Ito En

I was super thirsty after PT today and didn’t want to wait until I got home, so I picked up this bottle on the way. I love rose and don’t love my bottled teas sweetened – making this an easy choice. On the up side, the rose is definitely noticeable. I personally don’t find it unpleasant or overpowering because it’s a flavor I enjoy. Someone who isn’t a big fan of rose or florals probably wouldn’t like this though. Alas not a huge fan of the base tea. It’s very present but somehow not very distinctive. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was intentional. Like they were going for an impression of “this is definitely tea but not anything notable” because that would appeal to the broadest range of palates. I don’t think I would seek this out again just because there are bottled options I like better.

Couldn’t find this one on the Ito En website so I can’t help but wonder if it’s only for Japanese commercial use or something to that effect. The powder is more like sugar crystals. The appereance is not desirable for a green tea. Especially after seeing the beautiful color of the matcha that Alba performed during the Omotesenke ceremony yesterday. There is a bit of astringency but not as harsh as expected. Same with the bitterness; it doesn’t start bitter but comes on slowly. The taste is decent. A mix of hay, slight overcooked veggies, and burnt end veggies. There is a bit of grass notes as well. Overall something to drink if nothing else is available but luckily they provided us with a kyusu and tea. Yatta! I’m going to bring it down to breakfast with me.

A thoughtful birthday treat from a friend, and a welcome one—it’s unseasonably warm today and a little stuffy in the house, so chilled tea is the order of the day. (Way too early in the year to kick on the AC. We’ll rough it.)

Normally I avoid bottled teas because of the nasty citric acid that hits you first. This one uses ascorbic acid instead, which doesn’t curl my tongue quite so much. Along with preserving the drink, it bombs you with some nice healthy Vitamin C. A healthy shot of anything is appropriate when one … is no longer 21. As to the flavor, it’s a solid workhorse green base that reminded me a little of barley tea—somewhat toasty instead of vegetal.

Gotta text the friend and find out where she got it locally…this is worth a repeat.

Sipdown

Super useful for a quick, cold tea for lunch. Cloudy in appearance due to the matcha powder but fresh tasting.

We tried this again today, this time steeped in hot water. It calls for thirty seconds and I went just a tiny bit over that intentionally. I sweetened it and put it in the fridge to chill and it has a lot more flavor made this way than by the 2-3 minute cold steep they recommend. I definitely prefer this method for iced, but still haven’t tried it as a hot tea.

March Sipdown Prompt – an unflavored green

I made a pitcher of this to go with lunch – cold steeped, sweetened, and poured over ice.

I made it by their cold steep instructions with misgivings. Only two to three minutes in cold water? I left it for a little over three minutes, using four teabags for about a quart of water total once I added the simple syrup to sweeten it.

I really want to make a fresh batch tomorrow because this came out unbelievably light. I want to steep it in hot water and then chill it and see if more green tea flavor appears. How ironic that the prompt was for an unflavored green.

Cold brewed 12 – 24 hours in the fridge – 1 bag/liter…repeat daily during hot weather.

Gentle grain/nut/roast flavors with very little sweetness. Medium-light bodied – bready and refreshing – one of the best non-alcoholic beer alternatives to my tastes.

A belated happy new year Steepsterites! Hope 2022 will be a great year for everyone. Still on semi-hiatus due to studies – can’t wait till March when I’m finished with it all – but do plan to post here and there.

I picked this up on a whim a couple of weeks ago when I was in Florida for a wedding. It was in the checkout aisle at Ross of all places. I had bought loose tea with me as I always do during my travels but not sencha. Although I seldom bother with teabags, Ito-En is a reputable Japanese tea brand and I drink their bottled tea all the time. The date of production stamped on the package showed it was only 6 months old, which is about as fresh as it gets with bagged tea.

Color of the tea is intense green and infuses rather quickly, which indicates a fukamushi. The flavor is also characteristic of a deep steamed sencha. At higher water temperature, it’s matcha like with raw wheatgrass and chlorophyll. Smooth and full bodied. Lower temperatures bring out spinachy, grassy notes with a mellow sweet taste. Doesn’t have all of the nuances of loose tea but still delivers with a rich flavor and freshness.

I’ve continued drinking this upon returning home. Despite having plenty of sencha in my cupboard, the convenience of teabags can’t be beat. Especially during busy times when I just need a quick cup and don’t have time to fuss with gaiwans and pitchers. Is this the best sencha ever? No, but it’s more than serviceable and head and shoulders above standard bagged tea. The only downside is it can’t be resteeped so this is a one and done kind of tea.

Got a bag of this and well, it’s not often I make 1 liter of tea so not sure why I bought it lol. I almost always gongfu cha it. Been drinking it cold brew and it’s pretty good. I think it’s overrated on Amazon but it is still decent barley tea. Good roasted flavor, roasted barley notes, that is. I think I prefer my barley even more roasted for a fuller flavor but it’s still a very convenient way to make it since they come in bags for 1 liter.

From the matcha powder residue left behind in the pouch, I thought this might be a brightly colored tea. Well, that and the picture on the box. Instead, it’s a dark brew with no discernible flavor of matcha. Or green tea, for that matter. It tastes instead like a peppermint herbal, and a dull one at that. Maybe it’s because I’ve just had better peppermint teas recently, or maybe this isn’t one of the better quality tea bags out there. Either way, it’s really just a mediocre and lackluster cup. This was shared with me by a coworker who primarily drinks peppermint green teas. I only had the one bag of this so fortunately I don’t have to worry about drinking more of it.

So I’ve been drinking a lot of this lately.

Turns out I love Matcha Lattes. Either that or I’ve been drinking so many that I’ve grown to love them. Either way, the single-serve packets weren’t enough anymore so I graduated to a canister.

