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If anyone has seen it yet from any vendor, please let me know. :) No problem! Yunomi appears to have some guricha up in their shincha section, but I don't think it's organic. It might not be available for a while or maybe not at all, but Thés du Japon had an organic Yabukita guricha/tamaryokucha fr...

Zairai is not like modern varietals used to make sencha. It is closer to how sencha was in the time of my namesake, Baisao, who added a pinch of sencha (which was made from what we now call zairai) to boiling water. It’s not usually bitter so it can handily take high temperatures, even brief boilin...

Are 80 gram bags a trend? I don't know how I missed the fine print, but I ended up ordering two products from Yuuki-cha that are 80 grams instead of the usual 100. Both are shincha, so perhaps that's why. But, there are entire tea sellers that now only deal in 80 grams sizes. I hope that's not the ...

So what it does to the tea might not be to your liking and personal taste preference. I'm pretty sure I either sense bitterness differently, or am not sensitive to it. Judging by his instructions on how to brew a Zarai sencha sample I got, Hojo may have tastes moreso in that direction. He recommend...

I much prefer to buy organic as well so I appreciate the Kuritawase recommendation from Yuuki-cha! I ordered it as well as the Chiran and Yukushima senchas and the Matcha Iri Sencha just for kicks. No problem! The Chiran is quite good as well. That will likely be one I order again this year. I have...

I was excited to see the Organic Kabusecha is back at O-Cha this year! It went missing last year, and is one of my favorites. I went ahead and ordered it along with the Sae Midori Kabusecha, Kirishima Asamushi, and the 20th Anniversary Sae Midori. And now, I wait.

Thanks this is reassuring...I was a little hesitant about ordering this tea since there are no reviews for it. No problem. I haven't been leaving reviews on there because I thought they never showed up, but it looks like some I left a year ago finally appeared, so I'll be sure to do so in the futur...

I'll be ordering from Yuuki-Cha and O-Cha. Whichever is available sooner, the Shimofuri Masashige from Yuuki-Cha or the Kurasawa from O-Cha will determine which vendor gets the first order. I don't typically buy non-organic, but all the talk about the 20th Anniversary Sae Midori has me convinced to ...

I have found this to be a pretty difficult sencha to steep with more bitterness than I like and a very light body that leaves me a little frustrated. I looked at my notes and, when I had this tea last summer, I was using closer to 2g/oz and steeping at 165 for 60s. This was in a 140ml Kohokujo pot....

Same for me, Kobiwako is the most surprising clay I have ever tried(next to antique Duanni) and as you said the difference is very obvious! Before that it used to be Hokujo that had surprised me the most, but Kobiwako pushed it off the throne. I'm going to experiment some more, but the Kobiwako mig...

Has anyone tested which clay they prefer for sencha? I recently purchased a kobiwako pot, so it's not as seasoned as my Hokujo clay pot (made by Hokujo's son, Kohokujo) that I've used for sencha for over a year. My first impression is that the kobiwako pot highlights the sweetness while maintaining...

The Shimofuri Masashige sencha, Haru bancha, and Kuchinashi oolong are some of the best and most unique Japanese organic teas I've ever had. The saemidori gyokuro is quite good, too.

I have recently come to this conclusion. My tastes change too much, even in the span on 6 months, and tea drinking is an ephemeral experience that can be affected by a lot of outside factors. Keeping a tea log and rating teas is not helpful if you are intending to say anything other than "this is g...

You know, after I said that, I realized my list really has not been updated this harvest year which makes it rather ... obsolete. I continued to think about this quite a bit throughout the day into evening ... it is like much of my Tea journey is completed ... and I have reached my tea destination....

Chip wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 28, 2018 2:19 pm

I typically develop a personal fave 5 list of vendors.

What are your current fav vendors? I'm still stumbling upon different vendors and, while I would like to give them all a fair shot, there is unfortunately only so much tea I can afford and consume. I'd like to make my purchases a bit wiser!