Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Chiran Yutakamidori

Tea: Chiran Yutakamidori 7401
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: 7.00 / 50g
Location: Kagoshima, Japan
Vendor Description:Tea which has a slightly sweet smell like a sweet potato with slight astringency. Its light green water color and mellow taste are the characteristic features of this tea.

When I first looked at this package and the description I thought I had picked up two packages of Ariake Yutakamidori. The description from Lupicia is almost identical for the two. The two teas are very different from one another though. The leaves for this one were rather small, containing a lot of smaller particles. This caused a more cloudy liquor and probably different taste.

The liquor had a very strong and full bodied vegetal taste. It had a rather solid sense of bitterness to it in the way a sencha should have it, short lived and strong. It left off with a high sense of astringency and a very clean vegetal aftertaste. The taste of this tea almost resembled Japanese rice crackers.

Rating: 9/10

Conclusion: This is a very solid tea, it is bold and has a good flavor to it. It's not too expensive, but at the same time lacks something truly distinctive.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This tea was recommended by the Lupicia salesgirl.

Seeing all the posts about Chiran Yutakamidori on the tea forums, I expected to be overwhelmed and easily won over ... but I wasn't.

Maybe I just don't have an appreciation for good green tea. Or maybe I don't really prepare this tea as well as I should (inspite of my tea thermometer).

Peace.