Yunomi

I received this as part of my Yunomi monthly club package. I enjoy playing Japanese RPG’s and drinking authentic Japanese tea :) So that is my plan for this lazy Sunday.

The loose blend is rather large in size and whilst raw smells dry and herbal but nicely so. In other words it’s not too strong like herbal teas can be.

Steeped with the 10 minute recommended guide line and using boiling water. My sample was 10g so I only had one pot worth of this.

Once steeped it’s brown in colour with a mild herbal, ricey and earthen spicy aroma.

It’s very aromatic and Japanese in flavour. Medium strength with a refreshing taste similar to mint but more herbal based and milder. It also tastes toasted with a slight sour after taste.

A very interesting herbal blend that I’m considering purchasing more of. Would make a nice bedtime tea, or even morning tea.

Sipdown (126)! I took the rest of this sample (a heaping tablespoon) and cold brewed in one of my water bottles. It’s probably more leaf than I would’ve used and I left it in there for quite a while on accident (maybe 12 hours or so?), so it had a pretty strong roasty taste by the time I tried it out. I did enjoy it, though, and I think it was the right idea to try a less roasty houjicha for cold brewing. I will miss this one, but not too much because I still have tons of it’s sister (dark roast) lying around waiting to be sipped on.

I only have a couple servings left of this, and the rest of the leaves are started to resemble coffee grounds a bit. I think the sample packet just got a bit crushed, oops! That in combination with accidentally letting it steep for quite a few minutes made the tea pretty strong today. It actually didn’t get bitter, but it was more roasted tasting than usual. Anyway, was loving this as usual, but I have a bunch of the dark roast houjicha, so I won’t be reordering any houjichas for a while.

Backlog. Last night, I wanted something really light because it was getting a bit late, so I opted to reach for this one. I also resteeped the leaves in the morning when I rolled out of bed. This is a nice, reliable houjicha, but I normally prefer something a little roastier.

I needed more of a gentle wake up tea this morning, so I went for this houjicha. I was also very groggy, so I knew that this tea would not be as finicky to steep. I overleafed a little and it was roastier than usual, but I liked that.

I wanted to have something a little less caffeinated for the afternoon since I’ve been having some sleeping issues lately. This nice, roasty houjicha fit the bill! It has a slightly fishy taste like dried anchovies or dried seaweed, but I like that. I prefer the dark roast (which I recently ordered a ton of) because this one does not have as strong of a roasted taste, but I’m enjoying what I have left of this!

I’m rapidly falling in love with Japanese green teas and hojicha in particular. This hojicha had a lighter color than the others that I’ve tried. It also had a slightly less roasty taste and was closer to other Japanese greens in my opinion. I drank this while eating something spicy and a little sweet, so the roasted, savory taste went well with the food. I’m starting to realize that all the Japanese green teas I’ve tried so far have been good for drinking while eating food.

I got this in the post a few days. Since I had gotten into green teas again. My kitchen smells like chocolate cake, except the tea mug which smells like rice cakes. Which is a pleasant scent.

This is only my second time having genmaicha. I like the toasted rice flavour. And I’ve always enjoyed matcha. I still feel like I should be having this in a tea house with onigiri. Thanks to Yunomi for letting me try this.

Sipdown (116)! I brought the remaining bit of this to school today. I overleafed a bit, so it was roastier than usual, which was a pleasant surprise. All in all, a very nice tea to have had in my cupboard. It will be missed (but not too much because I have so many other houjichas!).

I know I’m probably getting repetitive about houjichas, but I needed this one today to really re-set myself tea-wise. For the past couple days, I just haven’t been in the mood for tea, so it’s nice to come back to a reliable, comforting tea to get me excited again. Like I have said in previous tasting notes, this particular houjicha is a bit less roasty than I prefer, but it’s still very delicious!

I’ve fallen into a pattern of drinking houjichas after I have an unpleasant tea experience to re-set my palate. I guess it’s because houjichas have never failed me so far. This houjicha in particular has more of a pronounced dried anchovy taste. Sounds weird, but that’s what it reminds me of, and I do like it. My little sample has gone lasted quite a while, and I still have some left, thankfully.

Backlog from yesterday. Has slightly fishy taste to it, but I liked it. I recently reordered a bunch of the dark roast houjicha from Yunomi because this tea is a little light on the roasted taste than I’d like.

I wanted something a little more delicate but still comforting this evening, and this is what I came up with. It has that nice roasted houjicha flavor without being completely overwhelming. When my sample runs out, though, I think I will opt to restock on a houjicha with a stronger flavor (like the dark roast). Enjoying it while it lasts, though!

I’m finding out that all these hojichas that I’ve been drinking have the same dried anchovy smell when I open up the packets. This one has a lighter roasted taste than hojichas that I’ve had before, which makes sense given its name. I think this is a good one for the evening but overall, I would prefer to have a slightly stronger roasted taste. The texture is very clean with no bitterness or astringency. A very comforting cup of tea, especially since I feel like I might be getting sick.

Sipdown (120)! I used up the last of this leaf in a cold brew since I don’t really drink too much hot tea these days. I left it in the fridge for about 9-10 hours, which in hindsight was probably too long because there was a bit of bitterness to it that I feel could have been avoided. The tea was grassy and savory, much like the hot version of the tea. I think I actually prefer it hot, but it was nice to try out as a cold brew.

I really enjoy drinking Japanese greens while eating dinner. Particularly when I’m eating spicy foods. This gyokuro is a nice balance of grassy and savory with a thick mouthfeel. I probably mentioned that in previous notes, so I’ll be brief this time. Just wanted to say that I’m bumping up the rating on this one!

