Japanese Greens - Can’t Get Away

Non-oxidized tea
Noonie
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Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:45 am

My favourite teas are all Japanese green: Sencha (light or medium steamed), Matcha and Gyokuro. Oh, and I often have Genmaicha or Hojicha with of after dinner.

Along the 10+ years I’ve been drinking good tea I’ve tried a lot of other tea (too many to list). Some that I’ve kept drinking include Yancha, High Mountain Oolong (next in line after Japanese Green), Long Jing, TKY, and Dan Cong.

During the week I usually start the day with Sencha or Matcha. Another Sencha at work. And whatever I’m feeling like around dinner.

This holiday season I bought a variety of tea from different vendors, as this is usually when I stock up. In the last while I’ve been drinking less Japanese Green and more Oolongs, Chinese Green, etc. They are all decent teas, but it reinforces for me that my go-to for enjoyment is Japanese Greens. I’m getting to the point where I want to drink them almost exclusively, and to keep it interesting Inwould continue to dry different cultivares, from different vendors, and continue to play with brewing parameters.

Anyone else get this way with a particular tea?
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Jo
Mrs. Chip
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Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania

Sun Feb 03, 2019 9:25 am

Noonie wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:45 am
My favourite teas are all Japanese green: Sencha (light or medium steamed), Matcha and Gyokuro. Oh, and I often have Genmaicha .... Oolongs, Chinese Green, etc. They are all decent teas, but it reinforces for me that my go-to for enjoyment is Japanese Greens. I’m getting to the point where I want to drink them almost exclusively, and to keep it interesting Inwould continue to dry different cultivares, from different vendors, and continue to play with brewing parameters.

Anyone else get this way with a particular tea?
:mrgreen: Well, now that you ask, Chip and I have probably not brewed anything except Japanese greens since 2008. Perhaps a Chinese green thrown in there in 2008, but nothing else.

At Shincha time, Chip has purchased as much as 20 different teas from different vendors, always trying to find something new. But we definitely have our favorite vendor and teas.
Noonie
Posts: 360
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Location: Ontario, Canada

Sun Feb 03, 2019 11:58 am

Jo wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 9:25 am
Noonie wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 5:45 am
My favourite teas are all Japanese green: Sencha (light or medium steamed), Matcha and Gyokuro. Oh, and I often have Genmaicha .... Oolongs, Chinese Green, etc. They are all decent teas, but it reinforces for me that my go-to for enjoyment is Japanese Greens. I’m getting to the point where I want to drink them almost exclusively, and to keep it interesting Inwould continue to dry different cultivares, from different vendors, and continue to play with brewing parameters.

Anyone else get this way with a particular tea?
:mrgreen: Well, now that you ask, Chip and I have probably not brewed anything except Japanese greens since 2008. Perhaps a Chinese green thrown in there in 2008, but nothing else.

At Shincha time, Chip has purchased as much as 20 different teas from different vendors, always trying to find something new. But we definitely have our favorite vendor and teas.
I love it!

I was telling myself to explore more, but I’ve done that and would now rather focus on getting deeper into Japanese greens.

It’s funny, after starting into tea and finding another forum it was Chip who responded to a statement I made about not liking Sencha...and when he explained how it should taste I stuck with it and discovered what I was missing. Since then no looking back!
Janice
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Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:21 pm

This is how much I love Japanese greens - if I had to choose a future with chocolate or Japanese greens, one to the exclusion of the other, I would choose Japanese greens. This is coming from someone who thinks chocolate is the best food ever.

I used to drink a wider variety of teas, but now I must have at least one session with Japanese greens each day, and sometimes yancha. I have difficulty with sencha because I over perceive the bitterness, bit that leaves gyokuro, genmaicha, houjica and the wonderful O-Cha kariganes.
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Jo
Mrs. Chip
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Sun Feb 03, 2019 4:15 pm

Janice wrote:
Sun Feb 03, 2019 2:21 pm
This is how much I love Japanese greens - if I had to choose a future with chocolate or Japanese greens, one to the exclusion of the other, I would choose Japanese greens. This is coming from someone who thinks chocolate is the best food ever.