Now, I’m going to admit, I have next to ZERO experience with Matcha. I’m very new at this stuff. So I’m going to relate how I make a Matcha Latte… and It is, in fact, all wrong.

1. Fill an empty water bottle with cold milk
2. Measure out 1 tsp of Matcha
3. Add Matcha to Bottle
4. Add 2 Splenda Packets.
5. Shake the bejeezus out of it.

It works well enough.

Anyway, with that preparation in mind, this stuff is pretty much the same as the single-serve packets. I honestly see no difference. I’ve also prepared this in water and it’s pretty strong when made in water. Huge green flavor. But without the milk to temper it, it’s pretty offputting (to me). So I almost always make it with milk.

Now, with milk. I have tried about every type of milk imaginable with this. Every time I have to almost throw my shoulder out shaking it before it dissolves. I don’t have this problem with Water (boom, instant swamp), but with milk, I swear for the first minute of shaking it looks like bubble tea the clumps of matcha are so prevalent. Taste as a latte though is really good. Great froth. Love the froth. Foamy goodness.

I haven’t tried this hot yet, so I can’t give my opinion on that yet. But I will say that between this and the matcha latte’s at Starbucks, this one is more smooth and mild.

Take it as it is. Like I said, I’m new to this realm of tea.

Has a stronger green tea flavor than a lot of similar beverages on the market. It isn’t sweet at all which may put some people off. Honestly I’d rather brew some loose leaf than buy a bottle of this, but if that wasn’t an option then this isn’t a bad second choice.

(Copied and pasted because I realized I was in the wrong place)

Well, this is my second try with this, and while the consistency is better, I can’t say much for the flavor.

The first time I mixed this up, I tried to make a latte. I heated some milk and mixed in one packet. Unfortunately, it clumped and balled like mad and I ended up with a metric ton of green goo at the bottom of my mug, while the “latte” just tasted like milk.

So, today, I got a bottle of ice-cold water and tried to do it just like it said – one packet to one bottle. Then I shook the crap out of it. Well, it blended much better, but the taste isn’t the best. It is pretty bitter and blech, and while I have come to appreciate a strong grassy flavor, I found myself needing to add something to this to make it drinkable. I will say that one Splenda in the bottle made a world of difference as it tempered the bitterness but left the grass flavor. But at this point, I don’t know how much of the blech is my not being a pure matcha fan, how much is I don’t like cold matcha (my previous experiences were with hot matcha lattes) or how much is this brand is just bad. It’s frustrating because I really wanted to like this.

Oh well. More research is needed.

Another ugly ass matcha green tea from today. This one’s pretty dang brown in my cup. It’s thick and very grassy and mineral with the jasmine scenting reminding me of cheap jasmine green teabags. Weird thing: some sencha can be buttery. This one is. The butter flavor and thickness do not mix well with jasmine scenting.

I feel very calm after drinking this one, just like I would drinking any other Japanese green with high theanine and catechin content. That’s a major plus.

Good, classic hojicha. Looks as it should, smells as it should, tastes as it should.

Standard Karigane, it does the job if you are looking for exactly that:
good twig quality, nice sweetness.

Dry Aroma: Bright, green apples, green but not grassy, sweet and sour

Wet Leaves

I picked up a bottle of this at Mitsuwa today instead of my usual Ito-En Golden Oolong and Green Tea. I’m surprised at how much I liked it because I usually don’t care for hojicha and roasted teas in general. This is a roasty tea for sure, but not aggressively so. It’s really smooth and gentle with a nutty flavor and a soft, faint oily finish. It’s very warming (even chilled) and comforting like genmaicha. The taste is similar to a roasted oolong and reminded me of Golden Oolong except this one is darker and doesn’t have the floral-cinnamon notes.

For a bottled tea, this was outstanding and probably the best hojicha I’ve ever had. Its miles above your standard grocery store bottled tea, although that’s generally true for most Ito-en teas. This would be a great summer drink and makes me want to branch out from my standard green teas to explore hojicha.

Okay, actually I have this in tea bag form. So prepared hot. I have no idea where I get it, but; looks fresh.

Opened the foil wrapping with my carpet cutter (well, collection, you know :D) and lots of dust went out. A matcha? Anyway, I wanted a green tea today and it is a green tea.
Heated the kettle, the cup, in the cup it goes… Forgot completely make notes about dry leaf! Here is it!
Dry aroma was very strong, I noticed lots of fresh peas, while my brother thought it is rather freshly mowed grass. Both of us are right I guess, then some vergetal notes, and at laste (but not least) buttery and umami.

Added water, about 76°C if my thermometer don´t lie. On bag is just “pour boiled water”. Hehe, 30 seconds steep? Nope here, as I probably used much bigger cup than they mean I used 90 seconds. And tea looks done. A cloudy, lime green liquor. Quite light.

Flavours, taste, whatever you call it. Vegetal, buttery, maybe bit nutty. But tasty green tea. It is 6 pm, and I am drinking probably quite strong green tea? Great, I won´t sleep I guess. So what?

If you get lucky to get it hot, I can recommend it fully! There are better green teas, not so buttery, but up to each one taste.

Uh I mean it’s a good strong matcha drink shot in a can.

For an Ito-En, generic but solid company, they can’t mess up. nothing remarkable but it’s a solid matcha with no odd or artificial aftertastes. For those unaccustomed to making matcha you definitely can use this in drink mixes, probably easier. I also enjoy it with sparkling water if I had the time/resources in my cabinet.

But the main reason I feel most people get this is the same reason they get canned coffee. Easy to drink, easy to transport and you need that caffeine. I got these at work all the time back when I worked near a Japanese supermarket. Also a steady flow of energy with no crash, unlike coffee.