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“First steep tasted amazing with notes of cinnamon, raisins, apple, spices and a deep, smooth black tea body. Second steep was also nice with a much stronger black tea flavour. And then like with...” Read full tasting note
“kobiwako kyusu 45s@100C 1m@100C Wonderful black tea. Full of cinnamon and a minty aftertaste. Overall it has a full bold body without any bitterness. Very pleasant astringancy. Second cup has a...” Read full tasting note
“My first black tea from Japan; I was excited. Smaller leaves, sized like Darjeeling, which can lead to strong infusions if not careful. Indeed, I played around with the temperature a bit and...” Read full tasting note
“Another tea from Dag Wedin 5G + 4oz (more or less) X 45/60 A small leaf black, somewhat broken. the warmed aroma was sweet, with shades of roasted barley & sorghum. The 1st steep was kind of...” Read full tasting note
Hime Fuki, a LIMITED organic Japanese black tea cultivated in Makurazaki, Kagoshima, Japan is made from an excellent Japanese cultivar named “Benifuki”. Cultivated organically and harvested by hand, known as tezumi in Japanese, it is comprised of only young leaves handpicked at the optimum timing in spring one by one with close inspection by the pickers. The tea breed, handpicking, processing, and natural oxidation of the tea leaves are the important factors that ultimately gives this particular black tea its fresh flowery aroma, soft rich taste, and beautiful ruby color!
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First steep tasted amazing with notes of cinnamon, raisins, apple, spices and a deep, smooth black tea body.
Second steep was also nice with a much stronger black tea flavour.
And then like with Hime Hikari, the flavours get much weaker with the subsequent resteeps. The 5th hardly tasted like tea, and the 6th was just water with a hint of spice. Normally when it tastes that weak I begin to recognize the original water flavour, but not so this time. It might be due to the purion teapot, which would be nice since I use a brita filter with hard water and it doesn’t always taste great. ;)
I have to say that I wasn’t so crazy about this tea the first time I tried it, but the first short steep here was wonderful. When I long steep this one, it reminds me too much of Qimen black tea, which is a tea I’m not always interested in drinking. Anyway, this is quite an interesting tea and I’m happy to have tried it.
100ml purion teapot, 1 1/2 tsp, 6 steeps (30s, 30s, +15s)
edit: Please see my newer tasting note regarding short steeping this tea.
kobiwako kyusu
45s@100C
1m@100C
Wonderful black tea. Full of cinnamon and a minty aftertaste. Overall it has a full bold body without any bitterness. Very pleasant astringancy. Second cup has a slightly more dry aftertaste that lingers on the tip of the tounge.
Perhaps the slightest hint of sweet dried fruit. I would say this is very much like a japanese assam ^^ Perfect for breakfast or early in the day.
Flavors: Cinnamon
My first black tea from Japan; I was excited.
Smaller leaves, sized like Darjeeling, which can lead to strong infusions if not careful. Indeed, I played around with the temperature a bit and settled on, i’m guessing, 85-90C with short infusions.
First steeps near 100C were powerful, mouth-filling malt and spice. Later steeps with cooler water brought out much more lifted notes of lemon oil and roses, along with roasted coriander seed and marzipan, all backed by plenty of earthiness.
The marzipan aroma becomes more prominent in later steepings.
There’s a lingering bitterness playing in the background – this was at all temperatures that I used.
Perhaps a little clumsy at times, but certainly worth trying.
Another tea from Dag Wedin
5G + 4oz (more or less) X 45/60
A small leaf black, somewhat broken. the warmed aroma was sweet, with shades of roasted barley & sorghum. The 1st steep was kind of minty, in the way that some taiwanese hong yun are. Flavorwise, it was not as sweet as I expected it to be, more of a black strap molasses & rye kind of taste, with noticeable acidity.
The 2nd steep was basically bitter, & for me, undrinkable.
Still worth sampling though! Thanks Dag!
Taken from the first round of the EU TTB and was added by Dag Wedin. A Japanese black would go well for me this morning, I recently joined crunchyroll which is like Netflix but it has lots of Anime/Manga available to stream. I’m currently watching ‘Toaru Hikūshi e no Koiuta’ / ‘The Pilot’s Love Song’ and am enjoying it, only a few episodes in but I think it’s going to be one of those well written emotional anime short series. That was my new year resolution by the way, to watch more Anime.
The website has no steeping instructions for this tea (though they did have a lot of pictures of it being grown and picked) so I’m going to use the same parameters as Dag Wedin.
45s@100C
1m@100C
The leaves are very dark brown and finely chopped though there are a few golden leaves chopped up and mixed in also. It smells sweet yet smoky and slightly floral and wooden.
First Steep – 45 seconds
Now steeped it smells very thick and malty with wood and flowers. Flavour wise it’s thick and with only a little astringency, it has elements of: wood, smoke, clay, malt and rose petals. Also has a spicy undertone.
Second Steep – 1 minute
Less thick but still full of flavour. The malt and wood elements are still dominant but the smoke has subsided somewhat as has the clay. Still getting the rose petals though, particularly in the after taste, they cling to my tongue like velvet and it’s beautiful.
It had elements of Keemun and Assam which made a wonderful surprise. Very full of flavour and competed with some of my current favourite black teas. I am definitely going to be buying more of this one. I can see how it won great taste awards throughout 2009 – 2012 consecutively.
Oh and here is the link for the listing of this tea which have the wonderful pictures:
http://www.yuuki-cha.com/japanese-black-tea/hime-fuki-black-tea?search=hime%20fuki
