Sen-Cha Fukamushi Reserve (Blender's Series)

Today has managed to get even worse. Sigh. I need happy tea. Hopefully this will qualify (I do love me some fukamushi). From the ever lovely (if school-work buried) takgoti. This plus hockey should hopefully turn my day around (I’ve joked about needing to follow an Eastern team so I’m not up til midnight watching Ducks’ games… well, they traded my favoritest player ever to Toronto so guess who I’m watching – Go Leafs!).

I was feeling really grumpy so I didn’t feel up to having this clog my kyusu. I took the lazy man’s route and used a mesh ball. Yes, I am having that kind of day. I did preheat my cup though, so that’s gotta count for something, right? I poured the water over the little mesh ball and let it sit for about 50 seconds.

The resulting cup is happy tea. Freshly crisp, a little rich almost creamy (hints of the crazy milky creamy from Samovar’s Ryokucha that I’m addicted to), sweet with no astringency, gentle and thick. A delightful weight to it, this gives me a nice refreshing but also comforting feeling. I will say that, as much as I love fukamushi senchas, I can’t tell a big difference between them. So I can’t say this is the best sencha I’ve ever had but I can say that I would have no problems having a big ole bag of this in my pantry. I might need to make it happen.

Yes, this tea and hockey are making my day better.

^3g/6oz

SENCHA FAIL.

Well, that was supremely unfun. I woke up pretty excited today, ready to hit up some sencha, serious-style.

I was all prepared to do 1 tsp/8 oz., but then I went onto Steepster’s description of this tea, and read 1 tbsp/9-12 oz. And that’s where everything fell apart.

Let’s start with the leaves first. Can I just wax poetic on how absolutely gorgeous these leaves are? Crumbly and a beautiful, beautiful deep green. Gorgeous! They feel so wonderfully silky and shiny. They’re truly a thing of beauty. The smell is somewhat similar to cut grass with a slight butter note. I was really excited to try this.

So I measured out 1 tbsp, dumped in 9 1/2 oz. of water, and waited a minute for this to steep. The water immediately became this murky, swampy concoction, not unlike Ryokucha from Samovar. And the pour took forever, because the leaves were so thick and mush-like.

My first warning sign was the color of the tea. I’ve read that sencha is a pretty yellow-lime-green color. Mine was deep, dark olive. Darker than Ryokucha. I seriously couldn’t even see the bottom. The smell coming off of it was promising, though! Leafy and buttery with notes of grass and brine. So I hesitantly took my first sip…

…and nearly spat it out in the sink. Oh my. That had to be the most bitter thing I’ve ever tasted in my LIFE. And ridiculously strong, too. It tasted like wheatgrass x1000. Like I just swallowed a mouthful of the most bitter, ridiculous grass I’d ever tasted. Seriously, that bad.

Panicking a bit, I began to dump leftover warm kettle water into my cup, hoping it’d dilute.

It helped, but barely. The flavors were so strong and dominant and disgusting that I needed to dump it all in the sink.

In a bit of a panic, I contacted takgoti (who sent me this probably wonderful tea, had I brewed it correctly!), who gave me some reassurance and suggested that I modify stuff a bit.

So I dumped out most of the leaf, until I was left with something closer to a teaspoon, used 8 oz. of water, and steeped it again. This cup smelled around the same as the first, and the taste…

Well, it’s still a bit bitter than what it’s supposed to taste like (the ratio is probably not perfect), but I’m getting a LOT more flavor that I’m supposed to. Now there’s more of a grassy-green taste, chased by a bit of brine, and followed by some assertive bitterness. Following that bitterness is a wonderful sweetness that envelops my mouth. It’s not a nectar sweet. It is a sweet that I can only say would probably be the way that grass would taste if it was edible.

I know that I royally messed this one up. And it makes me really sad, because I know that sencha is very popular, and I trust that takgoti has given me a most excellent sample.

I don’t really know if sencha will ever be one of my favorites. Right now, I can’t really get the memory of the intense bitterness out of my memory, and it’s sort of coloring the much better cup I’m having right now.

Not giving this one a rating for now! Hopefully when I steep it correctly I’ll have a much better time!

This tea, along with Samovar’s Ryokucha, is what propelled me to power through my Calculus test this morning. The dregs of the caffeine’s effects are also what is propelling me through packaging up some stuff for a tea swap.

This is one of the best senchas I’ve ever had. It hits all the points I’ve come to associate with one that is well-balanced – vegetal, approaching roasty, with a sweet chlorophyll taste from the grassy side that at sometimes reminds me of hay, a hint of brine that keeps it from feeling like you’re sucking on a string bean, and it teases just enough at bitterness to keep it interesting.

The nice thing about this sencha is that the flavor is nice and full, but I don’t find it hard-hitting, if that makes sense. It’s not like it’s being pushed on to you, or bowling you over. It just kind of sighs into your mouth and blankets your tongue. The push and the pull of all the different flavors as they swirl and meet and break is fantastic.

The tea’s got a nice, smooth texture to it. Holding the bag, it’s weighty. Like you’re holding something luxurious and of substance. The actual leaves are crumbled, as is characteristic of sencha, but they feel rich, have an almost silky quality. As a liquid, it brews into a nice, bright, lime-y color. Finishing the cup leaves a residue that looks like matcha. I’m not sure if it qualifies as that, but it sure looks like it.

Maeda-en recommends that you take care on the water temperature, and I recommend that you heed their advice. This tea has a delicacy to it and unless you’re seeking bitterness it’ll hit you if you’re not careful. I’ve also been brewing this pretty short. On a day when I think I can take the rollercoaster of changes greens can undergo when you mess with their parameters, I’ll play around with it some more, but I’m pretty happy where I’m at for now.

If you want to get a good baseline for sencha, I’d highly recommend trying this one out. Also, if you’ve tried a genmaicha but couldn’t get on board with the rice they add to it, this might be your bag. It’s fantastic for days that require prolonged productivity, or when you find yourself craving a nice, solid green tea.

This is a solid green-tea that is readily available at your local Japanese super market (assuming you have a local Japanese Supermarket-fortunately I do). I haven’t really ventured out into online buying for my Japanese greenteas as I like to support my local Japanese stores, but I am thinking about trying what the internet has to offer pretty soon.

Having said that, I’ve drank sen-cha and houji-cha almost exclusively for my whole entire life, given the fact that I am half-Japanese. The stuff that we usually get gets shipped straight from Japan and is some pretty good stuff- nothing pretentious- just good clean straightforward high quality green tea.

Mae-dan provides a close substitute for when we run out of the HQ (high-quality) stuff. It has pretty clean taste, with what I can identify as a somewhat “frothy” taste to it. This usually signifies a high theanine content, which is supposedly what relaxes you to counteract the caffeine jitters you may encounter when drinking coffee.

This is a green tea I would recommend if you want to make green-tea a normal staple of your tea diet. It’s not gonna blow your sock off, but its solid, and its made with pretty good quality at a reasonable price.

Deep green; a little bitter in flavor (in a good way, almost); rich flavor, like spinach.

i like the gloop of wet leaves in my kyusu after an infusion.