Yunomi

Tried as part of Dark Matter 2016. I will further preface this review by saying that I hate pickles.

This tea, as expected, smelled like pickles. This, I thought, was not a good thing. I was correct. Along with the vinegary pickle note, there was also something else there in the aroma that in my notes I struggled to describe – attempts included “rubber” and “yeasty?” The smell of the wet leaves was a bit different – more of wet autumn leaves covering a pile of pickles. The taste was sharp, but not bitter – quite sour. It did also have woody notes and some of that strange mystery flavor. I noticed a sweet finish as well. I will admit this is the first tea I gave up on very quickly – I got through three steeps, which all tasted rather similar. Made my stomach feel kind of upset and was not very good in my opinion.

I used 3.5 in a 100mL gaiwan with 190 degree water. With most other teas, I would give them a try with different parameters, but I don’t think i have it in me for this one. For the record, I made sure to drink it with my pickle-loving fiance (she’ll sometimes drink pickle juice straight from the jar – yuck), who also did not enjoy it.

Glad I got the opportunity to try something like this with just a 5g sample. Whatever else it is, it’s certainly interesting.

A delicious oolong, smooth and warm

It’s my time to try the infamous pickle tea. The vinegar smell was obvious upon opening the bag. I was worried it would be overpowering in the cup, but with a steep on the shorter side I found it to be somewhat enjoyable. I don’t think I’d buy more of this tea, but I’ve enjoyed the few cups I had, possibly more due to it’s uniqueness than a particularly pleasant taste.

Have to disagree with LiquidProust on this one, I and three co-workers smelled it and we all thought it smelled (lightly) of dill pickles—which is definitely strange and different but not an awful smell.

We brewed three cups western style, 1 minute, 2 minute, 3 minutes (starting with 3g and adding 1g to each redrew for a total of 5g).

Brewed, it tastes like it smelled, hot tea with a bit of pickle. I love pickles and all things sour so it hit the spot for me. My two coworkers also enjoyed their cups.

This is one I’d throw some in again if I were ordering something else from Yunomi but probably wouldn’t do an order just for it.

Sipdown (138)!

I know I said that I thought this would be best served hot, but something about the hot mug I made last night didn’t sit well with me. I think it was the apple? It was just sort of tart which was a little funky next to the roasty profile of the houjicha and the warming ginger flavour. If I ever cross pathes with this again I think I need to go back to drinking it cold…

This is a queued tasting note.

Thank you Liquid Proust for the sample!

- Cold brewed…
- Lovely roasty notes typical of hojicha
- Touch of ginger, which complimented the base
- Somewhat fruity/apple-y but fairly mild/nondescript
- While pleasant, I feel this would be best served hot

Sadly, I oversteeped or used water that was too hot. I could still enjoy the brothy, seaweed and nutty characteristics of this tea.

So I am finally getting around to getting the mouthpiece and valve oil for my thrift store French Horn, took me long enough, and I find myself in a bit of a pickle. A lot has changed in the world since I played my little heart out 15 years ago, mainly I have no idea where to find sheet music…or really how to read music (I gotta start over from scratch, I hope the knowledge comes back quickly) so that is going to be a fun search. I definitely think one of the things I will look for is the Jurassic Park theme, that piece is wonderful for the horn and was a favorite of mine years ago…well that and Bolero!

Today is a lazy day, meaning I lack the brain power to write about a tea with many many steeps, instead I want something relaxing…so I turn to an old classic relaxation tea, a Hojicha! Looking at Yunomi’s Ocharaka’s Hojicha Mint Chocolate Flavored Roasted Green Tea, a blend of Hojicha , black tea, peppermint, cornflowers, flavoring, and my favorite part…silver sparkles! Edible ones of course. The aroma of this tea is like a piece of toast with chocolate sauce and a very distant mint. Like chocolate mints for someone who wants more chocolate than mint and I am totally ok with that!

I was gifted this tea from a tea friend and thought it was just chocolate hojicha, so it was quite the surprise when it had mint and the silver sparkles, it was kinda epic steeping it and seeing the sparkle. The aroma of toasty chocolate (reminds me of the smell of the edge of a pan of brownies, actually) with gentle cooling mint notes as an afterthought. The liquid is pretty balanced with chocolate and mint with a finish of roasty toasty notes that are quite pleasant, like blending autumn warmth and the crispness of winter.

