Yuuki-cha

Another delicious shincha. I ordered a quartet of these from Yuuki-cha this year, and have enjoyed them all. This one is very similar to the Sayamakaori—it has sweetness, delicate vegetal flavors, and milder umami than many of the other senchas & gyokuros I’ve tried. I am happy through at least 4 infusions in the morning, about 1 gram per ounce of water at 160 degrees in my kyusu, 30" to start, then 10-20", 30-45", 60-90 seconds.

I prefer the lighter profile of this one to the Tenryu Misakubo as well: it has less dominant umami, which permits more of the flavors that I prefer—the sweet and delicate vegetal tastes—to come to the fore. It does not have a lot of stamina, but in the morning I generally don’t have time for more than 4 infusions.

I think I prefer the Honoyama to this one, but this and the Okuyutaka were both about equally delightful.

I put together a tea tasting note on my web site here (no adds, no sales, just plain tea notes with some photos):

http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/YuukiChaShinchas.html

This is a wonderful shincha. I ordered a quartet of these from Yuuki-cha this year, and have enjoyed them all. This one has sweetness, delicate vegetal flavors, and milder umami—less briny than many of the fancier shinchas. I am happy through at least 4 infusions in the morning, about 1 gram per ounce of water at 160 degrees in my kyusu, 30" to start, then 10-20", 30-45", 60-90 seconds.

I think I prefer the Honoyama to this one, but this and the Sayamakaori were both about equally delightful.

I put together a tea tasting note on my web site here (no adds, no sales, just plain tea notes with some photos):

http://www.well.com/user/debunix/recipes/YuukiChaShinchas.html

The leaves are exceptionally sweet smelling, and the longest of the beautiful leaves of the three shinchas I’ve tried so far (Honoyama and Tenryu Misakubo). The liquor, as before, is bright, light and beautiful.

5 g leaf, 5 oz kyusu, water 160 degrees x 30", 15", 30".

First impression is bright, light, sweet, vegetal, very much to my taste. No time today for a full formal note, but it may be a while before I get to that.

First infusion 30" 160°F/71°C with 4.8 g tea in a 5 oz (150mL) kyusu, 2nd infusion 15 seconds at 168°C/76°C, 3rd infusion 1 minute at 135 °C/57°C (cooling too much in Kettle, got careless). All delicious.

I tend to steep Asamushi a tad longer than fuka and chu. 1 min to 1.5 first steeps are normal for me with these. at 1 min..nice balance of sweetness and astringency. Good umami here.
2nd steep 30 seconds. 3rd steep 1-1.5min, 4th steep + 2 min.

good balance again by these Yuuki Asa’s. this one didnt get quite the amount of steeps the higher quality/priced ones like the Tenryu Misakubo but still not a bad Organic choice in a “lower priced” asa. i think I may have actually enjoyed the flavor profile of this one more than the higher priced hand picked tenryo. Just got more longevity out of the tenryo..

Breakfast sencha this morning, a particularly sweet and delicious brewing: 5 grams tea in the 5 oz kyusu, water 150 degrees to start, up to 170 by the 4th infusion, so nice in my blue Hagi.

Entering this note on my phone, can’t seem to use the sliders.

Just finished a very nice series of infusions to start the morning. Sweet, delicate, floral, vegetal, very nice.

Honoyama Organic Shincha from Yuuki-Cha today, my first tasting of this one.

Dry leaves are needlelike, very dark, rich sweet vegetal scent

4 grams of tea in 5 oz preheated kyusu

30" 160°F /71°C sweet, vegetal, delicate

10" 160°F/71°C umami, sweet, vegetal, nothing overpowering,

30" 168°F/76°C sweet, vegetal, hint of astringency aftertaste

1 minute 168°F/76°C sweet, vegetal, no astringency

a 5th infusion, with water that had cooled to 130°F/54°C in the kettle, for about 2 minutes, was losing steam, very dilute, but still sweet, vegetal, mellow.

Leaves after infusion are light green, small, few are entirely whole, but not very small pieces, with mild vegetal scent

This is wonderful, wonderful stuff, and my tastebuds are dancing with happiness.

First of all, I’m really excited to be heading to Las Vegas this evening for the World Tea Expo! I’ll be volunteering and helping out with a few of the sessions while I am there, should be fun!

This is the second shincha that I purchased recently from Yuuki-Cha. For this one I used 4 grams of fresh leaf in my 4 oz Kyusu, and I brewed 5 steepings increasing the temperature from about 140 fahrenheit to around 190 by the 5th steeping and I tended to steep between 20-60 seconds.

The first thing that I noticed was how wonderful the fresh leaves smelled, just pure sweetness and grassy freshness. The first two steepings of this shincha were delicious. They were a little more vegetal than the tenryu shincha that I reviewed a couple days ago and just a tad bit stronger, but this shincha still didn’t have that grassy/sweet punch that I tend to find in the yuuki-cha green teas. After the first two steepings though this tea quickly lost flavor and turned very astringent and bitter. Perhaps next time I will keep the temperature down on the later steepings!

