Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Sencha
Flavors
Grass, Marine, Seaweed, Peas, Spinach, Vegetables, Vegetal, Butter, Autumn Leaf Pile, Broccoli
Sold in
Loose Leaf, Sachet
Caffeine
Medium
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by guzzlr
Average preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 15 sec 2 g 10 oz / 285 ml

From Our Community

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42 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This is a sencha sample I got from Harney and Sons so I thought I’d check it out this morning since I’m in the mood for a green tea again. I got the loose leaf sample and not the teabag...” Read full tasting note
    78
  • “Another sample sachet from my Harney order. I was prepared to be completely underwhelmed by this one. I don’t really know why, maybe I just have a low opinion of most senchas used in flavored tea...” Read full tasting note
    80
  • “Since today was a nice, warm, sunny day everyone happened to be out mowing their lawns today. I love the smell of just cut grass, especially when it’s still damp from morning dew. It brings me...” Read full tasting note
    87
  • “I’m not sure who coined the term “sip down” but it’s kinda cute. ;-) Go missing from Steepster for a while and a whole new language gets invented. Wow. I’m on a bit of a sip down quest myself,...” Read full tasting note
    82

From Harney & Sons

The Japanese drink sencha every day & so does John Harney. You may find it to be a very approachable green tea. There are many different Senchas available on the market today… you can count on Harney & Sons to offer one of very high quality.

Try the standard cup of tea in Japan. Nourishing Japanese Sencha is handpicked in spring to draw out a soft, light character found only in the finest green tea. The delicate and clean flavor of this green tea make it quite approachable. To be enjoyed hot or cold, the casual and mellow tea abundant in antioxidants, makes Japanese Sencha an easy everyday favorite.

About Harney & Sons View company

Since 1983 Harney & Sons has been the source for fine teas. We travel the globe to find the best teas and accept only the exceptional. We put our years of experience to work to bring you the best Single-Estate teas, and blends beyond compare.

42 Tasting Notes

78
2816 tasting notes

This is a sencha sample I got from Harney and Sons so I thought I’d check it out this morning since I’m in the mood for a green tea again. I got the loose leaf sample and not the teabag version.

This was steeped via regular infuser mug method for about 90 seconds, I find the flavors of sencha are more enjoyable for me if I keep the steeps short and then they can be steeped 2-3 times.

A very vegetal steeped leaf that smells like spinach is what I encountered in this cup. The spinachy flavor continues in the tea, which is light and sweet but also has a tad bit of bitterness in the finish, and yes, seaweed in particular a bit of wakame.

I much prefer the Ichiban sencha from Harney over this one but it is also 3x as expensive!

This is a good choice for an everyday green if you don’t mind a bit of bitterness, I am sensitive to it due to my acid reflux issues. I personally prefer the milder Japanese greens like gyokuro and fukamushi senchas… but I will certainly finish off the sample that I have. :)

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 1 min, 30 sec
CHAroma

Wellllll, Ichiban Sencha does mean “The Best Sencha.” ;)

TeaBrat

It certainly is good! :)

ScottTeaMan

THIS IS A GOOD EVERYDAY SENCHA! [oops…….why am I shouting?].

TeaBrat

My favorite everyday sencha is still Sencha Chiran form Lupicia. :)

ScottTeaMan

HHmmm now I have to look that up :=))

ScottTeaMan

That’s more ’spensive, Lucy. Is it worth the price ^^??

Missy

Acid reflux is like heartburn except that its stomach being released into the throat right?

TeaBrat

@Scott – to me it is because it’s sweeter and mild
@Missy – yes. It doesn’t bother me all the time fortunately

Missy

err stomach acid^

ScottTeaMan

A good resteeper??

ScottTeaMan

Lucky Dog…….Lupicia is so close yo you.

TeaBrat

you should be able to get at least 2 good steeps out of it. I’ll send you some if you want to try it. :)

Missy

do you ever have problems with honeybush? I find that I can drink rooibos all day long but my first cup of honeybush generally cause lava to rise up my throat.

