Organic Miyazaki Kamairicha Minekaori

This is one of two shinchas I ordered from Yuuki-cha, and it’s made up the bulk of my at-home tea drinking over the past few weeks. It’s delightful, and I am quite taken by the novelty of drinking tea harvested only a couple weeks before I receive it! Over the past several months I’ve been drinking mostly Chinese teas, so this is a nice return to Japanese greens.

The leaves, post-infusion, are the most vibrant green ever. They don’t look spent the way less fresh tea does after steeping. The liquor is also an amazingly vibrant yellow-green.

While it’s steeping, it smells like delicious freshly-cut hay. It might be odd to term any type of hay “delicious”, but I grew up spending most of my time in stables and often helping bale hay, so I have good associations with the scent and have always found it really nice, simultaneously refreshing and comforting. The liquor after the leaves are strained smells a little more earthy, and more buttery.

The butter really carries over in the flavour. It tastes like snow peas swimming in butter. It has a nice, full mouthfeel to match and a savoury-sweetness. It’s moderately astringent, but not bitter at all. So lovely! I get three really solid steeps out of this.

My third kamairicha and once again a top-notch green tea. There’s an amazing range of flavors that unfurls on your tongue as it steeps. The taste is a mix of fruity, umami, grassy, sweet, and nutty. The liquor is thick with a buttery mouthfeel, evoking the lush flavor of high mountain oolongs. I first had it a few weeks ago while down with a sinus cold and even with my sense of taste and smell greatly impaired, I could still taste the pear like fruitiness. Gives at least 3 good infusions.