What Green Are You Drinking

Non-oxidized tea
Noonie
Posts: 360
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:30 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Wed Oct 20, 2021 7:47 pm

I haven't been on any forums much these days, as I was taking a break...but I still perused them at least once a week. "Winter is Coming" and I have more time, and find during this time of year I like to focus more on tea sessions. One thing I wanted to solve is having a low caffeine tea at night, that was satisfying in a number of ways. I bought some Hojicha from Camellia Sinensis a while ago and have made that my nightly tea (while listening to music and scanning some forums, this one included).

I tried the tea in a large kyusu with a mesh screen. It was okay, but didn't do it for me. Last night I tried it in a handmade Shib from 'someone' I bought from after seeing his work on this forum (Shawn/Shaun/Sean 'maybe', and last name something like Maguire...so sorry I butchered that if you're reading!). Anyway, it brewed out perfect. Had a more earthy taste but wasn't over-powering.
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debunix
Posts: 1812
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:27 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Thu Oct 21, 2021 12:25 am

Shawn McGuire, FYI. I was looking for Kukicha or bancha for this evening but didn't see any out and ready to grab, so I settled instead for just a few leaves of oolong thermos-brewed so the total caffeine from the whole thermos full should be very little.
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TenFu's TEA
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Location: Xiamen,Fujian Province,China
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Thu Oct 21, 2021 8:58 pm

Start my work day with a cup of dragon well long jing,waiting for weekend :D !

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klepto
Posts: 488
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Location: Floridaman, USA
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Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:45 pm

2021 Ming Qian Green Tea from Ha Giang, Vietnam:

Slight umami, no bitterness and an aroma like walking through a meadow.
Its notes are baozhong like but not as forward. Its soft, sweet and gives off a high elevation mountain air note that was fantastic.
I brewed it with very short steeps in a Kohokujo pot at 175F. I like it almost as much as my beloved baojing Chinese golden greens.

I'm on some Dora the tea explorer lately :mrgreen:
Noonie
Posts: 360
Joined: Tue Dec 12, 2017 12:30 pm
Location: Ontario, Canada

Tue Oct 26, 2021 6:24 pm

klepto wrote:
Tue Oct 26, 2021 12:45 pm
2021 Ming Qian Green Tea from Ha Giang, Vietnam:

Slight umami, no bitterness and an aroma like walking through a meadow.
Its notes are baozhong like but not as forward. Its soft, sweet and gives off a high elevation mountain air note that was fantastic.
I brewed it with very short steeps in a Kohokujo pot at 175F. I like it almost as much as my beloved baojing Chinese golden greens.

I'm on some Dora the tea explorer lately :mrgreen:
Just watch out for that grumpy old troll; or even worse, swiper!

Lately I'm all over the map (pun) with tea as well...my usual morning drinker is a Shou Pu'er, and then I have a Sencha in the early afternoon. I've recently added a Hojicha at night, and sometimes a Sheng, or Gaoshan, or an aged Shou late afternoon. I just ordered some aged Shou from Yee On Tea (first order with them), after watching some TeaDB videos covering their tea. I wanted to explore some Shou that was stored 'traditionally' and descriptions on TeaDB were reminiscent of some tea I had last year from another vendor, that I really enjoyed, but couldn't place the difference from all other Shou I had tried, and I think it might have been from the storage. So this is to see if that theory is true. Because whatever it was with that particular late 90's Shou I had, it was my favourite Shou. So I'm giving this vendor a shot and we'll see how it goes. I'm guessing it's going to take a while to get the tea, but fingers crossed it's not too long and all goes well.
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LeoFox
Posts: 1777
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 4:01 pm
Location: Washington DC

Thu Oct 28, 2021 9:27 am

Interesting session today with a yamakai cultivar sencha from Asamiya (Shiga) via TDJ:
https://japaneseteasommelier.wordpress. ... m-asamiya/

Florent describes this tea as having a raspberry jam quality, red berry aromas, a "fluid" mouthfeel, a soft "attack".

I brewed it 6g/180 mL at 75 C starting with 60s.

Sorry no pics.

The dry leaf has a very strong scent that reminds me of highly oxidized oolong (Florent calls this "gourmet scent of raspberry jam". I dont see that- but I guess this is a good reference point). As the leavesstarted to brew, the scent changed to one of seaweed umami.

The first infusion was very mild with a subtle grassy and fruity sweetness.

Second infusion was more of the same but a bit more concentrated and with a vert creamy (fluid??) Mouthfeel.

