Sencha Scent of Mountains

Tea type
Green Tea
Ingredients
Green Tea
Flavors
Asparagus, Nutty, Seaweed, Umami, Spinach, Vegetal, Butter, Butternut Squash, Grass, Sweet
Sold in
Bulk, Loose Leaf
Caffeine
Not available
Certification
Halal, Kosher
Edit tea info Last updated by TeaEarleGreyHot
Average preparation
165 °F / 73 °C 1 min, 45 sec 5 g 7 oz / 221 ml

From Our Community

2 Images

3 Want it Want it

13 Own it Own it

9 Tasting Notes View all

  • “This is a free sample provided by Russel Allyn and Harney and Sons. Many thanks! The dry leaves had a lovely spinach aroma! I love the name – I did a survey once about “worship styles” and my...” Read full tasting note
  • “This is a new favorite in the tea room. It is an excellent sencha for a very reasonable price. It’s light a sweet and the leaves will rebrew six or more times (we gave up before the tea did). ...” Read full tasting note
    95
  • “Sencha Scent Of Mountains. Harney & Sons. Lot no. 25258. B.B. 09/15/2027. Prepared 2.5g of the fine, broken, fragrant green leaf-shards as directed: Western style in a stainless steel...” Read full tasting note
    95
  • “This is the perfect green tea for me. Lots of that wonderful, buttered-vegetable flavor, but absolutely no seaweed notes (hate that). It just feels NOURISHING to drink this wonderful brew!” Read full tasting note
    90

From Harney & Sons

This Japanese green tea is a hit! The Otsuka family, who supply several Japanese green teas to us, did a great job with this Sencha. Sencha Scent of Mountains originates from Kawane, the highest tea region within the vast Shizuoka tea region. Although not as high as Darjeeling or Uva, it is high for Japanese tea gardens. The cooler air contributes to the delightful aroma. The body of this Sencha is lighter than other Senchas due to its lack of deep steaming. People love the delicious light vegetal taste and distinctive aromas. This brew remains one of the most popular teas at our SoHo flagship store.

Prior Description:
High above Kakegawa, where our Ichiban Sencha comes from, is the village of Kawane. It is one of the highest tea growing spots in Japan. Up there, it cooler and foggier, so the tea grows slowly and has a lovely vegetal aroma. This tea has been steamed for the traditional time (just 30 seconds), so the tea leaves are larger than the Ichiban, which is deep-steamed.

About Harney & Sons View company

Since 1983 Harney & Sons has been the source for fine teas. We travel the globe to find the best teas and accept only the exceptional. We put our years of experience to work to bring you the best Single-Estate teas, and blends beyond compare.

9 Tasting Notes

3643 tasting notes

This is a free sample provided by Russel Allyn and Harney and Sons. Many thanks!

The dry leaves had a lovely spinach aroma! I love the name – I did a survey once about “worship styles” and my results said that I feel closest to God out of doors. That is absolutely right, though throw in some mosquitos and our summer humidity and I will get close to God right by the a/c vent thank-you-very-much. The aroma of the dry leaves reminded me of the aroma of Weishan Mao Feng that I tasted a few days ago, but the liquor is nothing like!

The tea steeped to a lovely greenish yellow. I poured some into my small white cup and there were tiny specks of dark green, which I find absolutely beautiful. My husband freaks out if there are “bits” in his tea, but with good tea, I consider it to be decoration, like spices sprinkled on food. It makes it look so wholesome, so real, so unprocessed and natural.

The taste of the tea is vegetal, grassy, and very brothy. There is a bit of butteriness as well, but perhaps that is the texture of the tea rather than the taste. This is a wee bit brisk, not unpleasantly. H&S gives it a 2 on their briskness scale, so very low.

After the sip, for several minutes a sweet taste arises – the sweet plum flavor but here mixed with a hint of the spinach flavor as well.

The second steep is as dark, and the flavor almost unchanged.

I am glad I made a lot of this. I have combined the first two steeps in my tetsubin over the warmer so I can drink it all day, and I hope to give these leaves a good run and see how many good steeps they have in them!

