Gyokuro Cha Musume

Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Not available
Flavors
Asparagus, Grassy, Green Beans, Sweet Corn, Umami, Apple, Butter, Creamy, Grass, Hazelnut, Kale, Seaweed, Spinach, Squash, Sweet, Vegetal, Apple Skins, Bitter, Freshly Cut Grass, Kabocha, Marine, Nutty, Roasted Nuts, Savory, Smooth, Thick, Vegetables, Wheatgrass
Sold in
Loose Leaf
Caffeine
High
Certification
Organic
Edit tea info Last updated by Cameron B.
Average preparation
145 °F / 62 °C 2 min, 0 sec 5 g 5 oz / 135 ml

Currently unavailable

We don't know when or if this item will be available.

From Our Community

1 Image

0 Want it Want it

0 Own it Own it

4 Tasting Notes View all

  • “Sip Down My sip down pile has been adding up, but the schedule change and lack of sleep hasn’t been exactly motivating me to write. I’ll probably spend a few more minutes trying to get some reviews...” Read full tasting note
    85
  • “Advent Tea #1 Long needle-like appearance with jade coloring. The aroma is divine. Sweet grass and stone fruit. The flavor has heavy notes of asparagus, corn, maybe leaning more towards freshly...” Read full tasting note
    84
  • “Nio Teas kindly sent me their Advent calendar in December, and sent samples again when that package failed to arrive. Thank you for your persistence and generosity! I have minimal experience with...” Read full tasting note
    83
  • “Nio Teas Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 1 Will from Nio Teas was kind enough to reach out to me and offer to send me their tea advent calendar, to which of course I said yes! I was expecting it to...” Read full tasting note
    85

From Nio Teas

The tea has a well-developed umami note, accompanied by a nice sweetness and a slight note of hazelnut. It stays in the palate for a long time and continues to develop after the first sip. The Yabukita cultivar has a strong umami characteristic to it, which is only accentuated by the long shading process.

This tea is grown in Kagoshima Japan on the small farm of the Sakamoto family. Because Mr. Sakamoto specializes in Gyokuro, he shades the tea plants for 3 weeks prior to the harvest, in order to boost the levels of theanine, caffeine and chlorophyll. This also creates a sweeter and more savory flavor in the tea. The soil on the farm of Mr. Sakamoto is incredibly soft, due to the diversity of flora and fauna on the field which loosens up the soil. This soft soil allows the roots to penetrate deeper into the ground and absorb more nutrients.

About Nio Teas View company

Company description not available.

4 Tasting Notes

85
315 tasting notes

Sip Down

My sip down pile has been adding up, but the schedule change and lack of sleep hasn’t been exactly motivating me to write. I’ll probably spend a few more minutes trying to get some reviews in before my mind drifts into the inevitable workday.

I hoarded the last of the tea for a few months before sipping it down. I needed a little boost in the mid-shift yesterday, so this found itself in the Kyusu at my desk. Not only did the tea do the job of granting me the energy necessary to finally step away from the desk after 6 hours of little movement (excluding water refills and quick bathroom breaks), but it also allowed the opportunity to step away from desk and home, and onto the treadmill at the gym.

Back to the notes: Asparagus, unsalted and unbuttered green beans, grassy, a touch of umami, and sweet corn.

Flavors: Asparagus, Grassy, Green Beans, Sweet Corn, Umami

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

84
1283 tasting notes

Advent Tea #1
Long needle-like appearance with jade coloring. The aroma is divine. Sweet grass and stone fruit. The flavor has heavy notes of asparagus, corn, maybe leaning more towards freshly picked corn with the husk still on. A very vegetal forward green. Does not require much steep time. In fact, I suggest you do not walk away from this session. The soft mouth feel can be easily overtaken with bitterness and you’ll be left with unnecessary astringency if you treat this like any other tea. Though generally this should be said for any Japanese green. The grassiness comes out more in the subsequent infusions.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

83
439 tasting notes

Nio Teas kindly sent me their Advent calendar in December, and sent samples again when that package failed to arrive. Thank you for your persistence and generosity! I have minimal experience with Japanese teas, so this should be interesting!