I found myself really torn, was this a winter tea or an autumn tea? On the one hand the gentle sweet mint and chocolate remind me of winter, with cooling mint notes and my favorite holiday indulgence (so many chocolate mints get devoured that time of year.) On the other hand the notes of pine sap, burning autumn leaves, and woody leaf notes remind me of autumn. This tea is a perfect relaxing cup of sweetness that feels like a warm blanket and afternoon naps, which is something I was much in need of.

for photos and blog: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/03/yunomi-ocharaka-hojicha-mint-chocolate.html

I have put off having this tea only because of the unusual brewing instructions. So I put 2.5 g in boiling water and boiled for 10 min.

First impression: It tasted like dirty dishwater. Not that I drink a lot of dirty dishwater. Then I realized that was a bit harsh. This tea started to grow on me a bit the more I had.

It’s supposed to be something like a puerh. It does have similarities but is quite different as well. I don’t know of any puerh you can boil for 10 minutes and have it turn out fine.

There’s no bitterness in this tea. Even after boiling for 10 minutes! There’s a slight sweetness but it tastes like woody twigs boiled in water a bit of earth. Doesn’t sound very appealing but it’s not bad. I’ve heard worse things used to describe tea (tobacco, leather). Overall, enjoyed trying out this tea but it’s not something I would buy.

Well I did it, I finally saw The Force Awakens, took me long enough. I might lose all of my nerd cred, but I am not much of a Star Wars fan, it has always been a franchise I enjoyed but could not really get into, so that is why it took me so long. That and I hate theaters, crowds, going out in public, and of course being in a car for very long…so other factors. I did enjoy it though, it was predictable and nostalgia laden, but these things made it enjoyable, plus laughing at Kylo Ren’s emo self was immensely entertaining. Reminded me of my goth phase in high school, when I wore a mask and had a lightsaber.

Today’s tea is from Yunomi, a company who I have not visited on this blog in a while, so I thought it was time to change that. Looking at their Ocharaka: Hojicha Baked Apple Flavored Roasted Green Tea, a different take on one of my favorite teas, Houjicha! I am not a big fan of flavored teas anymore, I still drink them on occasion but usually I got for pure leaf or a blend, but once in a while I am craving a taste and don’t have access to it, usually that craving is food related and imitated in tea, so I reach for it to satisfy a craving. This time I was craving apple pie, so it seemed a perfect time to try this tea I had in my stash. Blending Houjicha, Ginger, Apple and Flavorings, this tea smells like tart apples and ginger with a strong caramel undertone. It kinda reminds me of the apple pie caramel lollipops they gave with the apple pie blizzards at Dairy Queen where I worked, hated the blizzards but man did I love those lollipops! There is also a toasted note that vaguely reminds me of crust, but mostly this tea’s aroma is all ginger and apple.

Into my little kyusu the leaves go for steeping, this pot is the perfect sized for a single me sized cup, I like small cups and I cannot lie! The aroma is a lot less tart and more baked sweet apples, toasted crust, and ginger. It does not exactly remind me of pie, but does remind me of cobbler which works for me! The liquid is very sweet with just a hint of tart apples and pie crust. Ok this tea officially smells like pie now.

Mmmm pie, in fact it tastes like slightly burnt pie, where the crust is burnt and the sugar has caramelized a bit. It is quite sweet and smooth with strong toast and ginger notes with light apples, luckily the apple tastes like apple and not apple candy, which I was a bit worried about from the aroma of the dried leaves. I found the apple notes to be strongest in the aftertaste or when the tea had cooled a bit. It is not an exact pie match, but it was close enough to ease my craving!

