Sencha Kyoto: Cherry Rose Green Tea

Got this from LefTea – Thank you so so much!
It went to a good home, let me tell you.

We brewed one heaping perfect teaspoon (if that makes sense), in the Steeper with not quite boiling water. mmm no bitterness, great quality green tea for Metro teas, I’m happily surprised! I love the buttery sweetness of sencha, it’s my favorite by far, in the green family. Yum. Even the boytoy is liking it tonight, and he’s not a green tea fan.

The rose taste and smell is mild next to the sweet syrupy smell of cherries! What a delight. A nice mild taste, if it didn’t SNOW 5 FEET today, maybe I could try it iced. _ Maybe next year. haha!

Cold brewed this overnight since we’re supposed to be under a heat advisory today. I got this from the Strawberry Festival at Bean and Leaves in Long Grove, IL because it smelled AMAZING! I’m not normally a huge green tea fan as I find they always smell amazing but are less flavorful than I would expect from the smell but I couldn’t pass this one up. I’m not sure that this is the exact tea since they don’t share who their suppliers are but it looks like it so I’ll just go ahead and rate this one.

There’s something…off…here. I can’t put my finger on it but something just tastes a bit off. It could be a combination of things: my palate is currently sullied with some Apple Jacks (dry, my breakfast of choice at work), I could still have a bit of toothpaste mouth, I added some splenda and that sometimes interacts with tea in a weird way, or my perfect teamaker might need to have its filter cleaned since I primarily make blacks and mates in there.

Aside from the off-ness, I do like aspects of the tea. My last sip there was an almost textural change to the feeling of cherry juice (makes sense, right?). I think the flavor is there, but I may have messed it up a bit. This is only my second batch of iced tea too so there may have been some user error in there.

I think I’ll like this one better warm. Perhaps I’m just not an iced tea person.

I got this as a Christmas gift from my brother, who knows I’m interested in tea. I’m usually skeptical about mixing anything sweet like flowers or fruit with such a delicate green as Sencha, and even more skeptical about the packaging steeping instructions (fully boiling water, 3-7 minutes). I resorted to my knowledge of traditional Sencha, and steeped as follows:

1 heaping teaspoon
175 F
1.5 minutes

The result was a very flowery-smelling tea, with a rather bitter non-sweet flower/cherry flavor that rests high on the tongue. It was difficult for me to taste the grassy flavor usually associated with Sencha, and the actual tea flavor (as opposed to the flower flavor) was reminiscent of a simple, rather low quality green tea. Perhaps different steeping times or temperatures (such as the seemingly absurd ones on the package instructions) would result in a different taste.

A nice, mild tea. The Cherry Rose petals give it a great aroma. It’s nice on a cold morning.