Japanese Treasures

Here’s Hoping TTB

This tea wasn’t what I was expecting at all based on the description, but I really liked it! It has a strong strawberry flavor and a smooth, slightly sweet green tea base. Hanging onto another serving of this so I can try it iced this summer!

Citrus and green tea should be banned. But green tea and fruit is okie dokie for lack of better wordage. After I read the description and saw citrus I almost put this back in the ttb but after reading the ingredients I realized it really didn’t have any citrus at all, it was just a descriptor! Hurray! Bonzai! And the flavor? HA! No citrus! I truly hate citrus in my green tea. You have no idea. Maybe it was because I once asked for a green tea no citrus flavor in Starbucks and what I got was a citrus green tea. YUCK! I love how this one starts out with a grassy slightly nutty flavor and swiftly turns over to strawberry. As far as red currants go… I dont taste them but I’m sure they are hiding there somewhere.

Here’s Hoping Traveling Tea Box

While I do believe I got more of the green tea flavours that make up this blend in my sampling of it, I really must refer you to Tea-Sipper’s Review. I agree with it completely. It was a primarily strawberry flavoured green blend. I didn’t detect much, if any, citrus flavour at all. I was able to get a roasted green flair in my cup from the genmaicha in the blend though. I enjoyed it. Thanks Zen Tea & Tea-Sipper!

Okay so straight off the bat, opening this bag.. the smell of this tea is unbelievable, its like this fruity strawberry melody its just oh my god. Also another thing is that they used 5 different green teasas the base, (sencha, genmaicha, gyokuro, bancha and kukicha) (don’t genmaichas use sencha, isn’t that redundant?) thus the name.
The brewed tea has a really different flavour to the loose tea, it leans a lot more back towards the leaves than the fruit/flowers
I’m having a really difficult time noticing notes in the leaves.. I expected it to be really complex, but it seems .. simple cause you can’t tell whats going on. Okay i’ll try though;
It’s definitely vegetal, there’s a hint of bitterness behind the predominantly floral, and berry flavoured. There’s a bit of roasty notes as well from the bancha/genmaicha. The leaves also have a sort of.. empty taste, you know like when leaves have been steeped too long and then you steep them again and they’re just empty.. theres that but its like with the flavourful leaves which makes me think all the different leaves have different optimal steep times.. I dont really get why they needed to use so many base leaves lol but I mean I still enjoyed it.
oh! and you can resteep this one and its still good. which is really nice for a flavoured tea

This is one that Zen sent to add to the teabox that I wanted to sample. It’s delicious! This blend contains sencha green tea, Genmaicha, Japan Bancha, Kukicha, Gyokuro, red currants, strawberry pieces, and natural aroma. Mixing so many green teas might be a shame since you can’t enjoy them separately. I noticed mostly sencha looking types of green tea leaves but I haven’t had much experience with some of these teas, so those might look like sencha anyway. The flavor should mostly be citrus from the description but it tastes mostly like strawberry. It’s refreshing but you can’t really notice the flavors of the green teas themselves.
Steep #1 // one teaspoon for a full mug// 30 minutes after boiling // rinse// 2-3 minute steep
Steep #2 // 30 minutes after boiling // 3 minute steep