TeaBrat

Missy, I have not had problems with honeybush, peppermint and chocolate both bother me tho’

ScottTeaMan

I love Jalepenos, but they usually cause probs for me, and sometime chocolate. :-|

Missy

Very interesting. Thanks for answering. That was a personal question. :D
I’ll have to watch for the chocolate so far it doesn’t seem to bother me but that may just be my love of chocolate blocking that part of the experience out.

CHAroma

@Missy, Acid reflux and heartburn are two different things, so I wouldn’t be too concerned. I have acid reflux, and I really only get it when I drink a giant glass of water before bedtime (or eat chocolates or mints before bed). Then I’ll wake up with what feels like strep throat because acid crawled up my esophagus while I was sleeping and burned my throat. Sleeping on an incline helps acid reflux, but it wouldn’t do anything for heartburn.

Harney & Sons The Store

If you’re looking for a nice bridge between this Sencha and the Ichiban, I’d recommend you try the Kagoshima Sencha. It’s quite tasty.

TeaBrat

Dear Harney & Sons The Store, thank you for the suggestion. I am a regualar customer so I will try that the next time I order something. :)

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80
2201 tasting notes

Another sample sachet from my Harney order. I was prepared to be completely underwhelmed by this one. I don’t really know why, maybe I just have a low opinion of most senchas used in flavored tea bases, so I figured this one would be just as boring.

I have to say I was pleasantly surprised! When I smelled the brewed tea it smelled green and buttery and a touch savory. The taste was smooth… Yes, vegetal, yes a touch sea-weedy but also very buttery and comforting. No bitterness, no unpleasantness. An easy to drink green tea that would be nice with meals and when you want a simple, tasty tea.

Preparation
3 min, 0 sec
Kasumi no Chajin

sounds like a keeper for me!

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87
174 tasting notes

Since today was a nice, warm, sunny day everyone happened to be out mowing their lawns today. I love the smell of just cut grass, especially when it’s still damp from morning dew. It brings me back to being a kid waking up with the sun rising into my room, birds singing in the trees, the smells of spring and summer wafting in to rouse me from my sleep. I knew I had to get some of this tea today because it smells like freshly cut grass still wet from dew. So, I went to the dinning area that sold this tea and grabbed a sachet, relaxed and was instantly transported.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 1 min, 0 sec
Bonnie

Wonderful visual…I could almost smell the grass!

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82
2036 tasting notes

I’m not sure who coined the term “sip down” but it’s kinda cute. ;-) Go missing from Steepster for a while and a whole new language gets invented. Wow.

I’m on a bit of a sip down quest myself, having found a number of rather old open samples, boxes, tins, bags, etc. and this is among those. I steeped this in the Breville for 1 minute at 180, which is what was recommended on the sample packet.

For a hoary sample, this has retained a really nice, light, slightly vegetal taste, though looking at my notes from the original tasting it’s clear that this is one best drunk fresh. I can’t discern the complexity that was present when the sample was young.

On another note, I wanted to ask those of you who like Japanese greens whether you have any concerns following the nuclear meltdown. I’m one of those people who hasn’t eaten sushi (much) ever since, and I’ve been taking comfort in the fact that though my Japanese greens are well past their best by dates, they were all harvested pre melt down.

Thoughts?

JustJames

ooh, hadn’t thought of that, honestly. i had a brief look through wikipedia at your question and found this: ’ As of July 2011, the Japanese government was unable to control the spread of radioactive material into the nation’s food supply. Radioactive material was detected in food produced in 2011, including spinach, tea leaves, milk, fish and beef, up to 200 miles from the plant. 2012 crops did not show signs of radioactivity contamination. Cabbage, rice119 and beef showed insignificant raditaion levels. A Fukushima-produced rice market in Tokyo was accepted by consumers as safe.119’ however, it’s hard to know whether tea that was contaminated was/would have been released for sale. i would guess not. ….. i would hope not.

__Morgana__

Thanks James! I’ll go read the article. I don’t mean to be alarmist, but I didn’t think it was strange how news coverage of the reactor accident sort of dropped off, as far as I know without any sort of resolution to the problem.

__Morgana__

Er, did think it was strange.

JustJames

i know the radioactivity is increasing as opposed to decreasing in detectibility, at least on the west coast. i think the government figures if they stop the flow of info that we will ‘keep calm and carry on’. (they forgot about the interweb)

this is the link to the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster

i know japanese customs was pretty strict. the country starved for the better part of…. 18 months? because they either were not allowed to export items, or their items were not accepted.

