Gyokuro Seiran No Homare

Tea: Gyokuro Seiran No Homare 8001
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $15.00/50g
Source: Japan
Vendor Description: Created by blending aromatic Yabukita brand tea from Shizuoka with "Komakage", a special Uji tea variety. This graceful tea has a deep rich flavor and distinctive freshness.

This is a blend gyokuro, and it is very interesting because the two major teas creating the blend are from Shizuoka and Uji. If the two shinchas that I tried earlier are any indication of this, this was leading up to be a very interesting tea.

My initial thought while making this tea was that it had a very grassy scent to it. It wasn't as grassy as the Yame Gyokuro though.

The tea had a very strong bitterness at the start which was followed by a grassy taste. The grassy taste matched the scent. It was also followed up with a lack of astringency.

After I had brewed this tea though, that I had brewed it at too high of a temperature. If I had more of it to try I would try brewing at an even lower temperature, although I only had a small sample and was not able to make another batch.

Rating: 5/10

Conclusion: While I had some interesting hopes for this tea, it proved to be unimpressive. This is though quite likely that I botched this tea, so if I get a chance to try this again I will probably review this tea again.

Takachiho Takachiho

Tea: Takachiho Takachiho 7408
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $4.00 / 50g
Source: Japan
Vendor Description: Tea made by Granny Hatsuko who obstinately continues to produce old-style Kamairicha. Enjoy the special aroma of "Kamako" (aroma of a roasting pot).

This tea seemed very interesting to me for a number of reasons. Most amusingly the description provided by Lupicia. It makes it sound very interesting, but at a price of $4.00/50g, it seems like this might not be the best of teas. ($4.00 / 50g is about as cheap as tea gets from Lupicia).

The tea leaves were rather curled which is rather unusual for a Japanese tea, most of them have such nice thin looking needles like senchas.

When brewing the tea though, it did deliver on the special aroma. It has a very deep strong scent to it, like a very strong sencha.

The tea has a very sweet and almost fruity taste to it. It had a light crisp flavor, but without the bitterness involved. The taste was very short lived though and left me with a surprisingly high level of astringency.

Rating: 7/10

Conclusion: While this is not an exceptional tea, it is very interesting and tasty. It is also on the cheaper side which is always a plus. I wouldn't drink this tea on a daily basis, but it is a nice change up every so often.

Gokase Kamairicha

Tea: Gokase Kamairicha 7403
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $7.00 / 50g
Source: Gokase, Miyazaki, Japan
Vendor Description: Despite the rarity of Kamairicha these days, this Kamairicha with its clean aroma was proudly created by Mr. Korogi at his own tea garden in Gokase, Miyazaki Pref. He was awarded a Ministry prize.

This tea had a very bright yellow green color. This is a bit difficult to see in the picture, but the liquor had an almost luminescent color to it.

The tea has a very heavy roasted flavor, reminiscent of a bancha, but not quite as strong. There is a mild bitterness to this tea, but the bitterness is not a sharp flavor, which again is reminiscent of a bancha. There is no bite peak to it, and the bitterness is primarily covered up by the astringency. There is a medium level of astringency at the end of the taste.

Rating: 5/10

Conclusion: This tea seems to be like a combination of a bancha and a sencha. I'm not terribly impressed by this, it seems rather middle of the road.

Ei Ayatsuyu

Tea: Ei Asatsuyu 7402
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $11.00 / 50g (with tin)
Source: Ei, Kagoshima, Japan
Vendor Description: Tea produced in Ei, Kagoshima Pref. has a unique sweet flavor and bright water color. Also referred to as "Natural Gyokuro", it has very little astringency, which makes it easy to drink.

When I first opened up this tea, it looked to be another very small particle tea. And it was. The liquor generated by the tea was very murky in color which was at least partly due to the high particulate content of the tea. Interestingly the description suggests a bright water color, but I only noticed it being very dark in color in comparison to most other green teas I've had as of late.
Actually tasting this tea though was very close to the suggested description. Like gyokuro it does have almost no bite, and it did have a light sense of astringency. The flavor was very short lived though, with the taste occurring very quickly and ending just as fast. There is a sense of bitterness though that is not found in gyokuro, that develops slowly over time and tapers off with the taste.