I used to drink a wider variety of teas, but now I must have at least one session with Japanese greens each day, and sometimes yancha. I have difficulty with sencha because I over perceive the bitterness, bit that leaves gyokuro, genmaicha, houjica and the wonderful O-Cha kariganes.
Oh my, I agree sooo much with the chocolate analogy. Japanese greens for the win :twisted:
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debunix
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Tue Feb 05, 2019 11:43 pm

I love my tea, but given that choice, chocolate all the way.
Teachronicles
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Wed Feb 06, 2019 1:09 am

I'm on team tea over chocolate
swordofmytriumph
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Wed Feb 06, 2019 2:40 am

I'd have tea over any kind of sweets any day.
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debunix
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Wed Feb 06, 2019 11:28 pm

so fortunate that we don't have to choose one or the other, because a fine dark chocolate is so very nice with so many different teas....!
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Baisao
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Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:51 am

I’ve noticed that poeple, after some prodding, admit to gravitating to certain genres of teas for constitutional reasons more than flavor profiles. It’s this way even for someone like me who rotates through genres. Sometimes I want a tea with more yin characteristics, other times I want a tea that’s more yang. I’ve met people who say they are “allergic” to greens but not oolongs, or vice versa, describing how a genre of tea makes them feel badly. I can relate to this with unaged sheng. Even if it doesn’t hurt my tum it makes me feel like I’ve been doing hot rails of crank. It is strongly yang for my body, too yang.

Gyokuro makes me a wee but jittery yet matcha makes me relaxed. I can’t explain it but my body definitely feels it. Sometimes I am in the mood for something peppy like gyokuro or gaoshan, but mostly I gravitate towards more yin teas like sencha, matcha, and mid-oxidized oolongs.

I like the flavors of course but my body feels better with teas that are more yin.

I am sharing this observation to expand our notion of preferences beyond tea categories. But maybe the above comments are simply indicating a preference for the unique flavor profiles of Japanese teas.
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Victoria
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Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:44 pm

What you say makes a lot of sense to me @Baisao. When I was down with the flu the only tea I wanted was gyokuro or sencha, they both felt like healthy nourishing broths to my body. Now, a week or so later, I’ve reintruduced roasted oolong but am having a hard time properly tasting them. At first I thought it was the bottled water, but after trying several different waters I see it is my body and taste buds reacting strangely. I also have no desire for any of my very good black teas at the moment, as if my body is saying not now too dehydrating. Had not considered yin yang in teas except for Pu’erh generally being more masculine and DanCong more feminine.
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Baisao
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Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:38 pm

To be clearer, I don’t understand Chinese medicine but I am describing the characteristics of teas as being yin/yang as these terms seem to describe aspects of teas in more nuance than relaxing/exciting. For example, I feel the vigor or young horses running through my body when I drink gaoshan. That’s very yang and more than just excitation from caffeine. Describing teas in terms of being yin or yang is prosaic yet concise as there’s a lot behind each word.

@Victoria, what you’ve described above is exactly what I have noticed when someone says they prefer xyz tea. It may not be medical but it definitely seems to relate to deeper needs than flavor.
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Bok
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Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:46 pm

In my little exposure to tea and the related Chinese medicine, it seems to me that most greener teas are considered Yin, or cold. I had this once with a friend sensitive to those things, she had to stop drinking a tea at one of our sessions as it was too cold for her (during Winter).

In that way, I would expect roasted teas to be more suitable after or during illness, which would contradict above described longing for Japanese greens. In any case the human body probably has a lot more individual differences than medicine would prefer...
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Baisao
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Sat Feb 16, 2019 8:11 pm

Bok wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:46 pm
In any case the human body probably has a lot more individual differences than medicine would prefer...
I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it is silly to classify all greens as yin though no doubt some medical practitioners would do so and find it to work well within their framework. To me it is almost on a tea by tea basis. I find some roasted oolongs to have a yin feeling to them despite having so much “fire” in them from being roasted. ;-)
Last edited by Baisao on Fri May 24, 2019 3:47 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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d.manuk
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Sat Feb 16, 2019 8:25 pm

Definitely do a deep focus into the teas you like the most. There’s so much variety and nuance even within specific tea types.
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