What Green Are You Drinking

[Jo]

Enjoying YM from O-Cha with Chip on his birthday.

Flavor profile is not nearly as rich and deep as it was a few months ago. This is a newly opened packet that has been cold stored since last year.

Can't wait for shincha

[luchayi]

Waiting the new harvests I have tried a green tea from Guizhou... early spring taste!

[swordofmytriumph]

Had a little bit left of the Satsuma Sae Midori and the Oku Yutaka sencha, so I mixed them together and steeped sorta western style (by this I mean I used gongfu proportions and put it in a strainer, fill a tall glass with water then put strainer and tea in and get 2-3 infusions this way). Really tasty. Best qualities of both teas in one cup.

I’m not a sencha expert, but I have noticed that steeping my tea this way makes my tea MUCH less bitter. Before doing this I used a gaiwan (since I don’t have a pot suitable for sencha), and it was much more bitter. Anyone know why this is?

[Victoria]

Had a little bit left of the Satsuma Sae Midori and the Oku Yutaka sencha, so I mixed them together and steeped sorta western style (by this I mean I used gongfu proportions and put it in a strainer, fill a tall glass with water then put strainer and tea in and get 2-3 infusions this way). Really tasty. Best qualities of both teas in one cup.

I’m not a sencha expert, but I have noticed that steeping my tea this way makes my tea MUCH less bitter. Before doing this I used a gaiwan (since I don’t have a pot suitable for sencha), and it was much more bitter. Anyone know why this is?

Sounds like you are making a modified tea bag using a tea ball (what you call a strainer). GongFu proportions, but using a tall glass? Anyway, you should be getting pretty okay results. Using a gaiwan per se shouldn’t make tea bitter, it’s either water that’s too hot, or too much time steeping. I have an extra red clay kyusu that I got when I first started with Japanese tea, it’s nothing fancy (was part of a promotional from Den’s tea) and has a metal screen inside so can be used with fukamushi, gyokuro or any sencha. Want me to send to you? You can PM me.

[swordofmytriumph]

I’m using this. The glass is 400ml, so that should tell you how big the strainer is. Lots of room to expand. Same exact temps for both glass and gaiwan.

What’s odd is that it’s only the bigger gaiwan, not the smaller ones. I’d put it down to an off day except that I got consistent results with each size on different days, multiple times each. All consistently bitter or not, respectively. The only thing I can think of is that for the glass, I’m simply dropping the basket into the water that has already been poured, whereas the gaiwans I’m pouring the water onto the tea, agitating the leaves (I read on ippodo’s website that agitating sencha could cause some bitterness) which would explain why the big gaiwan has a problem but the smaller ones don’t? I dunno. Maybe both times I used the big gaiwan were off days. That’s always possible I guess.

[Janice]

Maybe the pour time with the large Gaiwan is too long. That could extend the brewing time enough to create bitterness.

[swordofmytriumph]

So I've played around with it some. It seems that with the large gaiwan I need to reduce the temp by 5-7 degrees, even though it's half the volume of the glass, and the porcelain is much thinner than the glass. Go figure.

[pizzapotamus]

Ideas: If you're not preheating the thicker glass has more mass to suck away heat? Taller and narrow shape on the glass provides more surface area for heat transfer? Obviously you'd need it for the poor but were you putting the lid on the gaiwan or leaving it off during the brew?

[swordofmytriumph]

Yeah, not sure. Well, either way, now that I’ve figured out I simply need to reduce the temp for the gaiwan I’m enjoying sencha a lot more now. It’s amazing how much difference five degrees makes!

[Victoria]

Gotta love how bad results lead to increased knowledge.

Large volume of hot water takes longer to cool than smaller volume.

[luchayi]

Hubei green tea from Hefang before to start the day... I will write more about this tea but for now I just enjoyed it.

[swordofmytriumph]

Drinking Chiran sencha from O Cha, I just got it in the mail, perfect timing because the last of my other sencha has been going fast! Anyway, the Chiran is fabulous. Steeped it in the kyusu Victoria was kind enough to send me. And just...wow. This is one of my faves now, I love it. Grassy, hint of nori, little bit of honey, and something almost...baked? The quality that fresh crusty French bread crusts have, just a bit of that.

[Teachronicles]

Had some long jing from the lazy cat yesterday. 3g in a 6oz mug grandpa style. It was delicious. From the package "First pick. Processed 23/03/2019. Wengjiashan, Xihu. Pre-Qingming."

Edit: added some pictures of the leaves, not from the same session, from this morning doing some comparison to year old longjing.

[Victoria]

Drinking Chiran sencha from O Cha, I just got it in the mail, perfect timing because the last of my other sencha has been going fast! Anyway, the Chiran is fabulous. Steeped it in the kyusu Victoria was kind enough to send me. And just...wow. This is one of my faves now, I love it. Grassy, hint of nori, little bit of honey, and something almost...baked? The quality that fresh crusty French bread crusts have, just a bit of that.

Your tasting notes sound so good I may order some for myself. Glad the kyusu is working well for you too. I cold brew Chiran in the summer, here is a repost from the other forum;

I decided to use my Hojo sake pitcher from Artistic Nippon for a cold brew of O-Cha’s Chiran, since I don’t use it for sake. The results were a perfectly refreshing rich cold brew. This Yakishime, a high-fired unglazed stoneware, is perfect for cold brews. It retains the coolness from the ice well and the stoneware is porous so sweats little beads of cool water after a while. Yakishime was used for this sake set because it also retains heat very well, so when steeping warm senchas I use this pitcher to cool off my water fast.

Brewing Iced Shincha
8-12gr of Shincha into my Tokoname Sake pitcher by Hokujo/ Fill with Ice Cubes/ Let Cubes Melt over several hours. Enjoy

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[Victoria]

Had some long jing from the lazy cat yesterday. 3g in a 6oz mug grandpa style. It was delicious. From the package "First pick. Processed 23/03/2019. Wengjiashan, Xihu. Pre-Qingming."

Edit: added some pictures of the leaves, not from the same session, from this morning doing some comparison to year old longjing.

Wow, that is fresh. How are tasting notes compared to year old? The best I’ve had so far is from TeaHabitat, ‘Crystal White Long Jing’ very fresh and green with sweet pea, warming umami notes.

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