Third infusion had some umami that was hiding until now, but also more fruity sweetness. At this point, I noticed the aftertaste had been building up, and it is very sweet - almost a bit candy like? Raspberry jam? Not sure

A longer fourth infusion brought out more astringency and fruitiness. The astringency makes the tea quite warming in the belly - very nice for this cooler weather

It is interesting to me how easy to drink this tea is. In a flash, the infusions are gone.

Day 2, I only had 1.6g left.

I brewed 1.6g in 180 mL at 90 C for 2min30s. Came out very nicely. No bitterness for me - with a balanced presentation of the fruity aromas and umami.

Then did 1min 40s off boil followed by 5 min off boil. Hahahaha




Last edited by LeoFox on Fri Oct 29, 2021 8:34 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Baisao
Posts: 1397
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Location: ATX

Thu Oct 28, 2021 1:53 pm

I also had a sample of the yamakai cultivar sencha from Asamiya (Shiga) via TDJ. It was laying around and only brought to my attention because @LeoFox. I am a little slow getting to all these teas.

My experience is a bit different, however.

The dried leaves surprised me by the volume of aromas and detail to them: raspberry puree and agar fruit candies. I'd like to keep this around simply to enjoy the dried leaves. 7000-series never disappoints!

I steeped this in a Sou mayake kyusu using TDJs parameters of 4g/70-80ml @ 158° for 60 seconds. Subsequent steeps followed a normal progression for sencha.

The direct aroma is dominated by umami and roast. However, when exhaling and playing with the retronasal aspects, the raspberry, berry, and melon flavors are very apparent. The melon reminds me a bit of cantaloupe but this may be caused by overlapping flavors. Not once did I detect the berry/melon aromas by smelling the cup directly. These were entirely retronasally present.

I thought I lost the fruit flavors on the second steep. I walked away for a few minutes to take a package at the door but the fruit flavors returned, bracingly so, when I sat back down to the tea. I am guessing that I missed these because of palate exhaustion. A few minutes away was enough to reset my palate.

The flavors are very nice and linger delicately in the aftertaste.

This is exactly as described by TDJ. It needs low temps or it will get unpleasantly bitter, which is unsurprising for a tea with novel flavors. Later steeps are medicinally bitter and I don't think there is any way around this post processing. Astringency was present but modest. It's a very nice tea and one that should be selected if someone wants to understand retronasal flavors.
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LeoFox
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Location: Washington DC

Thu Oct 28, 2021 2:00 pm

Its funny cuz I got no bitterness or melon. Either it's because I used less leaf or my water is different. Also used sou mayake. Oh well. Loved the tea. Just ate the leaves and it was wonderful!

Hmm after some time and digging, the retronasal aromas do remind me of this
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swordofmytriumph
Posts: 429
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2018 5:19 am
Location: Seattle, USA

Wed Nov 03, 2021 1:31 am

My order from Thes du Japon arrived and after an agonizing decision I have broken into the Genmaicha first. This is the first time I've had Genmaicha, and oh WOW it's so amazing. How is it so tasty?! All the lovely sencha flavor but TOASTY. This has become a new daily staple tea for sure. Also eating the leftovers is awesome! I am going to give some to the coffee people in my life, this might actually convert them, it has that thick strong flavor my mom seems to crave.

Anyone know if there's somewhere you can buy those awesome toasted rice grains? I wanna make a broth out of them and eat them like rice krispies they are SO GOOD.
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debunix
Posts: 1812
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:27 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Wed Nov 03, 2021 10:39 am

Another morning with Kabuse Sencha from Obubu, joyed from a new cup/bowl by leanne Franson In Canada, who has a shop called ScatteredFingers Etsy.
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m2193
Posts: 63
Joined: Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:31 pm
Location: Boston

Wed Jan 05, 2022 10:03 am

Got 3 mini packs of green teas in a mystery box from Paul of W2T and tried them successively.

First up, the 正德雀舌 特级 (ZhengDe Que She (Sparrow Tongue) Special grade). Was going to follow the instructions on the back which were 3g, 150 mL, 90-95C, but messed up pouring out of chahai so decided to do glass instead with 250 mL and 194F. dry leaf slightly sweet, but overall not super aromatic. in prewarmed chahai, has a umami note. Soup aroma has a slight nuttiness. Taste has slight savory before turning bitter and rather flat. A savory chestnut/bean-y almost flavored bamboo shoot like note occasionally. It was pretty good looking, but taste wasn't impressive. Looked these up and all 3 are sold as gift teas in cute little sets. This one was $0.42/g at current Google conversion rates. Wouldn't gift this to anyone who's too into tea though. The back of the bag was also ridiculously difficult to read. I'm no graphic designer, but I don't know why anyone thought a black font on dark navy design would be a good idea.
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Second, the 正德龙珠 (ZhengDe Long Zhu (Dragon pearl)).
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From perusing random Chinese shop sites, seems to be about a quarter of the price of the Que She at $0.102/g roughly. Brewed grandpa as well, and this one is even flatter than the previous. Not 4x worse, but neither are great.

