Yunomi

Lately I’ve had intense cravings for Japanese green tea and finished my stash in record time. With still a month to go until shincha season, I bought a 20g pouch of this as a stopgap. Yunomi teas in my experience aren’t that impressive but they are one of the few Japanese vendors who offer samplers which I appreciate since I didn’t want to be stuck with a 100g bag of last year’s tea.

For this tea, I used 2.5g in a 150ml kyusu starting with 140-145 F water and steeped for 1 minute. Leaves had the signature scent of warm grass and nori seaweed. In the warmed kyusu, I got new aromas of spinach and stir fried kale and swiss chard. The first steep is light and mellow with the taste of freshly cut grass, umami, and a little sweetness as it cools. A little reminiscent of kabusecha though not as earthy. Second infusion is with hotter water, anywhere from 165 F to boiling, and has a thick deep color and texture. Strong vegetal taste like broccoli with a bit of chalkiness. It’s like drinking a thin matcha. Third steep is flatter with a generic green tea flavor.

Though not a particularly exciting tea, it’s still quite serviceable and decent for a year old sencha. Doesn’t resteep well so it’s kind of a “one and done” tea.

A first gyokuro, courtesy of the benevolent Togo, thank you <3 I think this may also be the first tea I’ve had from our second swap. Is kabusecha a gyokuro? If so, this is my second.

It is a rough morning in the house of derk. I’ve had to close my door and put on a record to keep the negativity of Housemate #2 at bay. Somewhere along this timeline I acquired a Ravi Shankar album and this is the first performance on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjjOXIoCLPI

I’m still in the midst of this session but feel the need to write. After reading through the reviews of this tea (this is why Steepster is so helpful!), I prepared the entire 7g of dark green, shiny leaves in a 60mL gaiwan since I do not own any Japanese teaware. First boiled the water, then let it cool by passing it between a few vessels, warming the leaves during that process. The warmed leaf emitted a thick cloud of pine, sugar cookie and beef along with a fruity quality.

I did not keep track of steeping times beyond the initial 2 minutes and let the force guide me. The gyokuro soaked up so much water in the first brew that I barely got maybe 25mL of tea. Due to the liquor’s thickness, though, it seems like an appropriate amount to sip. Bitter with a moderate umami, like dandelion greens simmered with lamb or beef bones. Umami aftertaste with lingering bitterness and what I perceived as a whisper of smoke.
The tea maintained this character for at least 3 more steeps.

With the fourth steep a bright sweetness presented at the top back of the mouth. I sipped some of the leftover water that had cooled and that intensified the sweetness. I think this is something I will do in between these small cups. Later, that sweetness seemed to migrate down into my throat and into my chest. I’m on the 7th infusion now and the thickness has faded while the bitterness and beefy umami are still present, now with a lighter but still dark vegetal tone like kale and asparagus. All I’ve had to eat this morning is half a roll smeared with a bit of brie style cheese I picked up from a cheesemaker on my way home from work the other day. My stomach is not queasy at all. I’m pretty relaxed. Gyokuro is interesting. I think I enjoy it more than sencha.

Let me start by saying I’m not sure this is the right listing for this. I know it’s Yunomi and I know it’s Genmaicha. That’s all I know. Anyway, I guess I never reviewed this, even though I’ve been drinking it for a month and a half now.

I really can’t give distinct brewing parameters on this one because I brewed it with 5g for 1.5 minutes in 16 oz of water, and it was way too weak, so I stuffed about another two scoops of tea in and brewed it for another 45 seconds and it was much better.

Taste is… wonderful. I’ve been drinking this for awhile now so I can’t give you my first thoughts on it but my ongoing thoughs are that it is a nice balance between green tea vegetal and brown rice toasty. Just the perfect combination. It tastes like a green tea rice cake, If I would have to label the flavor. There is definite seaweed flavor to this, but that fine with me because I love seaweed. I would make seaweed salads if I knew where to get it! I’m also getting, as I said, that roasted flavor that tastes a bit like toasted bread. That’s pretty much the extent of this tea – seaweed and toast. It sounds like it would be disgusting but I adore it. For me, this is a great tea. I will recommend it however, knowing that many others might not go for it like I do. And that’s fine. To each their own.

But I love it. :)

A gift.

