This was a sample from a swap with Christina. The leaves were so small and a dark dark green. I brewed at 185F/85C for 1 min. First taste it was nutty, sweet and smooth, not as much seaweed taste as other senchas but as I got further down on the cup it started changing. A slight bitter edge slowly became more prominent especially with the last part of the cup and the seaweed taste became stronger (really strong). Perhaps I brewed this a little too high. Instructions were for 75C. It started out such a fantastic sencha but the bitterness at the end was too much. I am going to try a second infusion at 75C and see if there’s a difference.
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2nd infusion. Yes, more of that nutty, sweet sencha again. On the first part of the cup alone I would give this a score of 90. It’s a fantastic sencha but again it has a bitter edge at the bottom of the cup even brewed at 75C. I still had so much bitterness on my tongue from the last cup it was hard to taste the sweetness on the first part of this cup. I think because this sencha is so fine (the finest grade I’ve seen so far), it’s super sensitive to temperature. Or maybe it was at the end of a bag and had more tea dust on it? I don’t know but it was a strange Dr Jeckyll/Mr Hyde tea.
Thanks Christina for giving me the chance to try this great tea.
Sometimes 30 seconds is enough of a steeping time for sencha!
That’s good to know. Thanks. Instructions were anywhere from 30 sec to 2 min. I went for 1 min. If I ever get this tea again I’ll try it at the shorter steeps.