Sencha Fuka-midori

I might have to keep this one, LOL.
It was in the Here’s Hoping TTB, unopened!
So of course I opened it & had a cup! It was very nice! Almost like have a cup of Matcha, so fresh & green, a little bitter, perhaps, but thus is life. Tea Sipper, let me know if you want some of this, since the box will be headed your way.

I used to drink lots & lots of green tea: Dragonwell, Sencha, Matcha, Bilo…then I discovered black tea, & I’m sorry to say that my love affair with greens ended. Like a dejected lover, my green teas haunt their shelf, hoping for a stray glance & smile, an occasional moment together. Once in awhile I indulge them, reflecting on our pasts & knowing that we can never go back. However, I do still enjoy their company once in awhile.
I can’t same the same for my ex-husband.

This is my first loose leaf from the Den’s sampler, and already the greens are growing on me. The dry leaves here are a really rich emerald green color, and the liqueur is a pretty spring green. The flavor is green, of course, but a very savory/sweet richness; a little bit umami, I’d say. There is a hint of bitterness, but just a hint, at the beginning of the aftertaste. The lingering taste is sweet and mouthwatering.

This is delicious for what it is, but I’m not sure that I like greens enough in general that I’ll be buying a larger quantity yet. I’m trying, though!

3 steeps and counting, though they only suggest 2, all around 1 minute steep times.

Loose
Appearance: fine leaf, deep green sencha
Aroma when Dry: soft, sweet vegital
After water is first poured: sweet, (eastern) fragrant, lightly buttery
At end of first steep: sweet, buttery
Tea liquor:
At end of first steep: light green
Staple? Yes
Preferred time of day: any
Taste:
At first ?: even, creamy, sweet
As it cools?: starts getting bodied and brothy
Additives used (milk, honey, sugar etc)? No
Lingers? Yes, with a powdery bodied sweetness

Second Steep( 4min):
gets very sour and soapy with a lingering quality

This came as another tea in my Den’s tea sampler set… I’m not a total fan of sencha although I do like a lot of other Japanese green teas. This was steeped for about 90 seconds in 175 F water. It is pleasant but very vegetal and spinach like with some definite savory notes and a bit of astringency in the finish. I have no doubt that this is an excellent sencha but I think it’s a bit too astringent and sour for me, I probably wouldn’t buy this one although it is very flavorful, delicious and fresh tasting!

Additional notes: I’m sad I let this tea linger around, as looking at past notes, this was probably the most fantastic green tea I’ve ever had. Now it’s all crumbled. And very old. But it’s still delicious. Probably not as fantastic as it once was, but now it tastes like just a “very good” newer tea might taste. I’m trying to balance out some older teas with some teas I’m trying for the first time. Believe it or not, I still have a few teaspoons from that Butiki teabox back in the day. All of them have unofficial names (not actually Butiki teas) so I can’t really write tasting notes for them, but they are still very much enjoyable. Back in the day, I think I just did one big tasting note for all my Butiki teabox experiences (though this one was just stored in the same Teavivre foil pouch as the Butiki teabox teas, not actually from that teabox.)

I’m plowing my way through the Den’s Sampler. I’ve never had a Sencha before, and I’m still unsure whether or not I actually like green tea or not.

It smells like roasted and cooked vegetables. This is a medium bodied, lightly sweet tea. I’m not getting any of the bitterness that Den’s tea described. The aftertaste is very much like cooked vegetables. I think I like this best out of all the samples I’ve tried so far, but I’m still not in love with Japanese greens.

This is a beautiful Japanese tea. I got this in my sampler from Den’s (yay!) and I have just enough left to share a pot, so the s.o. can tell me I am right. I followed the ‘traditional’ parameters as best I could, but doubling the volume of water and tea to accommodate the Americanness of my current teaware.

This tea has a humid vegetal, roasted seaweed nose that I can’t get enough of. Humid seems like a crazy thing to say about a smell, but I know what I mean! ;) It smells how I always thought rainy Japanese coasts would smell when I was a kid, based solely on National Geographic photos. It smells actually quite close to the roasted seaweed snack it just inspired me to open, though without the sesame oil.

HAH! Oh yeah, and it tastes good too. Three steepings in and I am quite happy, pleasantly buzzed, and still trying to figure out how this can have a little bitterness in the finish without being unpleasant. It actually adds quite a bit to the overall character of the tea, just a touch of bitter, a touch of sweet, and a richness to the mouthfeel that I associate with umami.

Oh, and ignore the prep details at the bottom, they are wrong. I am on my iPad and it refuses to play nice with the sliders on here.

/Super Sad Owl

I had a pouch of this from my Den’s tea sampler. I decided to try it this morning and hopefully review it for my tea blog.

I guess I was a little too tired this morning, and I set the water to boil and overcooked this tea into a bitter, undrinkable pot. Of course, I used the entire pouch.

Sigh. Maybe another time, Sencha Fuka midori.

Ultra mega steep failure. Life got in the way and I completely forgot that I put this to steep, so this got a horrifying ten-minute steep. So down the drain that went and I just redid is properly.

Back to business. The second this touched my lips, I thought, “Wow, that’s buttery!” However, the aftertaste is a little on the vegetal side. It’s not bitter at all and leans towards the sweet side. With each sip, the butteriness subsides and the vegetal side of this takes over (and I personally don’t care for that).

It is nevertheless very well-balanced and excellent quality. I can see why this is a bestseller.

Den’s tea sample number three. Compared to the organic sencha of last night: these leaves look similar — feathery and delicate, but are a bit darker green. I had thought the organic sencha leaves smelled vegetal last night, but it’s interesting, compared to these they smell less vegetal and more, for lack of a better word, herbaceous. The liquor looks similar, a chartreuse color with tiny particles suspended in it. The aroma is similiarly cabbagy/spinachy/asparagussy, but more buttery and not grassy at all.

I did not get any bitterness in the taste, which was vaguely reminiscent of steamed broccoli, right when it turns that very bright green color and is still al dente. There’s a mildness that isn’t quite sweetness.

I’m not really sure which I like better, but I’m giving this one just a tiny bit higher rating because it seems to have just a tad more depth.