I love a Japanese green.
Chinese greens always have kind of a soil/dirt undertone (not unpleasant, just part of their terroir, I guess) which makes them have a brown-green liquor. But Japanese greens – they have a translucent peridot liquor and they taste like the ocean. It makes sense – Chinese greens are not really grown by the sea, but Japan is an island so I imagine the salt in the air has no choice but to become a part of the tea plants themselves.
The smell of this dry! It was like… like spring. Like chlorophyll and freshly cut grass, but also seaweed and salt. Its leaves turned emerald after steeping and it was such a wonderful sight – I haven’t seen green in nature for what seems like forever so it gets high marks alone for making me forget about February for a bit.
The taste is savory – think salty spinach broth. It is gorgeous. And now I really really REALLY want udon. Even though its 10 in the morning.
I didn’t really get the tree notes – pine or eucalyptus – in the flavor but I certainly didn’t feel as though I was missing out. Yum. I am going to have to look into more of this for sure.
Flavors: Grass, Ocean Breeze, Seaweed
That’s interesting! I’ve never gotten ocean from a Japanese green, but then again I haven’t had too many of them. I’m curious now!