Don’t have much to add as there are already very good descriptions of this tea.
It is almost like eating a sugar cookie with buttercream-cherry icing — heavy on the butter, light on the floral cherry — while sitting on bed of fresh and fragrant sweet grass.
A second steep brings out more of the spinach vegetal flavor of the sencha and the cherry blossom becomes even more subtle but it’s still a delightful sip.

Hello, spring.

Thank you Mastress Alita.

Thank you, Derk :D

Was getting close to midnight and decided for a low caffeine option. Still working hard at getting some tea off my shelf so I can buy more without having that overwhelming feeling of having too much on my shelf. Good luck, right? hehe

The golden sticks (stems) after the first infusion smelled like roasted nori, sweet tobacco. The cloudy, dark amber liquor produced infusions that had a toasty sweet flavor, along with roasted rice, umami, roasted malt and nuts, and smokey notes.

The site suggested 5 grams, 60s, 194°F, 200 ml. I went with a little more concentrated preparation of 5g, 100ml, beginning at 194°F (and later ramping up the temperature), 7 steeps, no rinse, 15s, 20s, 35s, 45s, 55s, 65s, 90s. The first couple of quick infusions introduced the roasted rice, fresh sweetness, bright notes, and at the end, I used close to boiling water for the longer infusions, the result was darker notes of roasted nuts, caramel-like, a different type of sweetness, more intense sweetness. Throughout all the infusions, the bitterness was at a perfect level of enjoyment. Mellow, smooth, calming, satisfying.

Note: Still a lot of flavor, I’ll probably keep drinking this throughout the night. It’s really good :D. Also, I’m biased… I grew up on Japanese tea so take that into consideration. ^^

Thank you Cameron B. I love this!

Busy day and I put this in my sipper and it’s so good! On the second infusion now. The Sencha is top notch, the subtle and delicate flavors of fruit, cherry, butter, and the sweetness are spot on. Love it. Really good reviews on this “Je ne sais quoi” type of tea so I’ll leave it at that. I’ll definitely get some for my shelf.

365 Days of Tea Challenge – Day 37

It’s been a while since I’ve had a Japanese green tea, even though they happen to be some of my favorites. I’m not sure why that is, really… But today, we rectify!

I have a 20g packet of this from my Yunomi subscription. Full disclosure – it’s a few months past the “best by” date… But it was completely sealed, so I’m giving it a go anyway. I followed the steeping parameters on the packet for the first 3 steeps, and then went with a further 4th steep because it still had such good flavor.

My leaf was a bit broken, so I was worried about this being bitter. But it definitely was not!

This is a very tasty, well-balanced sencha. It has a nice combination of both sweet and savory vegetal notes, along with a refreshing light citrus note. The most amazing thing about this one, though, is the tasty sakura note. It actually tastes like a very lightly sakura-scented sencha, even though there is no scenting here. I love sakura sencha, so I found this quite delightful!

The vegetal notes were a nice combination of sweet and creamy pea and edamame, along with more savory spinach and a touch of umami seaweed. The savory side was a bit stronger in the second infusion, and there was also a hint of very pleasant bitterness. The fourth (extra) steep was light and sweet, a lovely way to finish the session.

Yummy in my tummy… I’ll have to steep my favorite sakura sencha this way one of these days.

5g – 200ml – 175°F – 60/10/30/60s

https://www.instagram.com/p/BtjgZ0BlmLZ/

It’s been a long time since I tried a new gyokuro, so I was really excited to open this one as soon as it arrived in mail. I used about 5g for this session and the amount of water was ranging from 70ml to 100ml.

Leaves in the preheated kyusu have a pungent smell of beef and brownies that is a little sweet and cooling too. Once they had been submerged in water, aromas like chicken broth and cedar come to the fore. On the other hand, smelling the empty cup is like sticking your nose into a bag with a mixture of gummy bears and nuts.

Overall, I found this gyokuro to have a remarkably balanced, yet evolving taste. It is very delicate and juicy.

For the first infusion, I use 50°C water for about 90s. It yields a super soft, coating and lubricating mouthfeel. The taste is brothy and crisp. Umami is in moderation. Flavours of pine and kale are the ones I can isolate.