Rating: 5/10

Conclusion: This tea is unique in that it doesn't classify well as a sencha, and is not very similar to a gyokuro as well. It lies somewhere in the middle of two in terms of taste and qualities. The flavor though lacks any truly outstanding qualities.

Sencha Extra Fine

Tea: Sencha Extra Fine
Vendor: Dragonwater Tea Company
Price: $20.25 / 4 oz.
Vendor Description: Extra fine grade Japanese green tea yielding a smooth, aromatic cup.

This is the higher end version of the two specifically sencha varieties that Dragonwater offers.

When brewing this tea the aroma had hints of grassy tones, but these were overpowered by something more unusual in the scent. There is something rather pungent about the smell that I could not put my finger on.

The flavor of this tea was very sweet for a sencha. It had a bit of an odd flavor, it felt heavier than most senchas that I have had. It had a very high sense of bitterness, that was not a rapid peak of bitterness, but rather a slower growing plateau. It finishes off with a light sense of astringency.

Rating: 7/10

Conclusion: While this is not a bad sencha, for the highest grade they offered I somewhat expected a more refined taste. It is very different than a typical sencha making it very unique.

Kokeicha

Tea: Kokeicha
Vendor: Dragonwater Tea Company
Price: $7.50 / 4 oz.
Source: Japan
Vendor Description: A Japanese green tea based from Matcha powder.

I had seen this form of tea show up on a few different vendor sites, and it had peaked my curiosity. I decided to get some, although at the prices I didn't have very high expectations. This is a relatively inexpensive tea and considering the description says it is "based" on Matcha powder it doesn't look much like actual Matcha.

The "leaves" themselves were much darker in color than I expected. I refer to them as "leaves" because they are far from that. They are hard little noodle like bits because the paste these were created from was squeezed out like a pasta maker. Once you've used them you can smear them with your finger into a paste.

The tea itself was very mild in flavor. It hinted at sweetness, but also had no bitterness and no astringency. The flavor hinted at the taste of matcha, but didn't follow through. This is a very unusual tea.

Rating: 8/10

Conlcusion: While this tea is very hard to describe, at it's price it is worth picking some up. It is a very mild and delicate flavor, but if you're expecting something very similar to matcha go get some real matcha.

Gyokuro Asahina

Tea: Gyokuro Asahina
Vendor: Dragonwater Tea Company
Price: $38.50 / 4 oz.
Source: Uji, Japan
Vendor Description: Gyokuro, "Jewel Dew", is one of the most sought after green teas in Japan. Produced at the historic Uji tea gardens near Kyoto, the bushes for this tea are shaded by straw mats before harvesting to slow their growth and enhance the tea.

At the price of almost 40.00/ quarter pound I was expecting quite a bit from this gyokuro. I found the price right similar to the Yame Gyokuro from Lupicia. Considering how much I enjoy that tea, I had high hopes for this one. This was also the first tea that I tried from Dragonwater, so a lot was riding on this one.

The first thing that I noticed while preparing this tea was the rather large needles the tea consisted of. I was rather surprised to see this in a gyokuro. Most gyokuros that I see have smaller needles, where large needles are most common with high end senchas from my experience. While brewing this tea had a very delicate, yet sweet aroma to it. It is an aroma worth sitting there and pondering.

The actual flavor was very distinct. It had a sensation which I want to describe as bitterness, but unlike most sencha bitterness it wasn't sharp uplifting bitterness, but felt like a deep downward bitterness. In general the flavor was flat and not particularly sweet.

Rating: 6/10

Conclusion: The taste of this gyokuro was very unusual and unique, but not what i'm normally looking for in a gyokuro. There was no grassiness to it, and at the price I expected a more by the book flavor of gyokuro.

