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SAMOVAR, have my babies.

Please.

This tea was a total shock. Seriously. Total shock. I can’t believe how much I’m loving this. Really, really loving this. Obsessed with the amazingness.

I’m officially a Japanese green convert. I heart Japanese greens.

I could drink this tea all day. Seriously.

I just… oh man. This tea. Awesome. Incarnate.

Okay, okay, I need to calm down, that way I can write a coherent review. Phew.

I’m just so excited because I really thought this is going to be a throwaway. I mean, I’ve had yuzu before. One of the restaurants I went to a while ago had yuzu salt for their steamed edamame. I’ve had yuzu sorbet at another Japanese restaurant. Yuzu is a pretty bright and clean-tasting citrus fruit, and it’s pretty tasty. Sure, I’ve never had it as a stand-alone thing, but I’m pretty sure of the flavor.

Anyway, this tea is quite gorgeous. The sencha here varies from a very light green to darker green, it’s a bit powdery at parts, and it’s mixed in with a whole load of tried yuzu pieces. The smell of it is mainly that grassy sencha, mixed with a slight citrus note.

I actually put a teaspoon of this into my warmed pot, and the smell coming off it was awesome. Almost completely sencha, but really buttery and warm. Mmmmm.

So anyway, I steeped this up quickly, and I loved the clear, light-neon-green liquid that emerged. The smell I’m getting off of it is rich and creamy and grass and so very Japanese green. And the taste… man. Let’s rhapsodize on the taste, because this was an experience.

The main flavor here is definitely the sencha. It’s light, but full-bodied at the same time, and bursting with flavor. It’s very grassy, but so smooth and peppered with notes of butter and creamy goodness that it’s pretty awesome. The yuzu is a bright afternote of citrus that’s very clean and refreshing and invigorating. It’s clearly distinctly yuzu, as well. Not any other citrus.

The yuzu-citrus-sweet-tart builds as you take multiple sips in a row, mixed with a green sweetness that tastes like you just ate the most wonderful field filled with dew-dropped delicious edible grass.

It’s seriously delicious.

The second steep (:20 secs, 160 degrees) was just as good, if not better than the first. I’m serious. Because now the yuzu and the sencha have sort of swapped places on the flavor totem pole, and the yuzu is more strongly highlighted. It’s almost lime-y sweet, not bracing or biting, but calm and smooth. The sencha notes are sublime here as well. It doesn’t taste tired or weak.

It just tastes like pure awesome.

takgoti, how do I love thee. Let me count the ways. You’ve introduced me to one of the best tea companies ever, Samovar. You’ve sent me amazing samples of tea, such as this yuzu sencha, which wasn’t even on my radar because it sounds so… MUNDANE. But it’s totally not. It’s a flavor festival of epic proportions. It’s grass shot through with sunshine and golden happiness.

I am on such a tea high right now. I am so giddy right now over this stuff. LOVE. LOVE LOVE LOVE.