Second infusion is a flash one with temperature close to 60°C. The liquor is full bodied, buttery and extremely thick with a slightly minty mouthfeel. Taste is very different from the previous one. It is nutty and grassy with a hint of butter. The protracted aftertaste evolves from savoury to sweet. It leaves a tingling and a bit drying sensation in the mouth and throat. One new flavour that I notice is cauliflower, but there are many vegetal ones too.

Steep number three is done with 70°C water for less than 20s. Again, the taste changed a lot. This time, it is more fruity and sour. I get notes like dried lime (limoo amani), leek and asparagus.

The last two infusions have again increased temperature to 75°C and 85°C respectively. The times also go up to 60s and 180s. These are finally displaying some bitterness. Steep #4 is distinctively medicinal with a hint of thistles. The last one is not bad at all, but doesn’t really bring anyhting new to the table.

All in all, I greatly enjoyed this gyokuro and can recommend it without hesitation.

Discovery TTB #19

I’m generally not a big fan of Japanese green teas, but there was a large bag of this one in the box so I decided to give it a shot. The leaves brewed up to the brightest lime green tea I’ve ever seen! The flavor was unique: quite savory and a bit salty, reminding me of seaweed or perhaps a seafood broth. Not something I’d personally care to drink again, but it was a unique experience and I’m glad to have “discovered” it in this box!

Home – 7:00 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 9

Wow, getting really close on trying all of these older teas. I’ve been slacking a bit because of my Bird & Blend order… Plus I’ve been drinking two advent calendar teas every day and recording the notes to be posted in December.

Hmm… I’m not sure I really get melon from this one. To me, it’s more of a combination of light bubblegum and banana flavors. The base tea is definitely a later harvest sencha or bancha, and has a grassy and somewhat dried leaf flavor. Ooh, now I am getting some melon near the end of the sip, and it’s lovely and creamy as well.

An interesting combination of flavors! There is a little bit of bitterness after the 2-minute steep recommended by the label. I see the directions on the website call for a slightly shorter steep, so perhaps they revised them after I bought this.

Home – 6:30 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 10

I’m trying to taste at least one older cupboard tea per day, even though all I want to do is dive headlong into my pile of Bird & Blend sample packets…

This one is a pleasant enough Japanese sencha. It has a strong vegetal presence – mostly blanched spinach with a touch of asparagus. There is also a lovely umami note, and a bit of seaweed but also some grassy sweetness. Only the tiniest hint of pleasant bitterness near the end of the sip, and a light apricot astringency in the aftertaste.

It’s perhaps not the most nuanced Japanese green tea, but it does have the classic sencha flavors and I’m finding it quite enjoyable this evening.

Prepared as recommended on the label (and increasing time and temp with each subsequent brew), it’s certainly tasty but more a one-dimensional profile with roasted grain/coffee-burnt sugar and associated light bitterness. I feel like I’m drinking too much hot water for what I know this tea is capable of.

Much prefer the flavor profile and thickness offered by high leaf (stem in this case) to low water ratio followed by a 10-minute simmer as outlined in Togo’s review.

Listen: Red Hot Chili Peppers — Turn It Again
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vka1W1d7G9A

This tea was a new experience for me and I can’t wrap my thoughts around it. Very complex and different from the Obubu Dark Roast Houjicha I bought from What-Cha. I can say I really enjoyed this following Togo’s parameters in his latest review of this tea. I also simmered the leaves for 10 minutes to produce a mug of smooth, roasty and pleasantly bitter tea this morning. Want more, that’s all I really know. Thank you, Togo.

Sipdown of a 300g bag.

I prepared this last brew according to one of the two ways outlined on the package: boil 2L water, simmer 25-30g for 3 minutes, then turn off, cover with a lid and let steep for 30 minutes.

Though the brew is thin, I enjoy the more concentrated flavor of this method. It’s so much like honey nut cheerios :)

After reading Togo’s and Mastress Alita’s reviews, I went for a cold brew instead of hot. Ten grams of whole barley grains to a liter overnight in the fridge. The result was a very fragrant and refreshing cold drink! It had a light, coating texture and tasted on the sip like roasted grains (heh) and that turned into coffee and burnt sugar on the swallow. Lingering, pleasant aftertaste. I can see why this is so popular in the summer in Japan. Not as obviously coffee-tasting as the Lupicia Apricot Barley Tea I tried recently. I’ll have to make a stop at Yunomi for a big bag of this when I’m more comfortable with my cupboard size.

