Sencha

Color me unimpressed. :(

I read Auggy’s review of this, so I went into this with a bit of trepidation. My first sencha, and it’s very disappointing!

Anyway, the leaves look pretty! Very needle-like. I haven’t seen anything like this yet (no Japanese greens for me so far). It… doesn’t really smell like anything. If I breathe hot air onto it, I get somewhat of a buttery note, but other than that… nothing.

So I steeped this one up, and I was really surprised at how light the infusion was! It’s such a ridiculously pale yellow that I did a double-take. Lighter than a lot of the white tea I’ve tried.

And the taste… well, it’s a bit non-existent. It’s like hot water, with some bitterness at the end, as well as some astringency. The smell is a bit buttery and grassy, but I’m not getting anything remotely like that in the taste. At all. There’s the faintest taste of sweet, but I’m really having to search for it like crazy. It just tastes like really odd, hot water. I don’t even really feel like I’m drinking tea, which sort of makes me upset.

I didn’t have tea all day, as I was out, traipsing about in the mall. And I went to Teavana for the first time! The store was packed out, and no one bothered me… but I tried their sample tea and nearly gagged. It was Jasmine Pearl mixed with Rooibos Tropical. Not only did the tea taste awful, but it was so ridiculously over-sweetened that it was a nightmare. DISGUSTING.

A disappointing tea day! Let’s hope tomorrow will be better!

Ho hum. I don’t know if I’m a green tea fan, really. Or maybe I’m just not an unflavored green tea fan.

I don’t quite feel fair giving this one a number (thought really, I’d probably put it in the mid-60s, and that’s higher than its average at the moment).

Mainly, my experience with green teas that aren’t flavored or uber sweetened is minimal. I like having… mint, vanilla, jasmine, something in there with the green tea, and that really seems to tie up the package nicely for me.

This? It’s very vegetal, with some sweetness to it. The smell is truly reminiscent of dinner vegetables, and I’d place the flavor somewhere near cabbage. But tasty cabbage. An earthy, mealy, wholesome kind of vegetable flavor. It’s not bad, it’s just not desirable, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Oh man, but don’t let it get cold. Blech.

And it could very easily be that I’ve been ruined by my love of genmaicha. I taste this, and I feel myself thinking “Hey, you know what would spruce this up some? Toasted Rice!”.

I thought that this tea was acceptable but I would not buy it. I have had senchas that are more vegetal (which I like) and more buttery (which I also like). This one did not have a lot of distinguishing characteristics. “Meh” is not a very high accolade, but I want to put it a few rating points below “a’ight” and some point above “hate”. I don’t see any reason why I would invest money in this tea when I’ve tried other, better senchas or flavored greens.

Although I was careful about time and water temperature, I got a bitter taste. It shouldn’t be that difficult to brew even the most delicate tea unless the pay-back is sensational.

The dry leaf makes me sad. Not shiny, not a pretty green and the needles have a few full ones but a lot of broken ones – and this has no indication of being a deeply steamed sencha so we should have longer, full leaves. I wasn’t really expecting anything more, but one can hope, you know? The smell was interesting… faint but sweet but dry and not rich or buttery or vegetal at all. Once put in my preheated Tokoname pot, they did smell better but I’m not going to take that to mean too much because my pot alone smells nice when it’s been heated because it’s been used for sencha so much. The tea does smell stronger than my pot alone, so it’s not a total lost cause, but it’s still not looking good.

The resulting liquid is… yellow. And wet. That’s pretty much it. Very little smell and the taste is hot and… astringent at the end. And that astringency builds quickly to a salty taste that takes up residency at the tip of my tongue and just hangs on. That tastes adds a little thickness to an otherwise very thin bodied tea.

Problem one with this tea: it’s not the type of sencha I like. It’s obviously a lighter steamed sencha based on the clear yellow color and I prefer the richness from a deep steamed sencha. But problem number two: it’s not a good example of a lightly steamed sencha. It’s bland and has very little taste, only bitterness. The leaves are either old or weren’t stored well and that probably doesn’t help the lack of taste.

The only positive I’m going to give this tea is that I did finish my whole cup. But I’m not even going to try a second steep.

I’m thinking I really like flavored greens. I do like my matcha but it seems to be a different beast all together. It might be the texture of matcha.