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/02/yunomi-ocharaka-hojicha-baked-apple.html

I drink matcha 4x a week and somehow the last stuff I had from Yunomi lasted a few months which was surprising to me. This is the other matcha I bought during Cyber Monday and I think it works well as a morning matcha. Out of all the matcha I’ve had before, this one whisk the easiest. The color is bit brighter than the last stuff I had and the taste has some more depth to it with a sweet after taste. The texture isn’t as thin as the last stuff; not in comparison for how much powder is used, but for the same amount.
Price wise: I think this will be roughly $13 a month if it last two months for me which means I’m at under $1 per session/morning breakfast. I’ll be looking at Azuma for other products because this one seems to be solid. The can it is in is more appealing as well as the plastic top isn’t so flimsy like other products.

From the Herbal TTB. Amount taken is actually 1.5 tsp. There is some left for another 8oz cup if anyone was wants to try.

18 herbs?!? Wowee. Here they are from the website: Barley tea, job’s tears, sicklepod seeds, cat’s whiskers (herb), dokudami (herb), oolong tea, tumeric, guava leaves, biwa (loquat) leaves, mikan (Japanese mandarin) peels, brown rice, pine leaves, ohbako, benibana, persimmon leaves, amachazuru, sarunokoshikake (fungi), cinnamon.

Oolong. OK. This is not a purely herbal blend then. Considering the number of ingredients and that I’m taking them from a sample packet, there wouldn’t be much of each, including the oolong. Still. This is under the herbal section.

That aside, I have never tasted practically every single one of these ingredients. This blend is difficult to evaluate. I thought I smelled and tasted a solid note of juniper berries. No barley – it wasn’t something I grabbed a lot of. That may have been the sicklepod seeds.

Pleasant cup, but I’m not hooked. You might get something else out of this, so go for it. It is something I’ve never seen before.

Thank heavens Andrew sent me a green tea. I’ve had so much oolongs, blacks, and pu-erhs that I’ve started to get a bit overwhelmed. That is especially true this morning. That Wu Yi varietal was starting to give me a massive headache. The astringency started to follow really badly too.

This green goodness saved my palette. Super fresh, green, and yummy. It distinctly tastes like spinach, asparagus, umami, avocado, and sea weed in a really nice way. Plus I’m personally getting a bit of a creamy, almost oily mouth feel. My stomach is starting to settle. That could just be psychological-veggies can have the tendency to do that to me. It’s so GREEN. I especially like the later steeps. All of them were incredibly short, the longest being 30 sec toward the end. 5-10 sec was the average.

Not bad (Certainly won’t complain for the $3 I spent on 100g of it). With quicker steep times the main flavor I get is one of toasted nuts, especially for the first few steeps. The nuttiness drops off after around 3 steeps, replaced by a light corn-like sweetness. The dry leaves smell strangely of the inside of a pumpkin, and the wet leaves smell like roasted pumpkin seeds. At first I thought this tea was roasted, but I now believe that was simply because I was using too hot of water at first. Not really good enough that I’d go and buy any more of it.

Thanks to Liquid Proust for the sample

The dry tea is interesting: perfect leaves with a bit of stem attached. They appear to have no processing other than being dried. Tastes like a green tea crossed with a white: Smells more floral than vegetal, with a predominantly grassy flavor. My favorite style of green. For whatever reason, this tea made me want to meditate. Very relaxing. I’m not a big fan of green teas, but this could make me a convert. 2nd steep was less interesting

Was planning on waiting until I had a chance to gongfu this. I decided to give up waiting and brewed it western style this morning. It’s quite taste with a sweet fruity note off the bat. This looks and tastes like a black tea, ,not on oolong. The sweet note might be described as plums, perhaps cherries. It hard to pin down. There is little in the way of bitterness or astringency here and I detect no malt.

I brewed this one time in a 16oz teavana glass perfect tea maker/gravity steeper withi 7.2g leaf and 190 degree water for 3 min after a 10 second rinse.

At first sip I didn’t like this tea that much. But as I drink it it is improving. The main note is a kind of a burnt note from the brown rice, not sure how else to describe it. There is a secondary note from the green tea, barely perceptible and somewhat grassy. Overall I like this tea.

I steeped this tea one time with 10g leaf and 190 degree water in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper for 1 min. 10g seems like a lot but those were the Yunomi directions.

Well I’m in the reviewing mood today but have no new teas to review. Ho-hum. I did find this sample from Yunomi which was unopened but past its suggested “drink by” date, so I will leave my impressions gingerly.

