finally back!

I could drown happily in this cup of pretty, buttery, floral, fruity and sweet sencha! The only thing I didn’t like about this tea was the resteeping, which was too astringent for my tastes.

full tea review with pretty pictures on my blog, the Oolong Owl http://oolongowl.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/sakura-sencha-from-dens-tea-tea-review/ (no owl photobombings this time)

I’ve been enjoying lighter flavored teas in the afternoons since it is now so hot around here so when I checked the mail and saw my package from silvermage2000 I knew what tea I would be having.
This tea is so pretty. Long, slender hunter green leaves with small light pink balls scattered throughout. The scent is mainly buttery green sencha with a light cherry in the background. I like the time/temp suggestions because it is like having 2 teas in one. I guessed as to the temperature, but I think I must have hit the higher temp range because the tea is heavier on the cherry than the sencha.
The tea brews up to a beautiful golden color which is the color every green tea should be. With the temperature of water that I used, the tea starts off with a slightly sweet/tart cherry flavor followed by a very buttery sencha. I always seem to want my senchas to be more buttery, but this one is just perfect. I can’t wait to continue to play with the temperatures of this tea to see what it results in.
Thank you silvermage2000 for a chance to try this tea. It is truly one of the better green teas I’ve ever had.

2nd infusion, 15 seconds – I was really surprised that there was so much flavor at only 15 seconds. This cup is more floral with a sweeter edge. There was also quite a bit of sencha dust in my mug.

3rd infusion, 25 seconds – This was a more floral cup but the sweet edge is gone.

4th infusion, 35 seconds – Smooth, buttery sencha with the floral aspects hanging out in the aftertaste.

5th infusion, 45 seconds – Significantly lighter in color and flavor. This cup is good, but I think I’ll call it quits after this.

It’s Friday! And the sun actually came out! Wooot! What better way to celebrate than with my first spring tea of the season.

This has a light floral and fruity taste, without being sweet. I generally can’t stand all things cherry flavored as they remind me of children’s tylenol syrup from back in the day, but this just tastes so light and fresh and natural. The flavor is so delicate; it tastes like my tea was kissed by a cherry blossom. Mmm…it’s love at first sip. Hello spring!

Really lovely sencha base with a floral cherry note. Falling in love with green teas today <3 This particular tea is really beautiful dry too. The dark green sencha with teeny sakura blossoms is so pretty!

This just came in today, and I was so excited that I just had to make a cup immediately. I threw some in my cast iron teapot, and used lightly-steaming water for a 45-second infusion. The result is interesting: Light sweet floral flavors (how unexpected) and some mild astringency dominate the flavor, creating an interesting contrast in the flavor. On tp of the previously-mentioned characteristics, the flavor is unusually strong, so I would recommend tasting this tea slowly. Honestly, the tea is better than I expected, and I can’t wait to have more!

Second steep, using cooler water and steeped for 15 seconds. The result was very nice, albeit a lot milder in terms of intensity. The only thing that has changed is that is worth noting is that the sweet floral flavor has decreased the least, so the tea is rather sweet now. I feel that the lack of astringency really enhanced the flavor, and I can’t wait to see how it continues to develop.

Thanks to QuiltGuppy for sharing this, it is delicate, the cherry flavor is perfect. I would have liked a little more of the sencha, but I may go for a longer steep next time. The flavor is almost fragile, like a cherry blossom. Over all, this is very good and from the description, I see somewhat rare, available only in spring. It is also fitting, as my thoughts are with the people of Japan and the tragic circumstances they have to bear…

Delicious! Each time I reach for this tea, it tastes different to me. It is probably because I’m not very accurate in my steeping parameters. I usually estimate. Smells excellent and tastes smooth. It has a nice, subtle cherry accent to it, especially when I let it roll around in my mouth. I know it might sound gross, but I like doing it. ^_

Yummy! On the plus side, I am finished with my surgical rotation!!! yay! I feel relaxed these days and I finally have some quality time to spend with tea.

The smell straight from the bag is incredible & pretty strong (like cherry candy) but it mellows once you put the leaf in your brewing vessel.

Steeped, the cherry tasted isn’t nearly as intense as the dry leaf aroma would suggest. The balance between cherry and sencha is quite nice. The later infusions lose the cherry taste and you get more sencha.

This is the perfect Spring and Summer tea. It’s great iced on a hot day. Since it’s only available for a limited time (maybe 2 months near the beginning of the year… in other words NOW), buy a couple pouches and store one unopened in the fridge. You’ll be glad you did when the weather changes and you have this refreshing treat to drink :)

Note, this does have cherry flavoring added.