Sencha

Tea: Sencha
Vendor: Sugimoto USA
Price: $16.00 / 80 g.
Source: Shizuoka, Japan
Vendor Description: Sen cha "Experience" mainly consists of young baby leaves reaped in spring. During winter,tea plants absorb abundant nutrition from rich mountain soil, so spring shoots have deep body and flavor in a cup. Experience the strong sweetness and rich flavor.

Leaf: The leaf has a very matte color to it, and consists of primarily small pieces. I found this rather surprising considering most teas I find that I enjoy have larger pieces and a shinier glossy appearance to it. The leaf consists of a very apparently blend of different shades of green though. It was apparent that lots of work and effort had gone into making this blend.

1st Infusion: The first infusion had a slightly murky color to a yellow green color to it. The flavor was amazingly strong and sweet. It was like a very impressive yutaka midori. There was a very light bitterness to the flavor which was a nice counterpoint to the sweetness, but not overpowering. Similarly there was a very light astringency to the tea as well, a nice counterpoint to the sweetness as well. This tea has a very good clean feeling to it.

2nd Infusion: This infusion had an even darker color to it, it as almost a murky dark brown-green color. This time it had a medium sense of bitterness, but yet retained the strong sweetness of the first infusion.

Rating: 10/10

Conslusion: I was rather curious about the teas from Sugimoto after I had heard that their genmaicha had won the best flavored/blended tea category at the World Tea Expo this year. I had never heard of them previously and so I looked them up. Much to my surprise they have an offering of only 3 teas. This Sencha was the first that I tried, and it is absolutely superb. I have also tried this tea as a cold brewed iced tea, and the sweetness was amazing in that as well. I really enjoyed this one.