Thanks for the generous sample, Togo :)

Home – 2:00 PM

The Great Cupboard Excavation
Untasted teas remaining: 18

I wanted a nice palate-cleansing Japanese green tea after having a couple of very flavored black teas that I didn’t enjoy. Plus Japanese green tea is one of my favorites, so I’m always happy to relax with a cup of it.

This one is a blend of sencha and tea flowers. The flowers are really lovely, they’re whole and sort of bud-like, and they open nicely when steeped. To me, the dry leaf looks like it also contains some kukicha. But that’s not mentioned in the tea description, so who knows. The sencha leaves are somewhat large and flat, rather than being dark and needle-like.

The steeped tea is light and almost golden in color. It’s quite sweet and light and clean-tasting, which to me would make sense if there is indeed kukicha mixed in. There are mild vegetal and grass notes, with a bit of spinach and perhaps a ligher, sweeter vegetable like peas. There is just a little hint of umami as well.

I’m surprised that it’s not very floral at all, although I’m not sure what tea flowers would taste like. I can detect just a tiny bit of floral at the end, but it’s certainly not similar to jasmine as the description implies. If anything, I would say it’s closer to a sakura flavor. But still very light, I’m not sure I would know there were added flowers just going by the flavor.

Overall, it’s a very light Japanese green tea. I see now that the suggested water temperature is 194°F, so I’ll have to try that next time to see if it brings out more of a floral flavor.

This also makes a tasty cold brew. I used 1 sachet in 500mL for 8 hours but that could probably be decreased a few hours. The resulting tea was thicker and tasted grassier, less tart and a little more bitter which gave the tea more depth. That sweet Payday candy bar smell/taste weaved its way through all of that. Very refreshing.

Here I have a sachet from Mastress Alita marked on the pouch as ‘Sobas.’ Based on the taste, I’m guessing the leaf mixed with cracked pieces of roasted? buckwheat is sencha. The dry bag smells nutty, umami-seaweed with a hint of floral. The steeped tea smells amaaaazing – sweet peanut that reminds me of a Payday candy bar. The tea is mild and pleasant, light-bodied and mouth-watering with a light, sweet peanut note. Underneath that is grass and mineral. The finish is very lightly drying and lemon-water tart. Hint of peanut in the aftertaste.

Pretty simple yet very satisfying.

The lowest temp my kettle goes to is 160F so I let the water sit in a mason jar for a few minutes before brewing. Got 2 steeps.

I normally enjoy sakura flavored teas but I didn’t care for the artificial taste of this one. The dry leaf appearance is striking with its dark green, mostly full leaf blades interspersed with beautiful tiny pink buds. The leaves smell like cherry blossom, bubble gum, and slightly medicinal. Wet leaf smells like cherry cough syrup.

First steep produced a clear yellowish-green liquor. The cough syrup flavor from the aroma hits you first and then cherry blossoms appear in the background, fighting against the artificial flavoring. The second steep had more cough syrup, a bit of astringency, and a fainter cherry blossom note.

Going to try blending this with a regular sencha because the flavoring is too strong when drunk straight up.

Sipdown! (37 | 167)

Another of my oldest teas down!

This one is a longstanding favorite from Yunomi. The lightly fruity-sweet and slightly savory sakura flavor is so well-balanced with the rich umami and vegetal notes of the sencha. And then there’s the fresh and sweet green grassiness that ties the two together so well. All with such a lovely silky mouthfeel…

It’s amazing how good this still is given the package was from 2017… Onto the wishlist it goes! I also have some sakura blossoms from Obubu, I’ll have to try adding some to one of their sencha…

Home – 8:00 PM

I remember really loving this tea, so the pressure is really on now that I’m trying it after it’s been a while. Plus obviously the tea is a bit older, so it’s always possible to have some flavor loss. It still smells fantastic, though. Super sakura aroma!

Ugh, this is just so stinkin’ good! The sencha is soft and plush as a feather pillow – a buttery, creamy, sweet pillow… There’s a bit of rich grass and a touch of spinach and pea. But man, that sakura… I’m never quite sure how to describe it. It is floral, but not perfumey. It’s a fruitier floral with a hint of savory, and in this case it tastes of dried sour cherries.

So happy that this is still ridiculous good. I would highly recommend it to any Japanese green aficionado. ❤

I would love to send a free sample of this tea to anyone in the US who would like to try it. It’s so good I feel the need to share! Just shoot me a PM if you’re interested.

