Tochiotome Green

This was a birthday gift from my bestie! The aroma: wowzer! Sweet, candy, strawberry!

I was too chicken to steep a green for 1 1/2 minutes in boiling water, so I took the temp down to about 175F. I am glad, because this is the tiniest tad drying as it is. The steeped tea has the strawberry aroma still, and it very much reminds me of the scent of Marco Polo. The taste is more green tea than strawberry, but I don’t mind because the aroma is great and the green tea tastes very good. There is a bit of nice tartness. I am very glad to try this one! I expect it will be good iced as well.

Sipdown no. 34 of 2014. Another sachet from the work stash. And another strawberry. Did I mention I WANT ALL THE STRAWBERRY TEA?

I don’t have a thermometer with me so filled my cup with water from the hot water filter tap and let it sit for five minutes before steeping.

The tea in the sachet has even more of a sweet strawberry smell than the Carol or the Champagne Rose, likely explained by their black tea bases and this one’s green base. The steeped aroma is a really nice mix of sweet strawberry and bright green tea. The liquor is a light lemony color with sediment distributed throughout (the sachet left little particles of green tea on my desk; they’re a bit too fine for the sachet, I think).

As flavored green teas go, this one is very nice. I get a fair amount of sweet strawberry flavor in and among the green tea, which is fairly mellow with a hint of butter and no bitterness.

In general, I prefer the heartiness of the Lupicia strawberry flavored blacks, but I’d definitely drink this again if I was in the mood for a fruity green tea.

Dry, this smells like fresh strawberry candy, or maybe the sugary strawberry beginnings of my mom’s homemade strawberry jam. The sugary-strawberry doesn’t come through as strongly once it’s steeped; just a pleasant light green tea base with a fruity aftertaste that stays on your tongue.

Perfect for a genuinely gentle, warm spring afternoon in my patio glider. I may never go inside.

This came as a free sample in the Lupicia newsletter and anyway I am just in the mood for green tea today somehow.

This is one of those mesh pyramid bags which are great but I don’t know if these are the biodegradable kind. Inspecting this somewhat closely to me it looks like a sencha. I steeped it at 170 F for 2 minutes. It is very interesting because the sencha is kind of grassy and vegetal but the strawberry flavor is light and sweet. Some of Lupicia’s flavored teas seem almost gummy bear like in the flavor (like the apple I tried recently) but this was a bit more natural in my opinion. Although I enjoyed it I can’t help but feel like the strawberry and the green tea are almost competing with each other for attention. And why would Lupicia recommend you steep this in boiling water, I have no idea. Maybe it’s a bancha…

Regardless, I do not think I need any more flavored green teas right now… but this was a fun one to try!

This is really nice. The strawberry flavor is quite interesting – it is something like a cross between a strawberry and an elderberry. The green tea is very light in flavor offering subtle grassy tones that highlight the berry flavors.

This is one that would be exceptional iced. I may have to get more of it in the near future!

Here is my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2011/04/29/tochiotome-from-lupicia/

YAY!!!!! I’ve been waiting for this tea to return for an entire year!!! It’s seasonal, and I missed it last year. I’ve been keeping an eye on the website ever since, not knowing when exactly it might pop up again. Then I read a recent review of this tea by Amy oh who mentioned it came in the monthly newsletter.

So, I knew I’d be getting my newsletter shortly and the long wait for Tochiotome would soon be over! I ripped open the package and was assailed by the dry leaf aroma, which is succulent fresh strawberries! The brewed tea is the same mouthwatering strawberry with the added aroma of verdant sencha.

Sadly, the flavor is little bit of a letdown. It’s very grassy with a touch of bitterness. The strawberry flavor wanes on the end of the sip, and the bitterness takes front stage in the aftertaste.

I guess I built this tea up in my head for a year, so I was expecting heaven. The beginning of the sip may be close to heaven, but the tail end ruins the illusion. It’s too bad Lupicia doesn’t use a nicer base. I was expecting something more like 52 teas’ Strawberry Pancake Green Tea minus the maple flavoring. I suppose if I liked sencha more, the grassiness wouldn’t bother me.

Well, if nothing else, this tea gave me the idea for an interesting quest for when I go to Japan. I’d love to try one of these tochiotome strawberries for myself (sans tea)!

This tea is nice and sweet! I was surprised that it was a green tea. The liquor was a nice green tint. The scent was sweet. I had no idea what kind of flavor I was getting. It was slightly fruity but mostly sweet. Lovely tea.

A very fruity and light tea that would be delightful on a hot, sunny day! The berry flavors come out strong and are good if you enjoy the berry taste. The underlying base of green tea is very subtle but rounds out the overall flavor.

As the tea cools, it tasted sweeter to me. I’d definitely echo the recommendations of trying this tea iced.

Dry, it smells like strawberries. Brewed, it smells like strawberries… but doesn’t taste much like them. This is fine though, because the green tea itself is moderate in flavor. I would suggest mixing half tochiotome and half strawberry and vanilla green tea from Lupicia to get a strawberry taste and smell. I will definitely purchase this again next year.

I just ordered 4 of these (well, 2, and then another 2, plus I’ll be trying the new black tea version). I must say, this is one of my favorite flavored green teas, especially from Lupicia. I actually think the base green tea is very good quality, but I recommend steeping no more than 180 F or about 80 C, unless you’re trying for a third steep, in which case slightly higher temp, longer time. I really like Japanese green teas, particularly of the steamed variety. The flavor, as usual with flavored green from Lupicia, is quite mild, and I think I taste more of the green in the after taste. What really wows me about this tea though, is the strawberry. It doesn’t even smell like candy strawberry, but fresh, sweet strawberries… which is different from many of Lupicia’s other flavored tea blends. It tastes like really strawberry too. Despite the description of on the package, i’m not getting any tartness, only sweetness really. Usually the only time of year I’m lucky to find strawberries is during the summer, when they are picked locally, so that’s definitely a plus for me. The strawberry definitely has a bit of dominance over the green, but that is sort of to be expected, and might even be a good thing, since it’s a really nice strawberry flavor. I’m highly likely to repurchase next year, assuming I run low by the next season.