Last up, the 正德 湄潭翠芽 (Zhengde Meitan Cuiya (uh Babelcarp this one idk)).
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180f, grandpa. Dry leaf smells nutty, slight umami and grassy aspect as well. Leaf in pre-warmed cup has dominant umami note. Not sure if the lower temp. was the deciding factor, but was the best of the three. Still a bitterness present (not sure on volume of my glass, perhaps overleafing a little?), but a nice aftertaste (not very sweet; somewhat cool and pleasant) that was missing from the second and not as good in the first. I'll admit, not terrible for the price of $0.29/g.
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teatray
Posts: 259
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Location: Sofia, Bulgaria

Thu Jan 13, 2022 12:28 am

Opened this beautiful genmaicha from Thés du Japon (Yabukita cultivar: spring 2021 / rice: autumn 2021). Been a while since I had some. Internets say genmaicha shouldn't be a great resteeper but this one made 4 tasty ones.
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m2193
Posts: 63
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Location: Boston

Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:23 pm

Tried the Kumano Traditional Kamairicha yesterday and had the thermos'd remainder today; thanks to umami for the sample!

3g in a 80mL shibo, 20s steeps with boiling Brita filtered tap. The dry leaf smell reminds me of oolong, with a sharp nutty sweetness.
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Wet leaf has a slightly sour roasted note, but when I was pouring water into the shibo, something seemed distinctly chocolate-like in the aroma for the first steep. Not sure if I was imagining things.
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Starts out soft, nutty, and beany with a roast note, very comforting. Later, wet leaf has a slightly soapy floral smell that I associate with later steepings of oolongs. One steep had a light malty sharpness in an otherwise slightly sweet and cooling taste that reminds me of hongcha. Another steep had a tinge of smokiness, and a nice lingering sweetness, slightly vegetal. Moves on to a more savory taste before reverting to a vegetal, honeyed taste, and ends as the vegetable water taste (tbf, was a 5 min. last steep, as 9 preceded this and it was also way past bedtime) of oversteeped green teas (the leaf taste, like when you forget to leave in some water so the leaves don't steam). I put the leaves in a thermos overnight to see what would happen. It was alright, but there was a thin bitterness and a sharpness to it that happened the last time I left steeped balhyocha in there overnight with boiling water.

Reminds me of balhyocha, in seeming to blur category lines. Overall, it was much more dynamic than I expected, and I really enjoyed it!

Edit: Was told that it was from this shop: http://shinjuan.shop-pro.jp/?pid=90871343
Considering the price, blows a lot of things around and beyond its price point out of the water!
Last edited by m2193 on Sun Jan 16, 2022 11:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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teatray
Posts: 259
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Location: Sofia, Bulgaria

Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:54 pm

Tôbettô from Thés du Japon, a hand-picked sencha from Hon-yama, steamed for only 6 seconds. Unusual, good, complex, bitter, umami, then flowery flavors emerge out of nowhere, sweet aftertaste. Can't quite rate yet (and not enough reference points with this type of tea anyway, my experience is mainly mid- to upper-mid-priced fukamushi sencha). 60°C first steep (per TdJ suggestion) was maybe a tad low, 75°C for the third steep on the other hand seemed too high/too bitter. Fourth steep (again 75°C) was very nice. Water ran out for a 5th steep but will continue later today. It seems to have at least 1 or 2 more in it. Very high ratio (6 2/3 g brewed in 100ml) as suggested by seller.
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Baisao
Posts: 1397
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Thu Jan 13, 2022 11:10 pm

teatray wrote:
Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:54 pm
Tôbettô from Thés du Japon, a hand-picked sencha from Hon-yama, steamed for only 6 seconds. Unusual, good, complex, bitter, umami, then flowery flavors emerge out of nowhere, sweet aftertaste. Can't quite rate yet (and not enough reference points with this type of tea anyway, my experience is mainly mid- to upper-mid-priced fukamushi sencha). 60°C first steep (per TdJ suggestion) was maybe a tad low, 75°C for the third steep on the other hand seemed too high/too bitter. Fourth steep (again 75°C) was very nice. Water ran out for a 5th steep but will continue later today. It seems to have at least 1 or 2 more in it. Very high ratio (6 2/3 g brewed in 100ml) as suggested by seller.
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I’ve made Tobetto a lot. I feel that 60° is spot on. It’s a very nice tea but unforgiving of hotter temperatures except in later steeps. You should be able to get 6 steepings from it, so you do get your money’s worth.
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