Normally I don’t go for green tea—I haven’t branched out much and most of what I’ve tried has been too vegetal for me. But this, oh! It smells so good. Sweet, nutty, smooth… it really is the closest thing to a dessert tea that I’ve tried. Somehow the sesame and caramel notes just add up to the most delicious smelling thing in the world. (Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little.) I will warn you, though, the tea itself is not nearly as strong as the scent of the leaves. It’s much milder, more… nutty, almost, though without the strong grassy taste I usually associate with green teas.
More bad news: the leaves are fairly large, but they aren’t totally unbroken and I’ve found a number of stems. A quick googling shows that bancha tea is usually lower grade, so this isn’t super surprising with that in mind. It’s definitely a high enough grade for a simple flavored green.
I’m still sorting out the exact combination of time and temp and amount, but I definitely have to use more of this than my stronger black teas, and I go for two minutes and thirty seconds rather than the recommended two. Definitely don’t be stingy when measuring this out. It’s already a very mild tea. I’ve found you can get at least two full-strength steepings out of it, and it’s only six bucks for a quarter pound at the store.
Once I run out of this (and I will definitely run out), I am absolutely buying more.
