Organic Sencha

Bravo! Another good one from Den’s Tea! I opened this small sample today. I love the GREEN smell! I steeped it according to Den’s Tea recommendations. The liquid is a pale yellow color. The scent is mild, very fresh, and vegetal (is that a word?). I have tried old sencha’s from Asian supermarkets. This is FRESH! The taste is delicious. It goes down very smoothly. There is no bitterness to it. It is mildly and naturally sweet and grassy. The taste is Yum! I’m going for my second steep!

Okay, this is much better. I tried some really old, lost, forgotten genmaicha earlier today, and it wasn’t doing it for me. This is much better.

Actually, this tea might be as old as that genmaicha; I’ve had it so long I don’t remember when I got it. But it was still unopened, sealed in it’s little 10g sample packet. I went ahead and just emptied the whole thing in to my 8oz kyusu. Light and grassy and refreshing. On the third steeping now and still a pretty full flavor. I tend to prefer the deeper-steamed stuff, but this is still pretty nice. 10g/8oz might have been overkill, but ever since I took inventory of my tea and discovered how much I have going stale, I’ve been trying to finish off all of the tiny bits of teas I have here and there.

That, and I’ve just been seeking out Japanese greens today because I woke up this morning craving rice. So I put a huge batch of brown rice in the rice cooker, mixed with coconut milk and a little green curry powder, and I’ve been eating off of it all day. And for whatever reason, Japanese greens seem to go pretty well with rice.

Mmm, rice. Some days I think I could live off of green tea and rice.

Number 2 from the Den’s sampler — this was what they put in for the variable, seasonal tea. It’s leaves are lovely and delicate, almost feathery, and very green. They smell juicy and vegetal, like the unflavored Chinese greens I’ve tasted: a mix of cabbage, spinach, asparagus and butter, but there is also a fresh, field-like note to them. I hesitate to call it grassy because some people view that as a negative. Bucolic would be an apt substitute. There is something else as well, a slight marine scent. It’s interesting to me that this can coexist with the pastoral one. It’s rather like what you’d expect to smell if you were standing in coastal farmland.

60 seconds at 160F got me a gentle chartreuse colored liquor with extremely fine solute suspended in it. The aroma was very like that of the dry leaves, though milder.

The taste is fresh and pleasant, vegetal but not as much so or as buttery as in the Chinese greens I’ve tasted. Though I haven’t tasted that many green teas and certainly have not knowingly tasted a sencha before, this is what I think of when I think of what a green tea tastes like. It’s a sort of Platonic ideal of green-teaness, which is a cool association, though I have to wonder why I have this archetype in my head when I have no experience to back it up.

I was relieved that it wasn’t bitter or grassy (in a bad way), and I think it’s the sort of taste that will grow on me. Though I’m naturally drawn to the big, bold, robust flavors of black teas, there are times when you want a sauvignon blanc rather than a big cab.

I found a local cafe that carries this! They make Japanese style crepes, and I went just to try one of their teas, since I saw they offered Japanese green teas on the menu.

Wasn’t I pleasantly surprised to see that the organic sencha they were offering from the menu was from Den’s Tea!

This is awesome. Citrusy, deep (almost savory) flavor, lovely sweet aftertaste. No bitterness or astringency. I’ve never had an organic sencha (that I know of) before. I always got the impression from things I’ve read that the organic farming methods haven’t yet measured up to the standard ones (in Japan) for making as tasty a tea… well, I was wrong! Or rather, my impressions have now been corrected.

Nice sweet grassy aroma and taste. Brews into a greenish yellow murky liquid. It is soothing.

I was curious to try an organic sencha because I have heard just how different the taste is. I haven’t had enough of conventional versus organic to make this judgement myself, but this tea is definitely different in a good way.

One of the things I’ve heard about organic sencha, and a negative for some people, is that it’s a lot milder in flavor. In a way I would have to agree, but it’s not a negative for me. This sencha doesn’t have quite that bite I associate with other senchas, but nevertheless it’s enjoyable.

The smell is very sylvan and the taste is rather woodsy as well. Slightly grassy with an herbaceous, salty buttery undertone. There’s also a marine like quality to this- it’s as if a garden emerged under the sea and you’re imbibing this oceanic green nectar. I can’t say it’s my favorite sencha, but it’s a nice one to have on hand.

I used 3.5 gram of leaf per 4 oz. of water.

Thanks to Stephanie for this sample! I brewed it up in my Den’s Tea kyusu. The instructions are for two steeps but I got a third steep out of the leaf by brewing at 180f for about 3 minutes. It’s a basic, grassy sencha. I may have let the leaf get too old. It’s tasty but doesn’t have a lot of the nuance that I’ve come to expect from Den’s Tea. Still, it’s got a decently thick mouthfeel and clean flavor.

free sample! delicious grassy sencha, quite mild, yet well-rounded. not as depth-y as aracha, or some of den’s other senchas, but this is one i’d consider for an everyday cup (or three).