Since I enjoy gyokuro, I was happy to grab this first from my pile of samples. I have a 120 ml kyusu instead of a 150 ml one, which means I had to deviate from their instructions slightly. I steeped 5 g of leaf in 120 ml of 140F water for 2 minutes, then three more times for 20 seconds.

The dry leaf has aromas of spinach, seaweed, and grass. The first steep has notes of spinach, squash, umami, kale, butter, and grass, with slight but noticeable bitterness. I also get the creamy hazelnut mentioned in the description. The next steeps are a bit sweeter, with more of that hazelnut, umami, and grass. As Cameron noted, it does taste more like a sencha as the session goes on. By the fourth steep, I was able to taste squash, apple, and sweet grass as the vegetal bitterness diminished.

This is a nice tea, though it doesn’t have the fruitiness I’ve found in other gyokuro. I particularly appreciate the comparative lack of bitterness.

Flavors: Apple, Butter, Creamy, Grass, Hazelnut, Kale, Seaweed, Spinach, Squash, Sweet, Umami, Vegetal

Preparation
140 °F / 60 °C 2 min, 0 sec 5 g 4 OZ / 120 ML
derk

I had no idea you liked gyokuro!

Leafhopper

Before today, I’ve had two fantastic gyokuro in my life and one really bad one. This fell somewhere in the middle toward the good end of the spectrum. I like fruity gyokuro with very little bitterness, which means it’s hard to shop for them.

Also, I need to drink that green from TDJ before it’s completely dead!

Cameron B.

Oh no, I hope the advent reaches you eventually!

Leafhopper

I think it was returned to them. I’m not sure if these are the same samples from the calendar, but either way, I’m glad to have gotten them.

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

85
4158 tasting notes

Nio Teas Advent Calendar 2022 – Day 1

Will from Nio Teas was kind enough to reach out to me and offer to send me their tea advent calendar, to which of course I said yes! I was expecting it to arrive late, and yet to my surprise it was delivered this afternoon, right on time to be included in Day 1!

Starting off with a bang with a gyokuro! I honestly rarely drink gyokuro, though I do enjoy it when I do. I think it’s just an intimidating sort of tea because it’s expensive. But onward we go! I used Nio’s recommended steeping parameters that were included right on the packet (love that!) – 5g of leaf for 150ml of 145°F water, steeped for 2 minutes and then 20s.

I find this one to actually be quite light for a gyokuro. It does have that sweet vegetable-laden umami bomb sort of flavor, but it’s less intense than I would expect from my past experience with gyokuro. But I haven’t tried very many, so take that with a grain of salt. Deliciously sweet steamed spinach and creamy kabocha notes along with hints of fresh seaweed. Then in the middle of the sip, a toasty nutty note appears. I see their description mentions hazelnut and I think I agree with that, it’s definitely a toasted hazelnut though. The end of the sip is soft and refreshing, with a definite apple skin flavor mixed with freshly cut grass. There is a slight hint of bitterness throughout the sip, but it’s very gentle and adds a nice contrast to the sweetness and the richness of the umami.

The second steep is more savory and grass-forward, with less of the creaminess and sweetness of the kabocha. Still delicious, but more sencha-like compared to the first brew.

Maybe it was a bad idea to drink this at 6 PM, I’m already feeling the rush of energy… I forget that gyokuro is one of the only teas that actually affects me this way. Oops?

A great start to the advent though! ❤

Flavors: Apple Skins, Bitter, Freshly Cut Grass, Hazelnut, Kabocha, Marine, Nutty, Roasted Nuts, Savory, Seaweed, Smooth, Spinach, Squash, Sweet, Thick, Umami, Vegetables, Vegetal, Wheatgrass

Preparation
145 °F / 62 °C 2 min, 0 sec 5 g 5 OZ / 150 ML
Leafhopper

Wow! That calendar came fast! I don’t even have a tracking number for mine. (I hope it’s not stuck in post office limbo…) Glad the gyokuro was good.

Cameron B.

They didn’t give me a tracking number either. It looks like it was shipped from within Texas (I’m in Austin) so I guess that explains why it came so quickly ha ha.

Leafhopper

Yes, that would explain it! I hope they sent it via regular mail and not via a courier. I always seem to have problems with FedEx, DHL, etc.

Cameron B.

It was UPS!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.