What Green Are You Drinking

Non-oxidized tea
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Bok
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Thu Sep 19, 2019 7:48 pm

Victoria wrote:
Thu Sep 19, 2019 4:33 pm
Elise wrote:
Thu Sep 19, 2019 4:22 pm
I never weight the leaves, or measure anything like the water amount or exact temperature. I did it at first and then when I found a way to reproduce the temperature parameter I sticked to it and work now with feelings.
Elise, Would be great to get your input in this new thread discussing Traditional Methods of Estimating Water Temperature.
@Elise second that! Please share!
Last edited by Victoria on Thu Sep 19, 2019 8:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Mod edit: added quotes
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debunix
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Fri Sep 20, 2019 10:21 am

Image

Another competition sample from Tea Habitat set, pulled from the archives (refrigerator):

Jin Niu Zao green tea

Light vegetal scent to the delicate, thin, curled leaves

20 seconds at 185 degrees to 'wake' the leaves yields a delicate, light, floral and fresh peas infusion.

20 seconds at 182 degrees (kettle overshot plan for cooler infusion) cooked more than fresh peas, not quite as delicate

6 minutes third infusion at 170 degrees (from kettle, obviously cooled a lot)--got distracted prepping the photo, and ended up diluting about 50% to get a nice delicate vegetal infusion, diluting out the cooked flavor that is not my preference....but which was so strong before dilution only because of my innattention

One more infusion at 205, 2-3 minutes (deliberate timing) is mostly sweet water with a hint of bitterness at the end.

Net impression is a fine delicate green tea, somewhat abused in the infusing, but still giving a pleasing start to the day
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d.manuk
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Sat Sep 21, 2019 10:31 am

Looks aromatic and tasty :D
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Victoria
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Sat Sep 21, 2019 2:14 pm

This morning I mixed the last 4.5 grams of O-Cha’s 20th Anniversary Sae Midori with his Yutaki Midori. Turned out really well. The mellower notes of this special Sae Midori smoothed out the rough edges of Yutaki Midori. Happy to have some synergy going on 🌞🍃
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Balthazar
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Sun Sep 22, 2019 4:55 am

Woke up yesterday with the kind of sore throat that makes drinking any decent tea a real waste. It's improved a lot today, so I grabbed a random sample from the back of my shelf.

It was the "Sencha from Yame, Yabe - Yabukita Cultivar" from Thes du Japon.

And what a treat it was! Delicious, subtle umami. This is one of the most memorable senchas I've had in the last few years (note that when it comes to sencha I mostly drink the cheaper stuff, usually at no more than USD 25 per 100 grams).

Good enough that I was determined to pick up a few bags irrespective of the price. Alas, it is nowhere to be found on TdJ's homepage, which seems to have undergone a major change since I last visited back in February (when I made the order this sample came with). I must say, I am not a big fan of how the new page is organized and miss the great overview and presentation of the former layout.

Also, I wonder what the point of TdJ's registration number system for teas is, if information about a tea is pulled from the site as soon as it sells out. The number for this tea is SNC-80-002-100. If nothing else, it would be really useful for future reference to be able to access the tea's details page...

Sorry about the digression. The tea was great!
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debunix
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Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:49 am

Balthazar wrote:
Sun Sep 22, 2019 4:55 am
information about a tea is pulled from the site as soon as it sells out. The number for this tea is SNC-80-002-100. If nothing else, it would be really useful for future reference to be able to access the tea's details page...
This was what I used to use steepster for; now I try to save web pages as PDFs when I order new teas so I have a reference on my own computer. It's very frustrating when that info vanishes into the ether, regardless of green, puerh, oolong, white, etc.
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Victoria
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Sun Sep 22, 2019 1:52 pm

debunix wrote:
Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:49 am
Balthazar wrote:
Sun Sep 22, 2019 4:55 am
information about a tea is pulled from the site as soon as it sells out. The number for this tea is SNC-80-002-100. If nothing else, it would be really useful for future reference to be able to access the tea's details page...
This was what I used to use steepster for; now I try to save web pages as PDFs when I order new teas so I have a reference on my own computer. It's very frustrating when that info vanishes into the ether, regardless of green, puerh, oolong, white, etc.
Yes, when getting a new tea I typically copy any information posted by vendor to Evernote for future reference. I like to know the story behind the leaf. If I can’t find enough information, I’ll contact vendor for details. Usually they are happy to share what they know.
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Elise
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Sun Sep 22, 2019 2:30 pm

@Balthazar, you can find the comments Florent from Thes du Japon made on his blog about this tea, it’s in French but you can still find some informations there if you want:
http://sommelier-the-japonais.blogspot. ... r.html?m=1

