Sencha

Not for me. Should have sniffed it at the store but tried to give it a go as I wanted to try a “plain” green tea. Ended up having to mix it with a tisane to be able to drink it. I’m just not a cultured tea drinker yet. Need mint or fruit in with my greens in order to stand them. Does that take away from the health benefits? Trying to ward off allergies with tea…not sure if the tisanes help.

Just bought this tea, Sencha has such a pure taste to it. Very earthy and quite pleasant to drink. I really enjoyed this type of green tea. It’s hard for me not to like any green tea. Totally addicted !

Good sencha with enough of the boldness, grassiness, and that “seaweedy” pungency I’ve come to expect from this type of tea. Not overly priced either, I paid 9 bucks for 2oz. at a brick and mortar store.

Sencha is, hands down, my favorite kind of tea. I’ve tried a lot of them, in a lot of places, from some very reputable companies. And I keep coming back to this one. I might have some other senchas sitting on the shelf but still crave this particular balance of fresh, leafy overtones with a heavy, yet never bitter aftertaste. I only wish Teavana would list the variety(s) of sencha in this blend (I’m assuming it’s a blend since it’s not linked to a specific garden) so that I could really dissect what I’m drinking. But it’s still a great tea.

I brewed a small pot of Sencha to drink while catching up on stuff at my desk. It started out a bit bitter but as my tongue got used to it, it softened nicely into a decently yum cup. This tea has always left a little tea leaf residue in the tea but there seems to be noticeably more in this pot.

Robins-egg blue teapot. 2 tsp.
Cream pottery teacup.

I really enjoy this green tea. I don’t find it tastes too earthy…which I find some straight greens can. I also don’t find it’s too bland and flavourless, like some other greens.

Pleasant taste, and after-taste, no stale bitterness post cuppa… and doesn’t tend to ‘turn’ if you forget about it for a few hours and come back to it cold.

I don’t like to steep it for too long, a max of around 2mins 30secs usually is plenty.
I don’t like to use boiling water, I find stopping the kettle at the point where you just start to hear it simmering is perfect, still hot, but not too hot that you have to let it sit before enjoying.

A solid and serviceable sencha, fine for everyday drinking or for blending with other teas, but remarkably overpriced for what it is on its own.

I brewed this tea in a 4 oz gaiwan. I then poured it into a 12 oz cup. I steeped it 3 times and mixed each steeping together. I sipped each steeping and thought the first 2 together were the best. Putting multiple steepings into one cup kinda gives it a more full round flavor. Now, onto what the final product was (the 3 steepings together):
I enjoyed the aroma of the steeped leaves. It was sweet, yet not as sweet as the the smell of it dry. It had a sweet barbecue/roasted vegetal taste to it. Delicious if brewed properly. A good green tea.

I really, really wanted to like this. I like green tea with mint. I like green tea with lemon. I like iced green tea. I like green tea lattes. I wanted to like this. It would’ve been like loving garlic bread and then learning you can roast garlic and eat it alone. (Which I’ve done, by the way. Please do it if you like garlic. Chop off the tip of the head, sprinkle some salt, pepper and lots of olive oil, throw it in the oven for like 50 minutes. Once it’s out, coat the little cloves in parmesan cheese. Be sure to bring mint come for the after affects.)

I did really want to like this. Maybe I’m just doing it wrong. Maybe I got a bad batch. Please, Steepster, help me if I’ve gone wrong.

When I opened my bag of sencha, I was assaulted by a sickeningly sweet smell mingled with plastic. I hoped it was just because of the container and poured the contents into a tin. After a couple days, I finally worked up the nerve to sniff at it. Nope. Still sickly sweet. So I thought maybe it’ll steep out. I wanted to like it. I tried.

I steeped it for Teavana’s suggested time. Oh dear. The liquid was a beautiful greenish beige tinged color. It was so nice to look at compared to my usual blacks. But it wasn’t good, folks. Not for me, at least. It was incredibly sweet in an incredibly bad way. On top of that, it was vegetal (as I was expecting). What came to mind was sugar coated spinach. I like sugar. I like spinach. But not in combination, please. Oh dear. Ugh. It just was not good. It wasn’t horrifyingly bad, but it wasn’t good.

If I’m doing this all wrong, please tell me. I have 2 oz of this stuff sitting in my cupboard. If I can’t find a way to make peace with it, I might end up turning it into mint iced tea with my peppermint tea. We’ll see.

I feel a little bad comparing Teavana’s sencha to vacuum-sealed, air-freighted, direct-from-Japan examples, but it’s hard not too. Once you’ve put your lips to that buttery, silken, kelpy, fishy delight, it makes more wholesale Japanese teas seem stale, weak, and poorly processed. Such is the case, with this one, I suppose. It came across as flat, a touch old and dusty right out of the bag.

I’ll have to retaste this and come back to this to edit. I haven’t tried many senchas and I’m not sure what quality they were. My first experience was at a restaurant and I loved it. Bought some at World Market in tea bags and tasted just like the restaurant full of flavor nice and vegetal and smooth.
I do not like this sencha so far. It is bland and not what my other experiences were like. Maybe like another reviewer I need to add more tea instead of 1 tsp and play around with the steeping.

I love sencha! This one is pretty good! This is my second pot of Teavana tea today.

This tea is very earthy and a just a little bitter, but is very smooth, i would recommmend this to new green drinkers

A lot of people seem to like this one, but I’m not a huge fan. I’ve tried this particular Sencha a variety of ways – steeping shorter, steeping longer, covered cup, uncovered cup — it just never excites me. I can’t get a good flavor out of it without steeping it too long (and then it gets bitter, of course). If I steep it for the recommended time it’s not very good.

I’m going to try another cup at some point with lots of extra tea and a very short steep time to see if it helps. I don’t think I’ll be buying this tea again.

EDIT: Lots of tea and a shorter steep time did help – a lot! I think I need to stop trusting Teavana’s claim of 1 tsp for their teas… it’s really closer to 2 or 3 for the best flavor. Maybe they only do that so they can claim more servings? Unfortunately it’s still hard to time it right.

Anyway, increasing my rating, but I still prefer the Sencha from Peet’s.

A bit down on myself today. I’ve been listening to Cat Power’s Werewolf on repeat for an hour, and later I’ll go see a friend’s modern dance piece later. Sencha is something that feels so common that it seems to meet my mood.

When looking for something grassy, this is my current favorite.

Little bit fishy, little grassy but good.

Very good everyday green tea

This is one of my favorite everyday green teas to drink.