Japanese Green Tea

Oh NO.

Ew.

So I was a bit adventurous at work today, and I figured, let’s explore the options in the Flavia machine! Oh look! Here’s a Japanese green!

So I have no idea what the leaves look like, because they’re concealed in a foil packet thinger. I’m pretty sure there is leaf in this, and it’s just not powder. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if it was powder. If I get bored enough, I just might cut one of these suckers open. I wonder if I’ll be horrified at the contents.

Anyway, this steeps/pours/does whatever and it’s a neon green, akin to a sencha or ryokucha. NOT BAD, I’m thinking to myself. The smell coming off the cup isn’t half bad either! It’s grassy in a very Japanese green/sencha-like way, with a very faint hint of butteryness. Hrm.

So I wait for it to cool, and sip, and HOLY GOD BAD. Yeah. Um. What the hell. I feel bad for the poor person that had this, thinking that this is what sencha really tastes like, and then never had Japanese green tea again. It’s ridiculously bitter. You can tell that the machine has absolutely no clue about water temperatures and steep times and the like. The leaves taste like they’re screaming for help, dying as they’re engulfed in scalding water. It’s such an unpleasant taste. Blech.

I tolerated a few sips before I had to toss this one. This makes me only all the more eager to nail the sencha I have here in my house even more.

And so the work tea saga continues…

Sigh
Thought my former discription of this tea was too useless, so rewriting the note.

As a start, the color was a green, with much dust and texture.
It tasted very bitter/sour. Like the rasberry tea of the same brand.
It tasted as seaweed, like a green tea that has been oversteeped or mistreated.

I wonder if it’s because of the machine, and not the leaves, that this tea taste so vile.
Normaly I expect a green tea to be sweet with a hint of “seaweed” but this is just too much bitternes. And the rasberry (before mentioned) should also have been sweeter, in comparison to other tea of the same kind.

I don’t know if the Flaviamachine adjust to the different needs of teasorts, like tempreture, but I think not. It would explain why the Earl Grey and the Yasmin tea didn’t fail completely.
Black tea takes high temp. just fine, and white tea is very forgiving. Not so with the teas before mentioned.

I give it another try, cutting the bag open and try steeping it manualy when I get the chance. Untill then – it gets a very bad rating.

I brought some Kukicha green tea to work to brew in my ingenuiTEA, and after brewing this and brewing the Flavia green tea, I noticed so many similarities. I finally got too curious and cut open a bag of the Japanese Green Tea. It’s real tea leaves. And it even has evidence of stems, just like the Kukicha. Although I do have to say my loose leaf is way better haha. I just thought it was neat that at least they’re not using a powder…

unfortunate taste

Pretty sucky if you ask me. Moldy aroma and super bitter…watch yourself, you’ve been warned.