Teaware has come to play an important role in my tea drinking experience. With all of the tea ware I’ve amassed so far, I figured it’s high time I reviewed some on Steepster so here goes.

I had coveted this Sawa Houzan Shiboridashi ever since it began popping up on Instagram. It looked so elegant with its graceful shape, webwork of crackles, gemstone-like knob, and unique “rake” filter. Online reviews convinced me to get it and I finally picked one up during a sale at Yunomi. Having owned this for well over a year and half now, I have quite a few thoughts to share about its positives as well as its downsides.

When I first received it, I was disappointed that it looked different from what was pictured online. In pictures, its cream colored with faint pink streaks. However the one I received was all cream which looked rather plain and not as exquisite. I ended up keeping it though since it would have been too costly to ship it back to Japan. Another feature not as advertised was the capacity. It’s supposed to be 150ml but mine is closer to 120ml which actually works out better for me. The interior is glazed allowing you to brew any kind of tea in it. This teapot is designed for steeping Japanese green tea, but ironically I’ve found Japanese greens to be the worst suited tea for this vessel. The fine leaves clog the filter creating a huge mess and leading to longer steeping time and bitterness. And it’s a chore to scrape the small tea leaves off the lid, filter, and walls of the teapot. It’s the same story whether you use a full leaf tea like gyokuro or a fine sencha. But all is not lost because it works fabulously with Chinese greens, blacks, and oolongs. There are 20 or so fine grooves near the spout that effectively catch the leaves and minimize the amount of sediment in the cup. No need for an external filter when using this teapot. The pour is a little longer than a gaiwan though so it may not be ideal for puerh or other flash steeped teas. I find that Chinese greens and kamairicha taste better in my shibo than gaiwan which I attribute in part to the better heat retention from its thicker walls. In fact it’s my preferred teapot for steeping all greens but sencha which still works best in a kyusu.

It’s growing on me. Really good cold brew 5g to a liter overnight. The cool thickness soothes my parched morning throat. Continues to lubricate after finishing. Nutty, grassy, sweet and bitter. No hint of salt or seaweed to be found. 2.5g left to try another small gaiwan tasting. Bumped from 60 to 70.

Edit: In the spirit of a sipdown, I already brewed the remaining 2.5g as prepared earlier this week. This time I let it cool before drinking and it was much better. I think something about the mixture of hot liquid with intense umami green turned me off last time. Sitting well after eating a breakfast of leftover homemade stir fry. I let the third steep sit for too long but it turned out pleasantly bitter and floral. I enjoyed this flavor so I kept steeping the leaves. Glad I did. Bumping again to 74. My persistence and flexibility has produced good results.

Tea #3 from a teaswap with Mastress Alita. Thanks!

I prepared this as closely as possible to the guidelines given by Yunomi. Don’t have any Japanese teaware and I had a bad experience with some Japanese green tea last week, so I used 2.5g of leaf in a 60mL porcelain gaiwan for small steepings. I didn’t have a thermometer handy and the lowest temp setting on my kettle is 160F. The guildelines call for 140F, so I just let the hot water sit for a few minutes. Didn’t follow the guidelines for subsequent steeps which called for an increase in water temperature and volume.

First steep produced a very thick kind of slimy brew similar to the salted sakura leaf green tea I had last week. It was a little salty, mostly green umami with some grassiness behind that. It made my stomach turn a little, but not nearly as bad as the sakura tea. It reminded me of pickleweed, which is a plant I’m intimately familiar with that grows on the upland edges of the salt marshes in the San Francisco Bay. Pickleweed is known also known as sea bean and sold in higher end markets around here. Eaten as a vegetable by those who enjoy its taste.

Second steep was lighter, still kind of salty, less umami, more grass. Third steep was still lighter. I think I enjoyed the second and third steeps the most. I dug around the very pretty spent leaf in the gaiwan and noticed the leaves felt very slick. I wonder if this is a quality of Japanese greens.

So far, it seems that Japanese green teas that aren’t roasted or genmaicha don’t sit well in my stomach. This tea seems high quality given my limited knowledge, but something that seems to be an acquired taste for my palate. I’ll finish the rest of the sample but I won’t seek out more. Thanks again Mastress Alita :)