This is my very first experience with Shincha! I ordered two Shinchas from Yuuki-Cha, this one and also an Uji Gokujo Shincha (which I will be reviewing when I try it).

I brewed this Shincha in my 5 oz Kyusu following the instructions that I was given by Yuuki-Cha. They recommended 5 steepings, with increasing steep temperature and time.

The first steeping surprised me because it was very mild. There were some hints of umami and sweetness in the tea, but it wasn’t as strong as I thought it was going to be.

As I steeped this tea a few more times, I tasted a little more astringency, but it continued to be a mild tea with a kick of sweetness as it hit the tongue. Very good!

Infusing 4.5 gram of tea in my 5 oz kyusu (about 150 mL water) with water at 160 degrees, after 30" the first is light and sweet and vegetal; the second (15") is sweet, a bit heavier with some sweet vegetal flavor and a bit of vanilla, a touch of umami but not much (a 30" second infusion was too heavy bodied when I tried that yesterday), and the third infusion (again 30") is more like the second, but the astringency starts to increase a little, but not enough to interfere with my enjoyment of the sweet vegetal flavors.

Delicious.

I think that shorter 2nd infusion allows the elements that have already started to leak from the wet leaves to be recovered without too much more coming out of the leaves (which would result in in an infusion strongly biased towards the umami, too much so for my taste), and then the 3rd infusion, there is not so much rushing out into the water, so an infusion the length of the first works fine.

Nicely intense and fragrant aromas of dark chocolate and cedar. Palate has good depth and persistence. Interest comes mostly from its different style to many other Oolong teas that I have had.

Price paid: $10 USD for 50g
Buy again: Yes

I’ve had this tea for a while now and have never taken the time to put some thoughts behind it, perhaps because my experience with this particular tea has been difficult and somewhat vapid. The occasions on which I brewed this tea properly were sparse and despite persistent cold storage, the tea lost it’s edge over the winter. When lively, it did give an electric yellow-green soup, dry, with lots of grass, kelp and mineral presence. Theanine was particularly strong. With age, it gave a resinous pine character and became more bitter. In the end, this tea may have been too finicky for my attention or experience level and not deep or juicy enough to warrant a re-visit.

This tea came highly recommended, but did not stack up to traditional teas.

If I were to rate this strictly against other organic Japanese teas, I would give it very good marks. It does not have the biting “oh my goodness, this tea is going to strip the enamel from my teeth” flavor and astringency that other organic Japanese greens often have, but it does not have sufficient body or character to come anywhere near a traditional Japanese gyokuro.

The leaf in the bag has the typical modern organic tea presentation of a dry and broken leaf with excessive twigs and dust. The twigs are represented by the lighter yellow stringy bits (which are not present in true gyokuro) and the dust should be obvious to all. The smell in the bag is pleasantly sweet, but has no depth.

When placed into the warmed pot the aroma does not increase. I steeped this tea both by the method prescribed and by my own cold and warm methods in a 4oz gyokuro pot. On all occasions the tea liquor was very green, but not very aromatic. The flavor was sweet yet somewhat insipid and lacking the character indicative of the varietal for which this tea is named: Gokou. By the third steep there was no flavor at all, but the liquor was still a pleasant shade of green.

The steeped leaf of a true gyokuro should be identifiable as a mostly whole leaf and tender, like spinach, and have no chewy bits. The steeped leaf of this tea was broken. The layer of leaf between the cuticles was mashed up, torn and separated. What there was of the leaf was papery and the bits of stem were unpleasant to chew.

If you are looking for organic Japanese tea, this seems like it may be the best you can find at the moment. If you are looking for good Japanese tea, there are much better, but they are hard to find.

This is my first real venture into Gyokuro. I’ve tried it before, but when I last purchased gyokuro I was still in the naive mindset that all green teas are brewed the same way (3 min, 180 degrees), and so I’m pretty sure that I butchered gyokuro the last time I had it. That being said, I now have learned that most gyokuro are steeped at extremely low temperatures (this one I steep at 104 degrees!) which brings out a completely different taste than you get at 180 degrees and I also brew it in a little kyusu now.

In this case you get a very sweet taste with slight vegetal hints, but not nearly as much as you would get at higher temperatures. The flavor is so different to me that I really don’t know how to describe it right now, but when I have a chance to try more Gyokuro, I’ll make sure that I report back

I really enjoy this sencha, and it is very good for an organic one.

I’m a big fan of matcha, and this offering by yuuki-cha is pretty good. I just recently started drinking matcha, so I don’t have much to compare it to, but this one has a very rich and creamy taste.

Even though this isn’t an option, I typically steep this tea at 140 degrees for about 2 minutes. I find this tea to be a great example of a fukamushi sencha, and I typically enjoy everything that I buy from yuuki-cha