oh this is a tasty sencha! followed steepster instructions for first steeping – i’m not sure i was tasting pine, but was definitely pungent and explosive (in the best of all possible ways!). lovely round mouth-feel, not quite creamy, but definitely round, hard, and smooth. second steeping at just off-boiling for 20s is less pungent, not explosive at all, but i’m quite enjoying it – the mouth is quite the same, this time seeming more creamy, since the pungency is less. sweeter, perhaps. (how do people use words to describe taste? it is so synaesthetic for me that i don’t know if i make any sense!)
I don’t know if i’ll make it to a third steeping, may step out for some lunch, but i’ll update if i do. as far as whether i preferred the first to second steepings – it really was a different tea each time, reminiscent of how a sencha iri matcha will be so…matcha! the first steep and then settle into a sencha by the second or third. at any rate, this is one i’d pick up for a staple in my tea cabinet. it is less astringent by far than other senchas i’ve had, less brassy-grassy, yet still quite flavorful somehow.
must be the “pine.”
