Organic Miyazaki Oolong Tea Kuchinashi

Tea type
Oolong Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Bitter, Gardenias, Vegetal, Butter, Floral, Green, Honey, Apricot, Flowers, Grass
Sold in
Not available
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Not available
Edit tea info Last updated by Kaitlin in Korea
Average preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 0 min, 45 sec 4 g 5 oz / 140 ml

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12 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Another set of infusions, and what is most interesting this time is how much it reminds me of the ‘white oolong’ from Norbu that I have recently been enjoying: I think the common denominator is a...” Read full tasting note
    87
  • “This oolong was somewhat of a dissapointment to me. I missed the fact that it is lightly oxidised. Unlike most other light oolongs the leaves is open and curled, looks wonderful. It is a...” Read full tasting note
    67
  • “First infusion at 90C degrees, 1min+ – got almost tie guan yin :) Next infusions are not so good, too light flavour. But first infusion is great.” Read full tasting note
    92
  • “If Lipton made green oolong tea, I imagine this is what it would taste like. Having been spoiled by quality Taiwanese and Chinese oolongs, I found this to be a rough tea. Lots of broken leaf,...” Read full tasting note
    68

From Yuuki-cha

A truly remarkable kamairi-style Japanese oolong tea grown organically in very limited amounts in Miyazaki on Kyushu Island, one of the traditional pan-firing tea producing areas of Japan.

Only around 20kg of this choice tea was produced during the first Spring harvest with an extreme amount of care and attention to quality. Two very specific varietals of Japanese tea bushes, known as Takachiho and Minami Sayaka, were harvested to make this oolong, both of which are very suitable for the production of oolong tea.

It’s a lightly oxidized oolong that has also been pan-fired lightly. The curly leaf therefore maintains much of its green appearance, the liquor is a strong yellow, and the taste retains much of it’s fresh lively appeal without any roasted notes.

The most notable and amazing aspect of this oolong is its extraordinary floral fragrance which is incredibly gardenia-like (Kuchinashi in Japanese), hence the name of this Japanese oolong tea is Kuchinashi! If you are familiar with fragrances of flowers such as gardenia you’ll not fail to notice the resemblance. The fragrance is accompanied by a wonderful fragrant taste that spreads gently throughout the mouth!

About Yuuki-cha View company

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12 Tasting Notes

87
311 tasting notes

Another set of infusions, and what is most interesting this time is how much it reminds me of the ‘white oolong’ from Norbu that I have recently been enjoying: I think the common denominator is a very light oxidation and absence of any roasted taste. This is as close as you can get to a green tea with it still being clearly oolong.

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67
239 tasting notes

This oolong was somewhat of a dissapointment to me. I missed the fact that it is lightly oxidised.
Unlike most other light oolongs the leaves is open and curled, looks wonderful. It is a wellproduced tea but im not so fond of the flowery/buttery oolongs. I want a roasted heavy oolong that gets you teadrunk! :)

There is a small sharpness to this tea. I would prefer an alishan if i had to choose.

brewed western style this time.

Preparation
Boiling 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 7 OZ / 200 ML
KittyLovesTea

I loved this one, rated the full 100. It is very floral and I agree it’s not suited to all. Shame you didn’t like this one, I haven’t tried it Western style yet.

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92
14 tasting notes

First infusion at 90C degrees, 1min+ – got almost tie guan yin :)
Next infusions are not so good, too light flavour.

But first infusion is great.

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 1 min, 15 sec

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68
676 tasting notes

If Lipton made green oolong tea, I imagine this is what it would taste like. Having been spoiled by quality Taiwanese and Chinese oolongs, I found this to be a rough tea. Lots of broken leaf, astringency, and no complexity in flavor.

The dry leaves are pale green and twisted with a mild fragrance of orchid and gardenia. The wet leaf has a pleasant gardenia and lilac aroma. Unlike Chinese oolong, the leaf isn’t intact. The broken leaf and debris made brewing in a gaiwan a mess. It also clogged the filter of a regular teapot. A metal brew basket or a teapot with a mesh strainer is the way to go.

The flavor of this tea is similar to jin xuan and baozhong but not nearly as refined. It’s buttery with light gardenia florals and a fair amount of bitterness. Short infusion times are key to minimizing the ever present astringency. It can only steep about 3 times which is pretty disappointing. When it comes to judging green oolongs Taiwanese teas are the gold standard for me. I feel this is missing many elements of the flavor, texture, and rich aroma that characterize Taiwanese oolongs. Amongst other things, it lacks the fresh, clean taste, the minerals, and thick mouthfeel.

I had high hopes for this tea but found it to be really subpar. Glad I got to try it, but I see no reason to order it again given all the high quality oolongs out there.

