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Ordered this on a holiday sale. Sejak is a “second picking.” The bag says the tea was purchased from Japan but grown in Korea.

Sejak tea is usually brewed a bit longer and hotter than fresh teas, but leaves look delicate, like frons, so I brewed it cooler starting with 20 second steeps, using about 7 grams in a kyusu. Yielded a light green brew due to the short steeps, with a white peony and mineral smell.

First steep of both sessions I have had with this tea have been salty, mineral taste, just the first steep. I have read about salty flavors on teas from ocean air, perhaps this is where the taste comes from. The salty flavor is on my lips after sipping, I can literally lick the salt. The salty taste dissipates with subsequent steeps. I didn’t do a rinse, by the way. I like that salty taste though and wouldn’t want it rinsed off, kind of balancing from a medicinal perspective.

After 4 steeps the peony smell was almost gone and a corn stalk, more nutty smell came from the leaves in the kyusu. The tea is less salty but still with a mineral taste. The short steep method is giving me 8 or more steeps. I got some heat going up my back, nice qi but not the umami (theanine) like I get with sencha.

This is tasty stuff, with the saltiness it would be a great follow up to a sweet dessert.

Edit: I am upping my rating slightly, I love this tea and am close to the end of the bag. Unfortunately it is still sold out, but I’ve emailed to see if they are getting more. Really got my steeping parameters down, cool water like for sencha. First two steeps are the salty steeps, the third is floral once the salt is gone, and the fourth and fifth are vegetal green. It is not often a green tea has a palette like this. With the hot, muggy summer I find myself craving those first two salty infusions.