And if you want additional information, no doubt Florent will answer to an email in English as soon as possible, he is very nice and replies quickly usually.
rdl
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Sun Sep 22, 2019 4:02 pm

From the TdJ blog:
"On parle aujourd'hui beaucoup du thé japonais en France et en occident en général. Néanmoins, beaucoup d'erreurs sont dites sur le web comme dans de nombreuses publications sur cet extraordinaire produit."
I am not sure which errors he is referring to, and I assume as with anything, especially of a subjective nature, there are disagreements, but I tend to discount statements like that because unless factual information is incorrect, I don't like narrow gates limiting opinion, discussion, etc.
Angelo Gaja and Italian wine making is an illuminating lesson of not right or wrong, but the overturning of a long history and entrenched opinions. That's what I see happening with the producers TdJ carries.
If they are factual errors he is trying to correct, then I applaud his efforts.
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Balthazar
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Mon Sep 23, 2019 10:52 am

debunix wrote:
Sun Sep 22, 2019 11:49 am
This was what I used to use steepster for; now I try to save web pages as PDFs when I order new teas so I have a reference on my own computer. It's very frustrating when that info vanishes into the ether, regardless of green, puerh, oolong, white, etc.
Sounds like a smart routine! I'll have to consider doing something like that.

@Elise thanks for the tip!
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pizzapotamus
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Mon Sep 23, 2019 6:41 pm

That one actually has an English blog page too, https://japaneseteasommelier.wordpress. ... e-in-yame/ , but yes it's certainly frustrating. Sometimes I'm able to find the shop page in google cache or the way back machine but no such luck this time.

Of course the flip side is the frustration felt when browsing a site and clicking on interesting tea after interesting tea only to realize they're sold out, that's presumably the main impetus for deletion. Yes, it certainly should be possible to have some sensible archive system that separated historical records from active listings but it probably requires a fair bit of software customization to make it smooth
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nasalfrog
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Mon Sep 23, 2019 7:43 pm

Balthazar wrote:
Sun Sep 22, 2019 4:55 am
...Also, I wonder what the point of TdJ's registration number system for teas is, if information about a tea is pulled from the site as soon as it sells out. The number for this tea is SNC-80-002-100. If nothing else, it would be really useful for future reference to be able to access the tea's details page...
EDIT: I see this was already suggested, and it's not on there, my apologies.

I was in a similar situation last year needing to know some details about a tea that had been removed from TDJ. I managed to find it on the wayback machine. Your tea may be on there in one of the snapshots.
https://web.archive.org/web/*/thes-du-japon.com
Last edited by nasalfrog on Tue Sep 24, 2019 8:55 am, edited 2 times in total.
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d.manuk
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Tue Sep 24, 2019 8:28 am

I just finished Organic Competition BiLuoChun from San Hsia, northern Taiwan. I received a 25g sample from one of my Tea Masters purchases and have been slowly working on it. Just now I looked on the website and realized that they began carrying other green teas from Taiwan too, that I hadn't seen in previous years. Overall I quite enjoyed this tea. I don't have information about what cultivar of tea plant was used to produce this... but it has some gaoshan notes mixed in with the green tea flavor. Overall, the combination kind of formed a grape flavor that reminds me of a tea I reviewed a while back.... Fujikaori Kamairicha from Kettl. That tea had some similarities, but overall I enjoyed the Biluochun more since there was less bitterness and less florality, the blc was much more subtle overall whereas the Fujikaori I would almost characterize as an oolong.
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debunix
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Fri Sep 27, 2019 11:47 pm

Sounds delicious. I had a fine session with Obubu Wind sencha this morning.

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d.manuk
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Sat Sep 28, 2019 11:05 am

My fourth session with Yame-hoshino premium traditional Hon-Gyokuro. I don't know anything about this tea other than it was on the higher end of kettl's offering and that it's gyokuro. :?

Gyokuro is my next tea I will be exploring, as I feel like I have quite a good handle on gaoshan by now and the season for it is starting to fade (and I had purchased the entire stock of gaoshan I normally enjoy every year from Tea Masters so there isn't much left for me to drink). Although I've drank about 30 kinds of gyokuro in my life by now, I know very little about this tea type as most of my research has focused on gaoshan and puer.

For the first steep with gyokuro, I like to do room temp water for 4 minutes and with this tea it has a VERY powerful flavor. This gyokuro has a lot of umami, but its mostly present in the mid-range, if that makes sense. With this tea, although I do not taste any bitterness, I can tell it is close to appearing. I think its because most of the flavors are in the mid range. I've had a few gyokuro that were in a more lower/deeper flavor profile that I enjoyed more, as it was farther away from that edge. I don't know if a high-range flavor profile gyokuro exists, but if it does I'm not sure I would enjoy it.
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