A very interesting tea that my coworker brought back from Japan for me to try!
It seems like some, if not all, of the ingredients in this tea are upcycled. The yuzu seeds, for example. I was super curious about this one because I have no concept for what yuzu seeds should taste like – and new ingredients/flavours are always appealing. They looked cool! Because they were rather large and round (and also hollow?) they reminded me a bit of popped lotus seeds, and it was neat seeing them mixed in with the more twiggy hojicha base.
The hojicha was a bit of a lighter roast with more of a mineral profile that had some brassiness to it, a little bit of a woody or bark-like character, and a lot of nuttiness that read as quite golden. So, so smooth. Taste wise, I really didn’t feel like there was anything citrusy to the profile but that wasn’t really a surprise. Seeds and leaves rarely totally mirror the taste of the fruits they’re from. Hard to 100% say it was from the seeds, but there was an almost sunflower seed/oil kind of note that I think was stemming more from the seeds than the green tea.
Overall I thought this was really nice, though! Quite clean, balanced, and a really nice medium level intensity that felt well suited for a bunch of different times of day or moods.
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Heh, I guess I’m not too surprised that you mention a woody bark-like character for the hojicha. You are generally professional and charitable in your notes. Earlier today I was reading Harney’s description of their own hojicha product, and was amused by their somewhat less charitable reference to it as “roasted twigs”! I guess their elaborate explanation was educational, at least. And who’s to say that roasted twigs are less than wonderful? After all, the same could be said of rooibos, which appeals to many, and is graded according to the amount of stems in it (according to Wikipedia.). Anyhow, the coincidental references to woodiness amused me. Thanks for making me smile!
Heh, I guess I’m not too surprised that you mention a woody bark-like character for the hojicha. You are generally professional and charitable in your notes. Earlier today I was reading Harney’s description of their own hojicha product, and was amused by their somewhat less charitable reference to it as “roasted twigs”! I guess their elaborate explanation was educational, at least. And who’s to say that roasted twigs are less than wonderful? After all, the same could be said of rooibos, which appeals to many, and is graded according to the amount of stems in it (according to Wikipedia.). Anyhow, the coincidental references to woodiness amused me. Thanks for making me smile!