Hachimanjyu: Organic Shincha, Spring First Flush Green Tea (Kuriwatase & Saemidori) {26149}

Did this one with both a really long first steep and in my more normal method, like I did with my last shincha. I liked this one better. The leaf fragments seemed noticeably larger in this one.

First session: (160F) 2m, (180F) 20s, 45s, (190F) 60s, then one long steep at ~175.
The first steep was certainly bitter, but it was a bitterness which lent the tea such wonderful depth when combined with the thick texture and succulent green floral note that I got out of this. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. I also could’ve been getting some of that umami flavor and struggling to describe it. Second steep had a touch of bitterness left to it, gone by the third. Those two steeps had a sweet vegetal flavor, like peas or green beans with a slight grassiness. This shincha is a lot less grassy than the last one I tried. The last two steeps were notably clearer and had a gentle, sweet vegetal taste.

Second Session: (160F) 1m, 30s (175F) 45s, 1m (158F) a longer steep.
This one definitely had a sweeter first brew with that sweet beany vegetal flavor in the fore. It also had a toasty flavor which reminded me of sweet bread – this is something I didn’t get at all in the last session. The second steep was vegetal with a grassy aftertaste, the strongest I tasted the grassiness in this tea. My next two steeps were grassy/vegetal with a really nice sweet fruity aftertaste, reminding me of melon. Last steep was, like in the previous session, a softer echo of the vegetal flavor I had been getting. This was a pretty nice one.

One of a few shincha samples I purchased from Yunomi this spring. I hope I am not going to regret this caffeine later but I seem to do ok with Japanese green teas in the afternoon and the theanine helps me relax this as well.

A lovely shincha from Yunomi. Couldn’t grab the photo off their site, so sorry about that. I am drinking it in my new clay kyusu though which came from Japantown. Here’s the photo on IG: https://instagram.com/p/2mgX4JILZD

Anyway this is a really nice shincha. I did one 90 sec steep and one 60 sec steep and found I liked it slightly better at the 60 sec. mark. It has a lot of flavor, brothy with spinach type notes, a nice sweetness and a slight bitter finish. It seems very clean and fresh but it’s not the sweetest shincha I’ve tried. I might try steeping this at 30 seconds too. Pretty happy with it though, definitely a tasty tea and gives a nice relaxing energy :)