Issaku, Premium Japanese Green Tea

The brewed leaf smells heavenly, all pure and vegetal and green. I let it cool down to 51 C / 124 F so I wouldn’t burn my tongue.

I got this at a tea festival in Portland with Sara in 2019. We both really liked it.

Oh, it has been a while! A slight bitterness and astringency, vegetal notes at the end of the sip, something almost leathery, and I swear candy. I’m really vibing with this tea for the extended winter here. I might keep at it and sip it down.

This is one of the last Japanese teas left in my collection after strenuous sipdown efforts, and the only tea I could reasonably use for the prompt “oceanic notes” since I already used by culinary matcha for “a tea smoothie.” I purchased this tea in 2019 from the Portland Tea Fest; both myself and my friend Todd were impressed by this one at Japanese Green Tea Co’s booth. (I also paid a lot for it, and could’ve used this for “a pricey tea” as well…)

It has a strong buttery, vegetal aroma… Like copious amounts of melted butter over steamed asparagus and spinach. There is also a saline-like umami note on the nose, that mixed with the strong vegetal notes evokes seaweed. It is quite umami, with a thick salty vegetal flavor, but it is also very smooth. The tea is grown using the chagusaba method, which supposedly causes it to be naturally sweeter than many Japanese greens.

It’s a very pleasant sencha, full of smooth, silky butter and oceanic umami vegetal notes. Given the weather, I’ll probably be opting to cold brew it in the future.

Finally brewed this in my Kyusu.

A year of aging actually wasn’t too bad for this tea. It has become much mellower in flavor, somewhat like a muted matcha, and the creaminess note from before has become less intensely creamy yet more of a pronounced flavor if that makes sense. All in all, a good experience even though it aged in my puerh box due to my own incompetency and low storage space.
I want to see how this turns out in a few years, or maybe a decade—I’ve heard good things about aged senchas.

Aroma of Passion Fruit Mousse. A bit in the flavor too! Sweet grass. So good. You guys have to give this one a try. Even if you just buy a sample. Also make sure to read the notes on the page. It is processed in a really unique way!