Sen-Cha Fukamushi Reserve (Blender's Series)

Today has managed to get even worse. Sigh. I need happy tea. Hopefully this will qualify (I do love me some fukamushi). From the ever lovely (if school-work buried) takgoti. This plus hockey should hopefully turn my day around (I’ve joked about needing to follow an Eastern team so I’m not up til midnight watching Ducks’ games… well, they traded my favoritest player ever to Toronto so guess who I’m watching – Go Leafs!).

I was feeling really grumpy so I didn’t feel up to having this clog my kyusu. I took the lazy man’s route and used a mesh ball. Yes, I am having that kind of day. I did preheat my cup though, so that’s gotta count for something, right? I poured the water over the little mesh ball and let it sit for about 50 seconds.

The resulting cup is happy tea. Freshly crisp, a little rich almost creamy (hints of the crazy milky creamy from Samovar’s Ryokucha that I’m addicted to), sweet with no astringency, gentle and thick. A delightful weight to it, this gives me a nice refreshing but also comforting feeling. I will say that, as much as I love fukamushi senchas, I can’t tell a big difference between them. So I can’t say this is the best sencha I’ve ever had but I can say that I would have no problems having a big ole bag of this in my pantry. I might need to make it happen.

Yes, this tea and hockey are making my day better.

3g/6oz

SENCHA WIN!

I think I got the hang of this now.

Today I was determined to get this tea correct. I messed up so badly the first time through, that I wanted the second time to be pitch-perfect. So I used a teaspoon of this in 8 oz. of water (instead of a tablespoon in 9 oz.) and steeped it for a minute. I started my pour at about 50 seconds, just to make sure I wasn’t going overboard.

And WOW, okay, the difference is astounding just in color alone. I’ve got here a clear, lime-green liquid. It’s absolutely stunning to look at. Not olive-green sludge that I had the last time. There’s a bit of green, foamy-looking sediment at the bottom. Nom nom.

And the smell coming off of the cup is definitely more of what sencha is supposed to smell like. It’s highly grassy, with buttery undertones. It smells like a fresh-cut lawn.

Now the taste. Okay, you know what? I can get behind this. I get this. There’s definitely a high grass content to this, so if grass isn’t your thing, then this shouldn’t be for you. It melds into a very light, butter note,. This is chased by a more savory element to the tea, a briny element that reminds me of kelp or seaweed. Rounding out the flavor is a touch of bitterness. It’s bitterness, mind you, not from oversteeping. It’s an inherent and almost pleasant quality.

There’s a mouthfeel too! Not as silky as something like Samovar’s Ryokucha, but it feels full and dense.

I recommend waiting a bit between sips, because a most wonderful aftertaste will grow across your tongue. I can’t describe it, but it almost tastes like you’ve sucked the chlorophyll out of a leaf. Even though I’ve never done that before… that’s what it tastes like. A very specific, juicy-green sweetness. Really bright and pleasing.

So yeah, I think I’ve got the idea about this sencha thing now, and it’s actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be! Thank you, Steepster, for helping me figure out what was wrong with my abysmal first steep, and thanks to takgoti, for being kind enough to send me some of this to nom on!

This tea, along with Samovar’s Ryokucha, is what propelled me to power through my Calculus test this morning. The dregs of the caffeine’s effects are also what is propelling me through packaging up some stuff for a tea swap.

This is one of the best senchas I’ve ever had. It hits all the points I’ve come to associate with one that is well-balanced – vegetal, approaching roasty, with a sweet chlorophyll taste from the grassy side that at sometimes reminds me of hay, a hint of brine that keeps it from feeling like you’re sucking on a string bean, and it teases just enough at bitterness to keep it interesting.

The nice thing about this sencha is that the flavor is nice and full, but I don’t find it hard-hitting, if that makes sense. It’s not like it’s being pushed on to you, or bowling you over. It just kind of sighs into your mouth and blankets your tongue. The push and the pull of all the different flavors as they swirl and meet and break is fantastic.

The tea’s got a nice, smooth texture to it. Holding the bag, it’s weighty. Like you’re holding something luxurious and of substance. The actual leaves are crumbled, as is characteristic of sencha, but they feel rich, have an almost silky quality. As a liquid, it brews into a nice, bright, lime-y color. Finishing the cup leaves a residue that looks like matcha. I’m not sure if it qualifies as that, but it sure looks like it.

Maeda-en recommends that you take care on the water temperature, and I recommend that you heed their advice. This tea has a delicacy to it and unless you’re seeking bitterness it’ll hit you if you’re not careful. I’ve also been brewing this pretty short. On a day when I think I can take the rollercoaster of changes greens can undergo when you mess with their parameters, I’ll play around with it some more, but I’m pretty happy where I’m at for now.

If you want to get a good baseline for sencha, I’d highly recommend trying this one out. Also, if you’ve tried a genmaicha but couldn’t get on board with the rice they add to it, this might be your bag. It’s fantastic for days that require prolonged productivity, or when you find yourself craving a nice, solid green tea.

This is a solid green-tea that is readily available at your local Japanese super market (assuming you have a local Japanese Supermarket-fortunately I do). I haven’t really ventured out into online buying for my Japanese greenteas as I like to support my local Japanese stores, but I am thinking about trying what the internet has to offer pretty soon.

Having said that, I’ve drank sen-cha and houji-cha almost exclusively for my whole entire life, given the fact that I am half-Japanese. The stuff that we usually get gets shipped straight from Japan and is some pretty good stuff- nothing pretentious- just good clean straightforward high quality green tea.

Mae-dan provides a close substitute for when we run out of the HQ (high-quality) stuff. It has pretty clean taste, with what I can identify as a somewhat “frothy” taste to it. This usually signifies a high theanine content, which is supposedly what relaxes you to counteract the caffeine jitters you may encounter when drinking coffee.

This is a green tea I would recommend if you want to make green-tea a normal staple of your tea diet. It’s not gonna blow your sock off, but its solid, and its made with pretty good quality at a reasonable price.

also available on today’s steepster select! enjoy the glorp with us :)

Deep green; a little bitter in flavor (in a good way, almost); rich flavor, like spinach.