yabukita

Oxidized tea
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cerbu
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Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:50 am

my favorite black is wakoucha, yabukita cultivar. I cannot order from Japan due to the virus. What other tea do you find similar ?
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Victoria
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Sun Aug 16, 2020 4:39 pm

cerbu wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:50 am
my favorite black is wakoucha, yabukita cultivar. I cannot order from Japan due to the virus. What other tea do you find similar ?
I’ve only tried one Japanese black (Wakocha 和紅茶) it is from a 100 year old tree that was a gift from a friend in Tokoname. I posted about it here. How was your flavor profile? Not sure what cultivar mine is from, but it is highly aromatic with notes of aged fruits, and flavors of plum and spices. Very good. I’ll have a session with it in the coming days and try and think of something similar.
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debunix
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Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:29 pm

The only Japanese black teas I've had were ordered direct from Japan--one from Yuuki-Cha, and one from Obubu. I did not ever figure out a sweet spot for the Yuuki-Cha versions, but the Obubu tea reminded me a lot of some very fine floral and fruity blacks from China (Yunnan gold, Jin Jun Mei); Taiwan Ruby black or Sun-Moon-Lake black. They all share a lack of overt bitterness as well as the fruity notes that are so appealing.
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Bok
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Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:59 pm

debunix wrote:
Sun Aug 16, 2020 10:29 pm
Taiwan Ruby black or Sun-Moon-Lake black. They all share a lack of overt bitterness as well as the fruity notes that are so appealing.
From my limited experience with Japanese hongcha, those would have been my starting point as well. Japanese hongcha has a very clean taste, as opposed to the more rougher Assam-kinds of other regions. Taiwanese Assam can match the cleanliness and in most cases beat it by a length in terms of complexity and sweetness.

That said, a lot of Taiwan hongcha of the Hongyu/Ruby/etc/ kind is heavily sprayed with pest control spray, grown in lower elevation and often harvested in summer, bugs are a concern for farmers. The organic versions of these are not so easy to find.

A safer bet would be high mountain, or honey oolong as they call it here. I usually prefer those over the Assam-hybrid varietals. But it is a different flavour profile and might not be what you are looking for...
cerbu
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Mon Aug 17, 2020 9:32 am

thx, this concentrated aroma I find something like dry fruits , I used 3 g, 90dgC, 1 minute ,about 150-200 cc
cerbu
Posts: 30
Joined: Wed May 27, 2020 12:45 am
Location: Romania

Wed Mar 10, 2021 10:18 pm

I finally have some japanese black, it is considered lower grade-nibancha but i like it more. It has a different taste profile with strong honey notes, reminiscent of a dian hong I had
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