Makurazaki Saemidori

Tea: Makurazaki Saemidori 7400
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $11.00 /50g
Source: Kagoshima, Japan

Saemidori is a breed particular breed of tea, which is referred to by some as having a "Natural Gyokuro" taste to it. It is apparently a difficult breed to grow and requires high maintenance.

Like the fuka-midori this tea had a lot of smaller particles which caused the brewed tea to have a very cloudy appearance. The color of the brewed tea, albeit cloudy, had a very radiant shade of bright green to it. The cloudiness lent it a much brighter color than many other green teas due to more reflective content.

This was a very subtle tea all around. The scent of the tea is very light and grassy smelling, but pleasant quite pleasant. Everything about this tea seemed to be very delicate.

The flavor starts off very light with a medium grassy flavor. It then builds up a small amuont of astringency. It has almost no bitterness to it, so it is more akin to drinking gyokuro than it is a sencha. If I didn't know that this was a sencha I would have guessed it was a gyokuro based on the subtleness of the taste and lack of bitterness.

Rating: 8/10

Conclusion: This was a very pleasant tea experience, but the flavor of the tea is almost too delicate to be easily and casually enjoyed. Considering the price of this tea if you are looking to try out something akin to a Gyokuro, but don't want to spend the full amount on a quality Gyokuro this might be a good middle ground for you.

Cookie

Tea: Cookie 5537
Vendor: Lupicia USA
Price: $ 6.00/ 50g

The cookie tea from Lupicia is a tea that I have heard about from a few different people. I had never heard of anyone actually trying it though so I figured I had to try it out for myself. When in a Lupicia store this is probably one of the most noticeable teas as it smells very strongly of cookies. In particular it smells like a large batch of danish butter cookies.

The aroma of this tea is very much what made me interested in this tea. It is much stronger of a scent than most teas. When one smells this tea you don't notice much of a tea scent at all, simply the cookie smell. When looking at the leaf for this, most of the leaf for this tea consists of small brown pellets mixed with black tea leaf. I assume that these pellets are the source of the scent for this tea.

Actually drinking this tea was a bit of a disappointment, while the brewed scent of cookies still remained fairly strong, there was no flavor of cookies to be had. There was almost no flavor to be found, with no astringency and no bitterness. It was in a word, empty. I wonder if this tea was intended for children and the like to be the perfect tea for a tea party. While this tea fills the room with a smell of cookies, it has a beautiful dark red color. I did not try mixing this tea with cream or sugar, but I imagine that with the very mild taste they would blend in well.

Rating: 3/10

Conclusion: This is a very interestingly scented tea, although the liquor of the tea leaves much to be desired.

Sencha

Tea: Sencha
Vendor: Teavana
Price: $4.80 / 2 oz.
Source: Japan
Vendor Description: A high quality, everyday tea from Japan. Flat, dark green leaves with a sweet aroma and taste. Low in caffeine. High content of vitamin C.

Recently I had the opportunity to visit a Teavana store. This was my first time visiting a Teavana and to be honest I was not that impressed. The selection of teas was not that large, with only a handful of each class of tea present. Tea yet to be purchased is stored in very large high containers, so anytime they open them to present the aroma to a customer or to remove some tea for purchase a large amount of tea is exposed to new air for oxidation. The tea purchased is packaged into paper bags very similar to the kind you use when you buy loose coffee at the grocery store. A stark contrast to the resealable bags of some vendors or the small mylar bags of Lupicia. The one impressive aspect of the Teavana store though was their selection of cups and teapots. They have a very good selection of different teacups.

The tea itself has a slighly grassy scent to it which is paired with a equal flavor at the beginning of the taste of the tea. This is followed by a long lasting bitterness, which due to the duration, just doesn't quite seem apt for the term of a bite. This is finally finished off with a mild astringent flavor.

Rating: 1/10

Conclusion: This tea is expectedly unremarkable. It is a somewhat poor representation of a sencha, and I have actually had better tea from a grocery store. The price is rather expensive for what it is. I don't recommend this tea for anyone looking to enjoy a sencha.