Sencha Ashikubo

So glad I chose to steep this green tea from David’s Tea first.

The aroma is very planty, less grassy and more fruitful, and softer than a green tea would be.

There are various details of fruits among it’s bright planty body, with a soft grounding buttery flavor, the hint of toast most would say.

It is not as strong as a regular straight green tea would be, an almost perfect level of taste, color and aroma.

I had this today as the $1 straight tea promo and I suspect that I let it steep a touch too long because while it was grassy and fresh there was an unfortunate hint of bitterness that I suspect could have been avoided had I removed the teabag a moment sooner. Besides that, this tea was lovely and light, brewing a beautiful pale golden green. I won’t rate it, since I messed up the steeping…

Second steep: Alright, so I saved the leaves for when I could steep them again and am I glad I did! It still has loads of flavour: grassy with the faintest hint of wood-fire, and a creaminess that reminds vaguely me of Quangzhou Milk Oolong. With the bitterness gone maybe I can get another steep…

Nope, no luck. My husband threw away the leaves before I had the chance. Oh well, 2 steeps was well worth the $1 I paid.

I’m admittedly, not a huge japanese tea fan (they’re very finicky to make), but I really enjoyed this, I used the traditional low temperatures and short steepings, and made 3 steepings 30 seconds, 1:00 and 1:30 from 2.8 Grams over approximately 200ml of water. The second steeping was a little too long, and the tea was slightly over steeped, but still very good. I liked it’s nice nutty, smooth notes, but it still maintained a strong sencha/japanese green taste. Highly Recommended.

This was part of a three set of samples I got from DAVIDsTEA. I have never really had a green tea and I was excited to try this in hopes of expanding my palate. Though my hopes were sadly dashed. I thought it was how I steeped it but no matter what I tried, one thing kept coming back…

It smelled like dead grass that had been toasted. It was making my stomach turn. I relented and took a sip and found it abominable. I couldn’t stomach it and the taste lingered. It tasted too much like cut, deceased grass on a hot, muggy summer day. I had to stop and accept defeat. This tea is not for me. Luckily it was a small packet but now I wonder if Green Teas are for me.

If I couldn’t bare this… What about others? At least this tea gave me thoughts to ponder…

I hate rating a tea so low as many people will know its not a bad tea; however it is certainly not one I found palatable either. I got a bunch of the straight green tea’s for my Grandma this Christmas as she is a huge fan of green tea and has never had any of DT’s blends it was a must. I grabbed Dragonwell, Korean Sejak and Sencha Ashikubo. Anyone who has bought Sencha Ashikubo knows its freaking expensive! So I had to sneak a small cup to try out to see if it was worth it. I even brewed it the gung fu method as recommended, but no matter what I did to me it tasted like seaweed or something. Not for me, but I can only imagine for straight Green Tea’s it must be pretty high up on the list.

I was a little worried when first looked at the tea. It was a dark green almost as dark as a black tea. I was afraid that it would have a very strong grassy flavor. But it just had a nice smooth, light green tea flavor. it is worth a try.

Love the buttery undertone on this delicate Japanese green tea. Be careful not to over steep.

I like straight green teas, but I’m definitely still learning about them and tweaking my steeping techniques as a result. For this tea, I agree with those who have recommended steeping at a lower temp (165-170 degrees F) and for shorter intervals. This tea does lend itself well to re-steeping. So far, I’ve found an initial steep between 1-2 minutes at 170 degrees F to be ideal. The right steep produces a smooth, mellow grassy green note. I do add a little honey and a squeeze of lemon, but I tend to do that with most of my green teas. The squeeze of lemon comes in because of scientific research showing how just a little bit of citric acid added to green tea boosts the absorption of catechins (antioxidants in tea that have an anti-cancer effect) by 500% (see “The Cancer-Fighting Kitchen” by Rebecca Katz & Matt Edelson).

I love green, grassy, vegetal teas, especially if they have a creamy, buttery edge to them. This isn’t as sweet and buttery as Butter Sencha, but still has those same tones, with more of a grassy, pleasant, green flavor in this. It tastes like a cool summer’s day, laying in the green grass of a local park, drinking tea and staring up at the clouds. Very calming and satisfying.

#ProjectTeaWall

I’ve been dreading finishing off the senchas on the wall, but it’s gotta be done. I drank this one during the staff meeting we had on Sunday; to make it a little more bearable I added a 1/2 pump of agave. I’m at a point now with the rest of my staff where they know I’m dreading a tea/dislike it when I add agave to it because it’s so out of character for me. I generally just do not like adding sweetener, and the odd time I do it for general enjoyment I’m reaching for the honey…

This wasn’t TERRIBLE though. I mean, I finish it which is more than I can say for a lot of sencha I’ve consumed just casually. When I was doing my Sommelier course it was the one tea we’d do cuppings of that I dreaded more than anything else. I hated seeing tea go to waste so I’d finish every single cupping worth of tea – even on days I was doing 12+ cuppings in less than two or three hours. Every tea, that is, except the sencha. That one I’d just swish and spit, with usually ONE small swallow just to get a feel of the aftertaste…

This was a little bit peachy, but mostly just clean marine/seaweed notes. Abrupt finish, without lingering notes at all for which I was grateful. Unlike a lot of sencha, it didn’t taste super lawn-clipping like to me either which I think probably has to do somewhat with the fact this is a higher quality grade. It makes me dread the Japanese Sencha though because that’s the one I have left, and that’s the lowest grade we carry…

Song Pairing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6GxtIVnoB0&index=1&list=WL

Friendly reminder that I do not numerically rate DAVIDsTEA blends as I’m currently employed there and it would be an obvious conflict of interest. Any blends you see with numerical ratings were rated prior to my employment there. These reviews are a reflection of my personal thoughts regarding the teas, and not the company’s.