I haven’t particularly given much love to my beautiful Tokoname-yaki kyusu lately. I really need to sift through old emails and see if I can figure out who made this thing because it is handmade and is easily the most beautiful and precisely-crafted teaware in my collection.

Anyway, these bancha leaves are the big yellowish green leaves I’m used to seeing. The scent of the leaves after the first infusion is mildly floral and nutty with a bit of the scent of prairie grass in late summer. Most people would use the word hay here, but I like the more idyllic descriptor of golden grasses drying out with splashes of living growth and wildflowers in the mix. It’s a distinct smell. If you’ve gotten to visit any tall prairies you know it, and I grew up among them, so I cant depart it from my memory. The scent of the leaves is also slightly herbal and reminds me of the scent of dry matcha.

The flavor is more enjoyable than I expected, especially from expired tea. It tastes like yellow apple peels and walnuts and packs a pretty decent umami for a bancha. It’s very clean and crisp, quite rich in flavor too. There’s a tart black currant kind of note late in the sip and it lingers. There is a hint of bitterness but I think the tartness and the richness of flavor work together pretty well in hiding it. It has a slightly dry finish as well but a bit of lingering sweetness too.

This tea was relaxing. Good by me. :3

EDIT: I found the aforementioned email and it is made by Shoji Umehara. If you see any of his works, I highly recommend them. My kyusu has the most immaculate lid fit I’ve seen on a teaware (zero wiggle room, but can be rotated smoothly), and the shape and glazing of this kyusu are just perfect.

EDIT EDIT: I found the old Amazon page with pictures of it, though this one I ordered from Chado Tea House (they are the ones who were selling it on Amazon too) http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CD8NPTU?tag=tystoyboxpair-20

This was probably the worst smelling tea I’ve had in awhile; reminded me of a dead tree that was once a human but turned into a plant and then died a plant.

While it may not be that strong and what not, but the smell… what the heck?

This is a strange and interesting green tea. I’m not at all sure I brewed it right. The directions call for 15g for 2 liters, strange way to write the directions. So I halved the amount and put it in my teapot. Only then did I realize the teapot I had put it in was more of a half liter. So I removed the leaves and put them in a bigger glass teapot. I brewed approximately 7g of leaf for 3 min in approx 1 liter of water. What I got was a light colored fairly vegetal, grassy tasting tea. It’s not bad but I think it would have been better if the directions had called for a reasonable sized pot.

This is a tasty black tea. There is little malt, bitterness, or astringency. It’s got a nice somewhat sweet, barely perceptible spicy note to it. I’m not sure what to call the sweet note. The website just describes it as mild and fragrant. This is accurate but I’m not sure how to describe the fragrance involved. The dry leaves had an odd smell to them but I didn’t get any of that in the brew.

I brewed this once in a Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 190 degree water for 2 min.

I am so far behind in my sample tasting. This tea was with the Yunomi group buy and just getting around to trying it now. I brewed it gong fu with the first infusion pretty short (15sec) but am really enjoying it. It doesn’t have that heavy bold taste that some black teas do (that could be in part because of how I brewed it). It’s a bit sweet with a nice malty flavour and a fruity note. It’s weird, but I had a feeling this tea was going to be fruity before I brewed it up or even smelled it. This was my first black Japanese tea too.

This is an interesting black tea. It’s got something of a spicy note to it that I almost mistook for wet storage taste. But this tea is I think a 2015 black tea so it shouldn’t have any storage taste. The spicy taste has something of a bitter character to it I guess. Not sure if I would buy this one again but it is an interesting tea.

I steeped this tea once in a Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 190 degree water for 3 min.

This is a very tasty tea with little bitterness or astringency. The sakura cherry flavor profile is quite nice, if a little muted. I added sugar to this one and it really brings out the flavors nicely. I see Yunomi is now out of stock on this item. I would definitely buy this one again, I only bought 50g of it. It came in a can marked only in Japanese. There was a plastic bag around the can, that was marked. I wrote on the bottom of the can to identify it in the future. While the Japanese aren’t known for their black teas I have found the black teas I get from them to be excellent.

I brewed this once in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 190 degree water for 3 mini.