I don’t like this tea so much. Because this is my first gyokuro, I’ll try not to be too judgmental. To start off positively: this tea yields a refreshing, clean and very green-tasting cup. Flavors present are mostly sweet and vegetal, like cooked spinach. I can imagine someone being very happy with this tea when it is the first ‘serious’ green tea they have tried. But then. I find nothing special to this tea. It isn’t complex, nor is it very aromatic. There is a very slight hint of nice umami present in the wet leaves after the first steeping, leaving you disappointed to notice hardly any in the tea itself. I have tasted senchas that were a lot better and more spectacular, at similar prices. What also annoys me a little is that there are many tiny leaf particles, making the tea a little hard to brew.
After all, this tea itself isn’t particularly bad. Still it it doesn’t feel all that ‘superior’ at all to me. It leaves me with an unpleasant feeling of being sold something that somehow can’t be the ‘real deal’, for a pretty real price though.
In summary: if this is really a superior gyokuro, I’ll stick with sencha in the future!
Flavors: Spinach, Sweet, Vegetal
