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THE BIG FUKAMUSHI TASTING CONTEST
So I recently tried 5 different fukamushis, took notes each day, and now I’m ready to post the results and rank them! I used as equal parameters as possible to eliminate factors that could have affected the flavor or results. I am no expert or scientist; plus the results pretty much lined up with the cost of each tea, so there’s no big suprises here either!
(I’m going to put only the tasting note for each tea involved under the steepster profile of that tea, but the results I’ll include on each one).

Fukamushi Sencha Special
6 oz + 2 tsp leaf
1st- 160, 30scds: clear/light green color. No astringency, no bitterness. First a little watery, but then quickly full of umami. Finished with a sweetness that hit the mouth very intensely, and then slowly dissipated.
2nd- 180, 15scds: darker/deeper green. More astringency, still flavorful, some umami. Not much sweetness or other flavor, a little uninteresting.
3rd – 212, 15scds: yellowish-green. A lot more astringency and bitterness, but still a very pleasant amount (more interesting than 2nd, good taste).

Drumroll please…

1. Shincha Houryoku (Den’s)
2. Fukamushi Sencha Yame (Den’s)
3. Sen Cha (Sugimoto USA)
4. Fukamushi Sencha Special (Den’s)
5. Ocha-Zanmai Fukamushi (Yamamotoyama)

So I recently tried 5 different fukamushis, took notes each day, and now I’m ready to post the results and rank them! I used as equal parameters as possible to eliminate factors that could have affected the flavor or results. I am no expert or scientist; plus the results pretty much lined up with the cost of each tea, so there’s no big suprises here either!
(I’m going to put only the tasting note for each tea involved under the steepster profile of that tea, but the results I’ll include on each one).

Shincha Houryoku
6 oz + 2 heaping tsp leaf
1st – 160, 30scds: The brewed leaf was a really pleasing, beautiful color; it looked like fresh leaves just picked (though it was very small pieces of course, because the steaming breaks it up like that). The initial flavor was almost exactly like the hashiri shincha, that young, somewhat bitter then sweet flavor that tasted very fresh. This tea seemed at first just like a more mature hashiri shincha. However, this gave way to a pure, powerful, mouth filling, broth-like umami, which was very different than the hashiri. Don’t imagine it tasted like ramen broth, but imagine it tasted like delicious tea, and had the same wonderful feel and effects of the most delicious, (even sweet) broth you’ve drunk. Yes, I could describe it the same many do, ‘vegetal’, but it was still tea. It was like all the richness you get from cheesecake or some other dessert, without being sugary, or giving you the feeling that you’d get sick after a couple of bites. You could drink cup after cup and experience that delicious richness without becoming sick in the process. So good!
2nd – 180, 15scds: I got 5 steepings from this, and 2-4 were also very good. The flavor slowly changed in each one, but was good for different reasons. I remember the 2nd having still a lot of that pure, almost thick flavor…almost as if you could eat it. It wasn’t as powerful as the 1st steeping, but had a bit more of the lingering sweetness at the end. By steepings 3 and 4, I remember the initial flavor being excellent, a delicious bitterness that quickly transformed to intense sweetness. After that dissipated, there wasn’t much flavor left in the taste, but was overall very good for being the 3rd and 4th steeping.

Drumroll please…

1. Shincha Houryoku (Den’s)
2. Fukamushi Sencha Yame (Den’s)
3. Sen Cha (Sugimoto USA)
4. Fukamushi Sencha Special (Den’s)
5. Ocha-Zanmai Fukamushi (Yamamotoyama)

So I recently tried 5 different fukamushis, took notes each day, and now I’m ready to post the results and rank them! I used as equal parameters as possible to eliminate factors that could have affected the flavor or results. I am no expert or scientist; plus the results pretty much lined up with the cost of each tea, so there’s no big suprises here either!
(I’m going to put only the tasting note for each tea involved under the steepster profile of that tea, but the results I’ll include on each one).

Fukamushi Sencha Yame
6 oz + 2 tsp leaf
1st – 160, 45scds: The leaves were small (as to be expected), but were a very consistent shape and color (a darker green, it seemed, than the other fukamushis I’ve tried). As soon as I poured the water over the leaf, it let off a delicious, sweet smell…I knew it was going to be good. The color of the tea was a beautiful, clear green like matcha (in powder form, not the whisked tea). It had that glowing brightness, without the dark cloudiness that matcha has. Just by the look and smell I was guessing it was going to be very good.
It was. It came across first as a little sweetness mixed with just a hint of bitterness. There was no astringency at all. After the initial taste (which, did taste like that delicious aroma that arose when it was steeping..mmmmm), it quickly filled the mouth with such that familiar umami flavor…yet it was unique in some way that is hard to describe. It was like that to the last drop.
2nd- 180, 15scds: I don’t remember anything in particular about this one, other than it was also delicious. The umami wasn’t as strong but was still present.
3rd – 212, 15scds: A little yellower, as seems to happen with subsequent steepings. The flavor was more subdued and the mouth-filling/vegetal/umaminess wasn’t there, but it had a subtle sweetness to it. This was completely yummy in its own way. Really cool to see the different flavors this tea gave in the multiple steepings.

