Sencha Jade Reserve

I really like this sencha. Nothing extremely impressive about it compared to any quality sencha, but it nails the “typical” flavour that sencha imparts- bright nutty vegetal aroma and tatse.

Decent Sencha tea, I enjoy the sweet veggie taste. I can get two steeps from this tea, after that I can add rice crispies to make a genmaicha tea.

I really like this tea! I have had far worse Sencha and slightly better Sencha. This falls somewhere in the high middle. I do understand that you can find better Sencha for roughly the same price elsewhere but overall I wouldn’t shy away from this tea…However, you might want to shy away from Teavana if you can. Last tasting notes before I go on a Teavana rant: Medium full body, vegetal, green, nutty. ( I seem to be one of the only ones who tastes any nuttiness in this) Maybe my taste buds are off?

Okay, here was my Teavana experience. I am certainly not mad, but I feel like it is humorous, and I should share.

I arrive and everything seems nice. When I ask to smell the tea, the two employees working literally had a minor argument on who should help me….awkward. One finally rolled her eyes and sludged to get the tea.

After trying to spark up a conversation about the tea it was clear she had little knowledge of tea and was completely unaware that Sencha comes from Japan. Seemed pretty basic to me. I tried to describe the smell of a different green tea and was having some trouble. I asked her what she thought. She said it’s “too hard to explain”.

I left feeling like I got a decent tea but certainly didn’t gain any knowledge which is something I am always looking for when I visit a tea shop.

Teavana’s sole straight sencha offering, Sencha Jade Reserve, is an excellent one! Very smooth and slightly sweet, with a pale green clear (not cloudy) liquor. I drank my two glasses quickly, right after lunch, in part because I had steeped at a sub 70C temperature, so the tea was starting to descend below my optimum drinking preference. (That happened because I changed my mind and switched the cooling water from a 17 ounce to a 22 ounce tetsubin, as I realized that I wanted two full glasses. As a consequence, the temperature dipped lower than usual. A propos: tetsubins are great for immediate temperature reduction, among their many other functional and aesthetic virtues…)

I’ll have to compare this sencha side-by-side with the Tazo Collection. Both are very good and haute senchas, veering toward gyokuro!

(Blazing New Rating #57)

Its OK, still havent found a green tea that I absolutely love but this is the best ive found so far

So this was today:

Reported for jury duty at 8:45 in the morning. Oddly enough, was looking forward to getting a bit of an insight into the legal system – or, more accurately, getting out of work.

After over an hour of sitting around in the conference room with no news, we find out the defendant didn’t show. We still have to go upstairs to the courtroom so the judge can ramble at us about tangentially related matters.

Still have to go to work, since my shift is from 11:30 to 8.

Then this happened right outside the store. http://www.10tv.com/content/stories/2014/05/27/east-columbus-truck-takes-down-power-lines.html

We are always required to stay open when the power’s out.

Upon hearing many estimates that it would take many hours to get the power back if it even got done today, I call the lesson teachers to see if they still want to teach today given the uncertain situation. The two with the most students say let’s reschedule. I call all of their students and leave voicemails for all but TWO.

At 3 PM, AFTER I’ve called all those lesson students, the power comes back on. (I’m not complaining about the power. I’m complaining about feeling like a doof.)

I can’t really complain about working a 10 hour day to close because I volunteered to do it, but damn it was still a long day. Especially when I’m by myself for 7.5 of those hours.

Sooooo yeah.

The last time I had this tea was a year ago. It was the second time I made it, and I didn’t understand why you didn’t play loosey goosey with green tea steeping parameters. That taught me why. It was still one of the most disgusting things I’ve ever had.

Tonight, I was very careful not to let it get over-hot and VERY careful not to steep more than 40-45 seconds.

Well this is interesting. I can’t tell if I’ve developed a Pavlovian response to green teas, but I feel like I can’t make them without smelling that dreaded rotten-meat-oversteep smell somewhere in the background. But it diminishes as it cools. In the foreground is the very astringent, crisp, grassy taste that I guess is Japanese green tea. I’ve never been a fan of those in the past, but it seems like my tastebuds are changing quite a lot recently, and it’s possible I could cultivate a taste for them. Still, I’m not sure about this one. It’s one of those that I can… appreciate… without truly enjoying? But I don’t dislike it?

I seriously don’t know what I think of this tea! I guess it’s stark opposite from what my usual inclinations are, so it’s an interesting change? It’s certainly clean-tasting and fresh, if nothing else.

Maybe one day I will get on a Japanese green tea kick. I’m just interested to see what other flavors there are out there. After all, I didn’t think I liked sheng pu-erhs, but I finally learned to appreciate them once I tried enough different kinds with the right steeping methods. Who knows?

good green tea