__Morgana__

Thanks for the link!

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85
1113 tasting notes

I have no idea where I got this sample sachet from Harney and Sons, but this is not a bad sencha at all! I’m fairly impressed :)

Gosh I love green tea SO MUCH! It’s so perky and green and comforting.

ifjuly

Me too!—which is so weird for me to say because I hated it for the longest time, ha. Yay greens.

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75
93 tasting notes

I managed to fix my steeper, but forgot it at home, so today’s another day of bagged tea at work. I received a sachet of this as a sample with my last H&S order.

The liquor was a pale green. The taste was very vegetal and a bit spinachy with a buttery finish. There was no bitterness at all. It’s a perfectly fine plain green tea that I wouldn’t mind drinking every now and then when the mood strikes me.

Preparation
180 °F / 82 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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56
92 tasting notes

This brewed a little bitter, I’m think next time I’ll only brew for 2 minutes

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 3 min, 0 sec
takgoti

Sometimes sencha benefits from turning the temperature down a bit, too. I’ve never had H&S’s sencha, so it might not help at all, but I like to keep mine somewhere in the 170’s most of the time.

Cofftea

I prefer mine at 160 then play around w/ the leaf amount.

Carla

I got impatient waiting for the water to cool down, so the eh tea was entirely my fault

Cofftea

Haha! I can see where that’d happen Carla. I don’t have that problem because I heat it to that temp rather than boil it and let it cool.

armenjc

Try 30 seconds at 170-180° for this tea. Then 45 and 60 seconds. Then spread out the next three infusions to 20 seconds and finally the last two at 30 seconds apart. I get a good 7-8 infusions from this tea almost every time. It’s my favorite Sencha so far.

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75
181 tasting notes

I’m drinking this from a cafe in Birmingham, MI called “Java the Hutt.” As you can tell by the name, they mostly do coffee, and all the tea they have is in bagged form. I haven’t yet met a mind-blowing sencha, but I haven’t met one I didn’t like either.

takgoti

I was going to try and make a Star Wars pun, but I can’t think of anything that is recognizable/makes sense/doesn’t make me want to schedule a lobotomy. Luke Sench-alker. Sen-cha-P-O. Sen…chacca?

Well, there goes my idea for a Star Wars based tea shop. I was gonna call it the Can-tea-na. Get it? Can-tea…all right. I quit.

Jack

There’s a Boba-[Fett]-tea joke in there somewhere too. Somewhere…

takgoti

Touche.

Jason

Did someone say Battlestar Galactica? I think I missed something…

extrarice

How properly the sencha is made makes a huge difference in how it tastes.

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88
1737 tasting notes

John Harney Appreciation Tea #22

I was happy to read that John Harney drank sencha every day. That must be why they offer such a nice one. After a lunch of sauteed mizuna with eggs on pita bread and served with sliced fresh tomatoes (all veggies from the local farmers’ market), I realized that only sencha would do. In addition to my supply of filter bags, I had located a couple of errant sachets of this Japanese Sencha from Harney & Sons, which turned out to be the perfect post-meal brew! Dark roasted spinach-scented dried leaves; citrine-peridot, slightly cloudy liquor with just a touch of saltiness, making it the perfect savory meal tea.

I believe that I obtained a handful of these sachets in the red linen wrapped display box. Now that the sencha sachet envelopes from that set are depleted, I’ll probably replenish this tea in the looseleaf form. It’s very good, and that’s coming from someone who has tried many varieties of sencha.

Of course, if you dislike sencha, then you won’t like this. But serious sencha aficionados are bound to like this classic selection.

Preparation
165 °F / 73 °C 2 min, 0 sec 2 g 9 OZ / 266 ML

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96
871 tasting notes

Free sample from Harney and sons.

Bagged tea.

This is a delicious sencha. I was quite impressed.The smell of the dry tea is vegetal and creamy. The colour of the tea liquor is bright, light yellow-green. Smells vegetal, smooth and creamy. The taste is buttery, creamy, smooth, with just a hint of saltiness.

This is going on the shopping list.

Preparation
185 °F / 85 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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