Flavors: Bitter, Gardenias, Vegetal

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 0 min, 30 sec 3 g 4 OZ / 120 ML

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85
33 tasting notes

My first experience with Japanese oolongs, and I’m impressed. Leaves are a rich dark green, rolled into irregular shapes. For this testing I brewed at 200F in a kyusu clay pot. The liquor was a dark gold with a touch of green, slightly cloudy. The taste is a rich but restrained floral flavor (the seller says it’s gardenia, specifically—I don’t know my flowers well enough to confirm). The light roasting gives it a smooth palate with light sweetness and not much bitterness. The texture is light and refreshing, but with a touch of buttery avocado richness.

By the time I got around to reviewing this, the tea was about 6 months old and had lost some of its initial vibrancy, but still quite good. I did three steeps. The third was noticeably lighter in color and, while it still had some nice tingly effervescence on the tongue, has lost much of its flavor. So I’d stick with 2-3 steepings on this (unless perhaps you’re trying very short steeps).

Overall a lovely discovery at a reasonable price that will proves Japanese oolongs have a place on my tea shelf next to the Taiwanese and Chinese.

Flavors: Butter, Floral, Green

Preparation
200 °F / 93 °C 2 min, 0 sec

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1113 tasting notes

Between friends and I, 40g of this was drank in only two days… only two days, one type of tea, 40g… yeah.

This stuff has the complex yunomi that a Japanese green tea has, BUT it also has that creamy aspect that a Jin Xuan has while carrying some of that green oolong taste with the texture.

This is some seriously good stuff. Requires a bit a concentration to realize there is more than a texture, but an actual taste as well. I used a gaiwan, I used a teapot, I used a kyusu. Each time it was lovely

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95
121 tasting notes

Ah, well this was an excellent choice by KittyLovesTea – she sent me a generous little bag of this tea in our recent swap! Opening the bag, I was greeted with that wonderfully familiar floral, sweet scent of Jade Oolongs and knew I was gonna love this!

I brewed it up in the same way I always do for green oolongs – around 3-4 g in my 100 ml gaiwan.

The first infusion was wonderful – so fragrant and perfumed! Lovely floral, fruity, sweet flavours, mingling with a gently vegetal background flavour! Successive infusions saw the floral notes become more dominant, alongside an increasing smoothness and butteriness! It lasted really well through 7 or 8 steepings – not the most I’ve ever gotten out of an oolong, but definitely nothing to turn your nose up at – this really was excellent tea! :D

This is a fabulous green oolong, easily on a par with most of the Chinese ones I’ve tried. I’ve got enough to do another session with it, which I’m eagerly looking forward to! :D

Flavors: Butter, Floral, Honey

Preparation
190 °F / 87 °C 0 min, 15 sec 3 g 3 OZ / 100 ML

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3294 tasting notes

Another sipdown from Dag.

This oolong is of the greener variety, reminiscent of a spring TGY.
The floral initially brought to mind Irises. There’s also an underlying mix of sweetness, & a hint of longbean.

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100
1379 tasting notes

The raw leaves are curly and green in appearance. There are also some lighter coloured stems present amongst the leaves too. Some of the leaves are not quite curled and are perfectly preserved, I can see the tips and shape along with the markings, a beautiful rarity amongst most teas.

They have beautiful sweet scent that is very floral, the name and description state gardenia which it very much does but also elements of lily of the valley and a soft fruity yet mature apricot.

I’m not sure how to steep this ‘correctly’ as there are no steeping instructions but I can have a good guess. I will treat it similar to other low oxidised Oolongs and hopefully it will be fine.

So I will be using 5g of this tea in my 200ml Gongfu teapot (not authentic Japanese but works very well). Water temperature will be 90 °C and shall be infused over three steeps. I will also do a 5 second rinse.

First Steep – 30 seconds
Light yellow colour tea with an elegant and sweet gardenia scent. The gardenia is pure and very much present, I used to work with perfumes and pure aroma oils and this smells exactly like pure gardenia oil but on a softer level.

Flavour is soft yet sweet with delicate hints of gardenia, flowers and grass/hay. Lovely for a first steep.

Second Steep – 1 minute
Thicker in strength and resembling gardenia oil even more now. The sweetness has also increased and is somewhat perfumed overall, that is to say it has a little dryness in the after taste. It is also fruity in the after taste, like apricot, it has that sweet yet sour delicate crispness.

Third Steep – 2 minutes
A little dryer this time and with a touch of astringency but still very sweet and floral. The astringency is rather mineral like which resembles more of a green tea rather than an Oolong.

Overall – This tea gave what was promised in the description, that being gardenia. It was present in the smell of the raw leaves, the smell of the steeped leaves and the flavour. Not only was it floral and perfumed throughout but it was also very sweet.

For more information and pictures of this tea please view my blog.
http://www.kittylovestea.co.uk/2014/02/24/my-first-taste-of-the-wonderful-world-of-japanese-oolong/

Flavors: Apricot, Flowers, Gardenias, Grass

Preparation
195 °F / 90 °C 5 g

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