Tea Review: Premium Spring Sencha Green Tea (Hachimanjyu Yakushima Tea)

Premium Spring Sencha Green Tea
Hachimanjyu Yakushima Tea (Yabukita & Asatsuyu)
Type: Green
Origin: Japan, Kagoshima Prefecture
Product Description:

The Yabukita is an Asamushi tea, or lightly steamed. This results a leaf that is kept more intact than longer steaming, and therefore results in a clearer, liquid that extracts more slowly from the leaf for multiple steepings. This type of steaming is usually reserved for higher quality leaf.

Meanwhile the Asatsuyu leaf, known for its strong umami flavor, is steamed chumushi, or regular steaming. This adds a delicious umami flavor and aroma to the tea.

Temperature: 140° F
Amount: 3 grams
Steeping Time: 1 minute

The dry leaves have a deep aroma of macadamia nuts with a hint of sweet grass.

The liquor is pale jade green with a rich and savory aroma of nuts and edamame.  The taste is savory with umami and nutty with edamame notes and a long, green, nutty finish.

For the purpose of this review, I followed the recommended brewing instructions, steeping the tea for 1 minute in 140° F water and the results were excellent.  The first infusion was filled with umami followed by spring green notes at the front of the second infusion, with a darker liquor color and thicker broth.  The long finish was particularly refreshing.

This tea was purchased by me.

Tea Review: Organic Yakushima Hojicha Roasted Green Tea (Yunomi/Hachimanjyu)

Organic Yakushima Hojicha Roasted Green Tea/有機焙じ茶
Hachimanjyu/Yunomi
Type: Green
Origin: Japan, Kagoshima Prefecture, Yakushima
Product Description:

JAS certified organic tea farm and factory Hachimanjyu roasts their green tea to create a toasty hojicha.

Temperature: 194° F
Amount: 3 grams
Steeping Time: 1 minute

The dry leaf has a deep aroma of roasted chestnuts.

The amber-orange liquor has an aroma of roasted nuts and caramelized sugar while the taste has notes of roasted nuts and nut shells with a long toasty finish.  

Roasted chestnuts are one of my favorite cold-weather treats and I knew I was going to have a good tea tasting experience when the aroma of the freshly opened tea package hit me.  The best flavor was in the first two infusions with the third being notably lighter, though still enjoyable.  The directions on the package recommend 1 minute steeps which worked out well as this hojicha has a fair amount of leaf in it and could get astringent with longer steeps.  

This tea was purchased by me.