Had this tea with dinner, which was heavy on beef. The meal really brought out the grassiness of the tea, and I did not notice the savory aspect as much until I was sipping on it afterward. Not my favorite Japanese green tea, but I will enjoy the sample while I have it.

I’ve kind of been a tea making disaster lately. Today, I didn’t realize the bottom of this free sample packet had a hole in it, so I opened it from the top. Cue tea falling out of both ends and me frantically scooping it into my infuser. Not to mention that this tea is on the fine side, so it would fall through the strainer. Sigh. The point is that the steeping and measurement was not so accurate this time around.

Anyway, this tea interestingly smells savory yet tastes more grassy to me. The texture is also thicker, which is nice to have on a windy day like today. I’m terrible at identifying and describing tastes, but I think this one may be a little too umami for me. At least that’s what I think it is. I am still enjoying the cup, though!

Edit: On the second steep, that intense umami-ness went away, and it has a cleaner taste now. The problem now is that it’s a little bland to me. I’ll have to experiment with the other half of the sample to hit that right medium. I also tried some of the tea leaves and it was surprisingly mild. It had a seaweed texture with a green tea taste. Might be yummy to mix it into some rice or something next time.

Sipdown! Excited because I have too much tea, but sad because I really enjoyed this tea. It was pretty savory for a sencha. The problem I had with it was that the tea leaves were very fine and fell through the strainer. Since I took a long time to drink my tea, it ended up being pretty bitter.

This is one of the two free samples I got from Yunomi and the first of their teas that I’ve tried. The dry leaf had a slight fishy smell to me, kind of like dried anchovies. The tea itself was pretty savory and less grassy/vegetal than other Japanese green teas that I’ve had. I drank this on its own, but I think it would be a great tea to have with a meal, maybe with some spicy foods. I really enjoyed this!

I was actually given some of this tea by a Japanese woman who works at a cafe I frequent on the way to class. She helps me with my Japanese and I help her with English (not that she needs it). She told me that the tea was produced by some of her family members who work on a tea farm in a place called Yame （八女） which literally translates to 8 women. I was given the impression that it was 8 of her sisters, cousins and aunties producing delicious tea on the island of Kyushu. This is apparently not the case.

Now I’m not actually sure as to what kind of tea it is, as all she had told me was that it was ‘YAMECHA’. After a few cups and a whiff of a Gyokuro at a nearby tea supplier, I surmised that it was in fact a Yame Gyokuro (similar leaf colour and aroma, and apparently about 50% of Gyokuro produced in Japan is from Yame, so the odds are in this assumption’s favour!)

I was very grateful for the tea (she had given me a lot of it), and was eager to figure out how to brew the stuff.
One of my Chinese acquaintances, while we were having a tea session, exclaimed that he knew exactly how to brew it: he took a huge scoop of the tea, ground it down to a powder in a pestle and mortar, and then poured the powder into a tall glass and proceeded to pour boiling hot water over it.
The product was an extremely bitter brew that nobody could finish.

So that’s not how you do it.

I was still curious as to how to brew it, so once I got home from the taste testing I gave it another go, using only my instincts.

I brewed it as you would brew a regular green tea (about 80C for about 1.5 minutes), and it produced a very murky cup of tea. It appeared that due to the varying sizes of tea leaf particles, a good portion of the tea had passed through the strainer and into the cup. In addition, there was a mysterious white foam collecting around the rim of the cup. I thought to myself, “protein?”. Not entirely sure what was going on there. It was a pleasant cup of tea none-the-less.

I decided today to give it a traditional brewing: sitting down with all the bits-and-pieces, my tiny tea gong and my laptop at hand to record the fleeting sensations and the pass through my sensory faculties.

Brewed at 70C for 1.5/2 minutes

This tea has a very warming sweetness, delicate grassiness and faintly nutty flavour. It has a satisfyingly full mouth-feel, and lingers long enough for you to be able to fully appreciate it, as well as time to bid it farewell. The flavour is deeply rich, much like the ‘Pakistan green’ of the leaves (I had to look that colour up; it seems like a slightly awkward descriptor though).

Aroma: Again very warming, deep and rich.

The colour of the liquid is a nice bright green, however I notice that there are particles of varying sizes swirling in my cup, giving it an almost murky appearance. Once they settle it is almost a ‘Paris green’ (again, had to look it up – so many types of green!).

I’m not entire sure what is meant to be done about the particles. Are they an intended feature of the cup? Or perhaps a fine strainer is necessary? I’m not entirely bothered by them, simply curious as to their intentions. Perhaps they add to the mouth-feel that was so satisfyingly bold.

Either way, this is one of my favourite green teas to date, and I intend on making each cup as special as the last.

Backlog:

This is my last backlog for this evening … I’m gonna try to do a little bit every night and hopefully I’ll get caught up eventually!

This was a very interesting Houjicha … I could still taste the vegetative tones of the Sencha in this tea, as well as some of the floral tones of the Sencha … usually, it’s been my experience that with the roasting process, the houjicha becomes an entirely new flavor but here, I taste notes of the Sencha still … I like that though!

The vegetative notes taste a bit like roasted vegetables … and I like this unique taste. There is a slight creamy tone to this cup too … it’s a little bit nutty, a little bit toasty and warm, a little bit vegetative and savory, and a little bit sweet and creamy! A really nice cuppa.

Backlog:

A very unique Oolong – different is good! Sweet, mild, fruity … with a hint of sour to provide an interesting sweet and sour experience.

Notes of flower in the distance, but this is much more a fruity tea than a floral tea. Definitely one worth trying if you’re an Oolong fan! And the price is right!

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/05/08/certified-organic-oolong-tea-by-the-takeo-family-from-yunomi/