Drumroll please…..

1. Shincha Houryoku (Den’s)
2. Fukamushi Sencha Yame (Den’s)
3. Sen Cha (Sugimoto USA)
4. Fukamushi Sencha Special (Den’s)
5. Ocha-Zanmai Fukamushi (Yamamotoyama)

Ok, I have had this sitting in a pitcher in the fridge, with the loose roasted barley in it, continuing to steep and perhaps add a bit of flavor.

I had a glass of this, and not only was a it still sweet, but creamy. Barley tea – creamy??!? Wow! It was a beautiful golden color, like a beautiful ale. Sweet, creamy, and refreshing.

Had this iced yesterday, it was so deliciously sweet! Sweet? That was really unexpected. Iced is really the only way to drink Barley Tea.

Wow…wow…

I steeped this 3 times, and it was so good; I didn’t know tea could taste like this!
Before I say though, I looked more closely at the brewed leaves today, and they are such a nice even green (sometimes I’ve seen in other teas bits of stem or other parts of the leaf that shouldn’t have gotten in there; or, the roasting was done more unevenly and so there are more browned leaves in there, etc.). This tea is not that – almost all of it is made of whole leaves and the color is a very nice, even tone.

The first steeping (140 for almost 2 mins) and second steeping (160 for 1 min 20 seconds) were like a wave.
The front of the wave (or underside) hit with a little pleasant bitterness (young flavor).
The ‘crest’ of the wave was just a moment when the bitterness quickly transformed into sweetness. The best way I can describe it is exactly what I was thinking as I drank it – it tasted like the burnt sugar on the top of creme brulee. A bitterness that gave way to an intense sugary sweetness. This sweetness was not a sickening or rich sweetness, but more like a very thin layer of deliciousness. It REALLY surprised me, as it seemed to come out of nowhere.
The top side of the wave (or back) was a rich umami flavor. That sudden, sweet flavor quickly gave way to this, which filled my mouth.

The third steeping was also pretty incredible. As soon as I tasted it, the first flavor it reminded me of was baked ham. I didn’t believe it at first, I thought my tastebuds were being affected by something else, but I tried it again and again, and both times it tasted like ham or greens cooked in bacon. Almost as if you could eat it.
My description here is certainly stronger than it actually was; meaning, it still tasted like tea. I imagine reading a description of ham-tasting tea sounding disgusting. But it wasn’t, it really just tasted like pure richness.

Tried this for the first time this morning. Towards the end of the cup, the sweetness definitely came through.

I am curious to try it with a lower temperature, to see if I can bring out the sencha flavor. So far with every genmaicha I’ve ever tried, the roasted/popped rice flavor overpowers the sencha. This is a nice flavor, but I wish I could taste it in combination with sencha.

On the 3rd steeping, of course the matcha flavor is gone, but has been replaced by an almost houjicha-like roasted sweetness.

I had 2 cups of this tea this morning.
The first cup had a strong but pleasing astringency with a little sweetness underneath.
The 2nd cup had a lot less astringency, a little more sweetness, and was just yummy.
This is a good green tea.

I’m really looking forward to doing a big comparison soon, as I (by chance) have 5 Fukamushis to try!
-Ocha-Zanmai Fukamushi (Yamamotoyama) (originally was a 5oz bag)
-Fukamushi Sencha Special (Den’s Tea) (Sample only)
-Fukamushi Sencha Yame (Den’s Tea) (Sample only)
-Shincha Houryoku (Den’s Tea) (Brand new 2oz bag)
-Sencha (Sugimoto USA) (Sample only…they only make one kind of Sencha, and it is Fukamushi)

So I will try each one of these side by side, review and rank them! I just need to finish up some more of my other teas before I do this, since I don’t want to have too many open at once…

I am SO glad I pre-ordered.
Had another cup this morning (well, make that 5 steepings of 3oz each, or 2 American-sized cups). It was delicious and worth every penny. I hope he manages to get his hashiri from the same farm next year.

But you won’t believe it – I just checked his website today, and he is ALREADY OUT!
He has 2 more Shinchas that just arrived as well…looking forward to trying the other one I ordered (Shincha Houryoku, which is a fukamushi) in the next week!

So I had already steeped this twice, and I wanted to try an experiment. (otherwise, I probably would have simply discarded the leaves). For the 3rd time, I wanted to bring out less astringency and more sweetness, so I steeped it at 140, for a while (I’m guessing between 1-2minutes).
Actually, it DID taste sweet. Well, it was very watered down and not particularly strong, but the sweet fukamushi taste was definitely there, and it was good.

Glad I experimented!