Cooked green things with sugar is the association I’m getting with this sencha. There is the mushy green taste followed by a sweet flavor. The sweet just reminds me of sugar or corn syrup, some thing sweet with out fruity flavors. I let it cool down a bit too much in my cup. I totally get the seaweed association now. Once it’s cooled down a bit it smells and tastes like seaweed. I don’t think this is a green for me. Perhaps I can try it in another brewing style and see if that will work better for me.

Golden Moon sample No. 30 of 31.

I’m not a sencha expert. I can count on my digits the number of times I’ve knowingly had sencha, and I probably don’t even have to use the toes.

So I cheated a little to get myself started. While I didn’t go so far as to pour the leaves out to compare how they looked, I compared the smell of the sample packet leaves to that of the Den’s Organic Sencha. And guess what? The Den’s is orders of magnitude more fragrant, more juicy and sweet and vegetal-smelling. The dry leaves looked pretty normal to me, but they weren’t as shiny and deep green as I remembered the Den’s being.

Looking back at my notes from the Den’s, I think the liquor color may be different as well. This steeps chartreuse too, but more toward the yellow side. The aroma is nice. It’s got some butter going on, and a definite vegetal scent. It tastes good, but a little on the thin side. I remember the Den’s being much juicier.

I think I’ve convinced myself (and it wasn’t at all hard to do) that I’d buy Den’s over this sencha. Though if someone offered me a cup of this, I would be happy to enjoy it with that kind offeror.

Sipdown. This is not like the sencha I’m used to at all. Tiny broken leaves, and it brews up yellow instead of light green. I’m struggling to find something good to say about this, actually, and I almost always try unless it’s just completely horrible. What I was expecting was a middle-grade green that I wouldn’t purchase; what I got tasted like overcooked asparagus (yes, that tastes as bad as it sounds). There’s some sort of a note that’s trying to be sweet in there but it doesn’t make it. It’s also moderately bitter, not enough to make me dump it but enough that I would never drink this again.

ETA: This gets more bitter as it cools, so it looks like I will be dumping it.

My 1st sencha. Judging by the previous review I didn’t pick the right one to start with but it’s worth a try. Lets see if I like this.
Leaves look quite similar to Kukicha tea I got home. Dark green. Not sure if that’s how they’re supposed to look.
Tea is deep yellow. Smells similar to that Kukicha again. Just less strong. I’m really not an expert on these. For me it smells quite nice.
OK I kinda get the reviews now. This is not as good as it smells. That Kukicha I keep comparing it too is so much better. This is bitter first of all. Not smooth enough. Just not very good. The after-taste is let’s say OK but still not very good.

Wouldn’t buy this one…
Gotta try some different Sencha’s.

I’m going to make up for the failure that happened yesterday with my golden moon sampler of sugar caramel oolong with this one. I haven’t actually made sencha for myself before, but I’m pretty sure the tea my host mother in japan made for me at night was sencha. I can tell by the familiar smell of this cup.

It’s a very bitter tea. I definitely didn’t put hot water in either, I just get the feeling that sencha is a very bitter tea, since every time I drank it with my host mother it was also almost unbearably bitter. This cup is pretty bitter in my opinion, to the point where its a little nauseating. I almost want to put some more water in it to dilute the taste a little bit. I can’t really compare it to much, but as my first experience with sencha outside of my host family, I’m not impressed at all.

Golden Moon Sampler Tea #28
As the Japanese would say, Aaa, natsukashii….Ah, how nostalgic.
Drinking this reminds me of my time in Japan, where for two years I basically drank either sencha, hojicha, ooloncha, or a combination thereof in the case of some of the more terrifying bottled iced teas. Before I lived in Japan I hadn’t had much experience with green teas at all, so this is basically the taste I have come most to associate with green tea.

The leaves were a dark green and looked slightly crumbled. The taste has only a hint of the vegetal. It doesn’t have the sweet note that the green tea had. No candied pineapples here! Instead, there’s a somewhat buttery note which I, personally, prefer. Or maybe I’m just so used to it that I think I prefer it.

While there is a comfortable feeling of familiarity around this tea, I don’t think I really NEED it around. Still, for the moment, if I were to get any of the Golden Moon greens, it would be this one.