Honeydew Sencha

This is truly an enjoyable summer tea! It smells sweet when dry, with that crisp sencha scent.

Once brewed, it doesn’t taste as sweet, but maintains the delicious aroma, which is great because it’s simply outstanding. I’m not overly fond of sweet tasting teas, so it works for that. My one issue with this tea, however, is the name. Honeydew. I detest honeydew. If I hadn’t tried this one without knowing the name first, I may never have given it a chance. It does not taste like honeydew to me, but rather watermelon. Honeydew has a thicker sweetness to it, and this is more the bright, clean taste of watermelon… in a tea.

MMMM, Honeydew Sencha!

Upon smelling the dry leaves, you’re presented with an unforgettable marriage of sweet honeydew and fainter notes of strawberry. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my more traditional teas. However, when I discovered that Bird Pick only uses flowers to scent the tea, I was shocked. All of this aroma without artificial flavoring or sugar? No. Freaking. Way.

Now you might be saying, “oh yeah, well I bet it didn’t taste as good as it smelled when you brewed it”. But to you naysayers, I say, “HA!”. It’s a delicious green tea that isn’t tarnished with the fruity fragrances. It has a wonderful depth of flavor that leaves a pleasant astringency on the tongue afterwards, akin to a palette cleanser.

What I have realized is that this tea is actually better on ICE! Yes, I kid you not. Brew it double strength and ice it over. It’s overpowering olfactory nature just screams sweetness in your mouth, it’s the craziest sensation: sweet fruit without sweetener in a green tea.

Love this tea. Definitely will be rebuying.

Dry, this tea definitely smells like rich honeydew. It is a smell that carries over when brewed, but it exchanges some of the richness for juiciness. The honeydew flavor is strong when the tea is hot, but mellows out letting the sencha come through as it cools with the honeydew hanging on for the aftertaste as if I just had a bite of melon. I love sugar in my tea and adding it did perk up the flavors a little, but somehow didn’t do much to make the tea better.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about this tea overall. It is well done and the flavors are good, but it’s not knocking me off my feet. Maybe in time…

This sample came from my holiday package from cookies. I really like melon and melon-flavored things, and honeydew happens to be my favorite. It just so happens that I also enjoy a nice sencha, so this tea seems perfect for me! I’m surprised I didn’t request it myself when I got my free Bird Pick samples… Anyway! The sencha leaves are nice and intact, somewhat large and steamed flat. There are also some golden flower petals included in the blend. Dry scent is nicely sweet and melon-y with perhaps a touch of fishiness? Odd.

The steeped tea also smells like sweet, crisp honeydew with a bit of a fish edge. The green tea itself is actually quite savory, which makes for an odd combination with the sweet honeydew. It in fact has a strong umami characteristic which almost borders on fishy (but not quite). The combination of the base and the honeydew almost reminds me of eating jicama or a similar crunchy but wet vegetable (broccoli stems? raw potato?). It’s not bad, it’s just a bit odd. I think this is just a case of the wrong choice of base tea for the flavoring.

Sipdown I sent the rest of this to a Steepster pal, but held back a 1/2 tsp for myself since I had forgotten whether or not I wanted to order it. Turns out, yes! I definitely want more of this delightful tea. It’s sweet and mellow with a distinctive honeydew flavor. As it cools off the honeydew slips into cantaloupe which I think is just as delightful. I actually don’t find the sencha too vegetal or savory for the flavorings, but I steep for a very short time which may help with that. Bird Pick offers this up in sachet form which I think would be a good option, as I tend to drink greens around bedtime and don’t love dealing with cleaning up my steeper late at night.
Thanks again to Bird Pick for the free sample of this, I’m excited to try more from the company.