Walnut Layer Cake Sencha

I’ve been meaning to try this for a while but I haven’t much been in the right mood for green tea. Time to ignore that and just go for it instead.

It smells like strong, dry walnut with a sweet off maple finish. By off maple I mean it’s similar (dark, treacly) but just not quite right. Not sure it smells like cake but the walnut is a dead certainty.

Once steeped the tea is light yellowy green with a the same strong walnut scent as it’s raw form. Possibly the most nuttiest tea I have ever sniffed.

It smells like walnut and it tastes like walnut. Toasted, dry, sweet yet slightly creamy walnut in liquid tea form. I can’t taste the sencha as such but it appears to be keeping the walnut on the light side. At least it’s drinkable. Not sure what to think of this blend, walnut is one of my favourite nuts but this edges on being bizarre. Also it leaves my tongue a little dry in the after taste.

Only a rough rating for now, it may change. I have perhaps two cups left of this plus another unopened 10g pouch if anyone is interested?

The dry tea has a fairly strong and really rather pleasant aroma. I get coconut, lemon, thyme and a general perfumed note like you get when you walk by a shop like Lush, selling scented soaps and so on.

I brewed pretty much as in the dealer info – five minutes, 80° and with the weight of tea adjusted for the capacity of my mug.

I didn’t get so much in the nose as with the dry tea. It smelled rather like one of those coconut cakes or coconut biscuits.

In the mouth it was rather sour – the lemon note, I think. I added two sweeteners, as I do with ordinary tea. This cancelled-out the sourness, but the result wasn’t really sweet. It was rather a disappointment compared to the aromas of both the dry tea and the brew – a note somewhere between walnut and coconut and an astringency that I just can’t pin down – it’s not lemon, more bitter than that – and that seems to linger in the back of the throat and rather dry it. Perhaps five minutes was a bit too long. I’m not at all sure that I’m detecting any actual tea flavour.

Actually, the smell I get as I sip is much more enjoyable than what’s in my mouth – don’t much care for this.

I love the name of this tea despite not being crazy about walnuts. Actually, I take that back.. I like walnuts when they’re in baked things – chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, oatmeal cookies. On their own, I’m not crazy about ’em. Anyway, back to the tea! The scent of this is of a rather tame green tea – smooth, only a tiny bit grassy – and walnuts. When I say walnuts, I mean the whole darn thing including the shell. I can smell the bitter skin and starchy inside. Wow!

Sipping… hm, not as bitter as I was expecting. The green tea is light, very smooth and actually the sweetest part of this cup. The rest of the sip is pure walnut which is overwhelming, but quite impressive. I actually don’t mind this tea, but I wish that there were something layer cakey about it. To me, it’s a walnut and sencha blend, with no other flavors. If someone adores walnut, I can see this being a top choice. Thank you, KittyLovesTea, for this one. I’m quite glad I got to try it and will finish the cup!