We have a few new teas on the DT website this week, including this one that has been introduced to our “Garden To Cup” collection which is basically just straight and traditional teas. It makes sense – we’ve carried straight sencha, gyokuro, genmaicha, and matcha for years and years. So why not a kukicha!?
For people who may not be familiar with this style of Japanese green tea, it’s made from the upcycled/repurposed tea stems that were historically a biproduct of sencha and matcha production that were discarded. Sometimes they’re roasted similarly to hojicha, though in this case we went with a very green/unroasted form of kukicha. So, the green in the name describes not only the tea type but the greener style and taste of the tea.
Because this is made from stems, there’s a lot less caffeine overall so it’s a nice option for late afternoon and early evenings. And supposedly the stems also have a higher concentration of l-theanine, so you get more of that calm clarity. However, in full transparency, that’s not an element that I’ve personally done much digging into since it’s I find it less personally important to how/why I drink tea.
It’s still very nutty though with a mix of more oceanic and brightly grassy notes with some buttery elements to the finish. I personally prefer my kukicha a bit more toasty and golden, but I think this will be very approachable for fans of our Japanese Sencha and Gyokuro Yamashiro who are looking to expand their knowledge of Japanese style green teas without venturing too far away from the familiar flavours they already enjoy.
I think it’s always nice to see another traditional tea in the assortment, so I’m excited to see how other people react to this one!
Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts and feelings regarding the teas, and not the company’s.
