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Oh, nice to see your hygrometer and beautiful Shiboridashi. Pu’erh sound good too Looks like summer is around the corner in northern Italy.

Thanks for doing this, a very useful resource!

Welcome to TeaForum, @Ubacat and @carlosk .

Thes du Japon’s current offerings, categorized by cultivar, is useful and his blog is always replete with cultivar information.

In addition to cultivars, you might explore common processing methods and some unique ones as well Japanese Green Tea: Aged, Roasted, Fermented

The new kyusu looks like stoneware, the other two darker brown ones look like Banko. Interesting collection.

@Victoria - I got the impression that the Blue Mark from Global Tea Hut was shu...based on the color of the cake and the brew in the photos only - I have not yet had this tea. Also the lack of reference to sheng made me think it was shu. Now reading your notes, I am wondering if I am wrong.... Blue...

tingjunkie not sure where you are, but if you aren’t satisfied I’ll buy half :) . Last night enjoyed 2014 White 2t Basics, HuangPian sheng. Left a nice viscous thick coat on mouth. Dry leaf had some apricot fruit aroma. Orange liquor, with a very pleasant bitterness. I ended up filtering out a lot ...

You mean you refrigerate them prior to opening (but not after), correct? Both. Once I open a packet of tea, if it's more than what I can drink in a couple of weeks, I portion out the extra into foil pouches and keep them in the fridge. Airtight, opaque packaging will avoid condensation problems and...

I enjoyed Everyone’s Teas posts and looking at his teaware, especially those thin cups, but I never hit buy button :shock:. He has a houhin set from the same Tokoname studio that I have, Koudou studio run by Chitoshi Morita. I got my set at auction and had no idea who made it, but then saw his pract...

I used my sesame roaster with sencha for 10 minutes, over medium flame gas stove, with a diffuser, wearing protective gloves. My wrist was tired after that. I think I should have had higher heat and longer roast. Next time I’ll roast for longer, rest, and re-roast another time. Then place in wooden...

Got the blind tasting sampler + a few aged and heavy roast oolong to check out . This tasting reminds me of Chip’s TC OTTI’s.

Room temperature brewing of the ‘bitter’ gyokuro didn’t reduce the bitterness enough for me. I dug out my Horoku, a pot for roasting tea, that I purchased from thes-du-japon several years ago. The roasting helped reduce the bitterness, but I need to work on my roasting and brewing technique. I’ve w...

Wow, sipping on Origin’s 2010 Traditional High Fire Lishan. 6gr/70ml in Yamada Sou’s mayake kyusu. After thinking about Bok ’s post regarding porous clay and high fired oolong I went for the best. Only 6grams left, will save to share this truly great oolong; rich spicy viscous malty raisin camphor n...

Yes you are right, I should revert to my original statement and exclude greener processed teas. Per my own experience I am finding slightly absorbing clays very helpful in creating a much more delicious brew with high mountain oolongs. More body and other qualities that I like in them. Like Duanni,...

I would distinguish aging from resting. It can definitely be aged, but reven if one does not want to age it, I think the tea is at its best after a couple of years of resting. There are a lot of nuances that tend to be covered by the roast in the first year or so and emerge as the roast settles. I ...