Sakura Sencha

It’s Friday! And the sun actually came out! Wooot! What better way to celebrate than with my first spring tea of the season.

This has a light floral and fruity taste, without being sweet. I generally can’t stand all things cherry flavored as they remind me of children’s tylenol syrup from back in the day, but this just tastes so light and fresh and natural. The flavor is so delicate; it tastes like my tea was kissed by a cherry blossom. Mmm…it’s love at first sip. Hello spring!

The smell straight from the bag is incredible & pretty strong (like cherry candy) but it mellows once you put the leaf in your brewing vessel.

Steeped, the cherry tasted isn’t nearly as intense as the dry leaf aroma would suggest. The balance between cherry and sencha is quite nice. The later infusions lose the cherry taste and you get more sencha.

This is the perfect Spring and Summer tea. It’s great iced on a hot day. Since it’s only available for a limited time (maybe 2 months near the beginning of the year… in other words NOW), buy a couple pouches and store one unopened in the fridge. You’ll be glad you did when the weather changes and you have this refreshing treat to drink :)

Note, this does have cherry flavoring added.

This is one of the most refreshing teas I have ever cold-brewed. Like other Den’s flavored teas, this tastes better cold. Huge improvement I didn’t mention in my last note (which I wrote more than a year ago) that the flavor tends to be too strong, even bitter, when I use the package’s steeping parameters. I had to really tweak the instructions for the tea to be palatable. With a larger volume of water – cold – the sakura is lighter, not at all overbearing. Very flavorful and yummy. The sencha is fresh, leaves soft enough to chew and eat on its own (I’ve found that this is applicable to other Den’s teas). I will say again that because of the sakura blossoms and the fertile green color of the sencha, the leaf itself is very pretty, both dry and wet. Overall, excellent summer tea.

Wonderful, lovely, nearly perfect tea.

I knew I’d love this from the moment I opened it up; I’ve smelled artificial cherry blossom scents before, but this reaches a whole new level of nose sensations. It’s a floral scent mixed with fruitiness — fairly strong, with a more subtle sencha underneath.

I don’t have a thermometer or a timer, but I stuck to the instructions Steepster offers as best as I could (I’ve accidentally made it with a much longer time as well; for your own sake, stick to a quick steep). This resulted in a lovely light golden liquor, much more colorful than I’m used to seeing tea get after sixty seconds.

The flavor is also surprisingly powerful, which is a great thing in my book. Of course, it’s nothing like my favored gunpowders and dessert teas, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s just a distinct but delicate floral version of the cherry flavors I’m used to, sweet and (another surprise) salty. The sencha base takes a back seat here, but what I can taste is a nice little nutty/grassy green — not interesting enough to drink all on its own, but perfect as a base for flavoring.

Basically, I love this. And if you like floral teas, green teas, and/or cherries, you will too.

I buy this every spring.
It’s delicate flavor is understated, smooth and refreshing. There is something very refined about this tea. I’m drinking it from a matt/textured/rounded glass cup which for some reason adds to the experience.

This is another tea I just don’t love as much as everyone else does. I was excited to try it after reading all the rave reviews. Plus, I had no idea what to expect – I’d never had sakura-flavored anything before – and I enjoy trying new and (to me) unusual flavors.

As others have mentioned, this is an absolutely gorgeous tea. And the flavor is perfectly pleasant. The sencha dominates, and it’s quite vegetal. Depending on how the tea is prepared, the cherry blossom can come through reasonably well or hardly at all – more on this below. The cherry blossom flavor, when present, is light and sweet, a combination of fruit and floral (although I find it veers more toward the floral side of things). It’s nothing like cherries, or like cherry flavoring. It tastes quite natural. It’s by no means bad, although it’s not as mind-blowing as I’d expected it to be. I thought it would be more strongly floral, and perhaps less sweet – more along the lines of a jasmine or elderflower, both of which are floral flavors I adore in teas.

I feel like I’d probably enjoy the sencha base more on its own, minus the cherry blossom flavoring. In addition to the qualms voiced in the paragraph above, I’m just not sure I like the combination of vegetal green teas and fruity/floral/sweet flavors. I like to keep sweet and salty/savory flavors separate when it comes to food, so I suppose it’s not surprising that my preferences on this carry over to tea.

I’ve tried preparing this tea several different ways. The first time I made it, I followed the instructions Den’s provides. Subsequently, I’ve made many cups’ worth of this tea western style; I’ve also tried it as a cold brew (my first!). I think my least favorite of the three methods was, surprisingly, the official one. This is partly due to my bias toward quick and easy tea preparation – I like to keep tea relaxing, and all the timing and measuring involved in gongfu brewing just doesn’t do that for me. But it’s also partly due to the differing flavor profiles – I found that the western and cold brews both gave me stronger flavors (in terms of both the sencha and the cherry blossom) than did the official method, and I like strong flavors. I found the western hot brew (which I drink hot) and the cold brew (drunk cold, obviously) to taste pretty similar, although I haven’t done a side-by-side comparison.

When I got the email that this tea was back, I was tempted into buying right away. But then I saw it become sold out twice within a week, I knew I had to purchase quickly. Holy crap, this is quite amazing. It’s so delicate and REAL cherry flavor. I drink tart cherry juice everyday, and this capture cherry’s flavor perfect. I love the little heather flower buds in it. I never had a tea with heather. I just makes it look so beautiful.

And the tea was so GREEN! I kind of wish I bought a pound of this. I didn’t think anything could beat the pineapple flavor. I am loving the sencha in this, just a tip of astringency. So relaxing and tasty.

Just a cup of perfection, and wonderful iced, too!

Well, the dry nose in this was initially floral, then milky and finally spinachy. When I brewed it up, the tea smelled floral and milky; an interesting combination. Once it cooled down to a drinkable temperature, it tasted quite pleasantly of milk, with an aftertaste of natural cherry. Maybe my tastebuds are weird or something, because everyone seems to have tasted something completely different than I did. I like it though; it’s really nice and tasty.

1 tsp @ 135 F for 45 seconds
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The (fairly) cool water makes for a smooth tea. I can’t taste any bitterness at all, just floral hinted sencha. Almost too hinted; the trade off between temperature and bitterness means that there isn’t enough sakura in my sip at such a low temp.

Very nice aroma – it smells like freshly cut green apples. Not at all astringent, with a clean, simple flavor. Brewing suggestions on the bag note that steeping at lower temperatures brings out more of the sencha flavor, while higher temperatures bring out more of the cherry flavor. Time time try a lower temp.

The first few sips were really excellent, but as I drink more of it, I feel like I’m losing interest. Second cup is kinda meh. Definitely something you’ll want to share with friends, but don’t drink this alone.