Thank you, Russell and Harney and Sons!

gmathis

Said survey … online somewhere?

ashmanra

It was given out in a women’s group and had been in a book one of them owned. There are several of those things I would love to find again. Maybe google?

ashmanra

I googled. Here you go! I think this is the same one.
http://common.northpoint.org/sacredpathway.html

gmathis

My next stop :)

gmathis

Oh, that’s funny—-I signed off and signed back in to mention the very same one: http://common.northpoint.org/sacredpathway.html I’m chiefly intellectual…go figure :)

Barb

Naturalist here.

ashmanra

Well, Barb, let’s head for the woods, sit by the creek, and we will let gmathis pull up a rock and do the teaching! :)

Barb

I’m for that! Make it a pine forest and a mountain creek and tell the bears, black flies, and mosquitoes to keep a respectful distance and I’m there.

ashmanra

How about the beach? With a nice sea breeze, the skeeters won’t come around and they don’t have bears! :) I guess we are conditional naturalists! LOL!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

95
168 tasting notes

This is a new favorite in the tea room. It is an excellent sencha for a very reasonable price. It’s light a sweet and the leaves will rebrew six or more times (we gave up before the tea did). We’re so happy for the new addition to our Japanese tea selection.

Preparation
150 °F / 65 °C 2 min, 0 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

95
239 tasting notes

Sencha Scent Of Mountains. Harney & Sons.
Lot no. 25258. B.B. 09/15/2027.

Prepared 2.5g of the fine, broken, fragrant green leaf-shards as directed: Western style in a stainless steel micropore infusion basket, with 8 oz 175° alpine spring water for 2.5 minutes. This resulted in a vivid gold-colored infusion with a terrific aroma of chestnutty asparagus and a hint of kelp. Some fines escaped my infusion basket, resulting in a slightly turbid appearance, but they soon settled to the bottom of my cup.

Smooth and buttery with a wonderful “chew”, the powerful aroma and flavor, again with a nutty asparagus sensation, permeated my mouth and sinuses. Slurping revealed notes of summer squash and the umami of kelp, yet the tea had neither bitterness nor astringency nor sourness. It gave me the feeling of a pleasant moment of relaxation on a crisp early autumn morning at a rocky jetty overlooking a secluded bay, with sea otters frolicking in the mist. Perhaps this is what a believer feels like when “close to God” (with a smile @ashmanra ) Recommended, I give this a rating of 95. What a nice selection of Sencha Harney is offering at present!

Flavors: Asparagus, Nutty, Seaweed, Umami

Preparation
175 °F / 79 °C 2 min, 30 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML
ashmanra

It is a delightful tea! I am glad you enjoyed it. We could all use some “otters in mist” moments!

TeaEarleGreyHot

It reminded me of a group journey about 15 yr ago along the rugged coast of Oregon, and a lovely botanic garden on cliffs overlooking the splendid ocean below, where my friends and I took a relaxation break. And also a couple visits to California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium in the late 1980’s. Aaahh, the Pacific Coast is just marvelous. And this tea merited those dusty memories!

Catherine Baratheon

A really beautifully written review

TeaEarleGreyHot

Thank you, @Catherine Baratheon! Hope you get to enjoy the tea sometime!

Chi-Town Anglophile

Wow, Ms. Baratheon is 100% right – I want to run out (or run onto my computer!) to buy some of this marvelous stuff myself!

gmathis

Tea notwithstanding, I just want to go find your rock and sit on it!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

90
4 tasting notes

This is the perfect green tea for me. Lots of that wonderful, buttered-vegetable flavor, but absolutely no seaweed notes (hate that). It just feels NOURISHING to drink this wonderful brew!

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

85
4464 tasting notes

The first tea to try from my Harney & Sons order! :D They had a few different sencha teas, I had to get this one because of the name. I know, that’s not really a good selection method, but too bad! :D The leaves look similar to the other senchas I’ve tried – very thin, dark green leaves about three-quarters of an inch long at most. This tea has a powerful smell! It has the same strong sweet and grassy/vegetal scent, but for some reason it conjures up images of mango for me. I brewed it for 1 minute.

The aroma is very sencha-y – steamed spinach and grass with some butternut squash. My boyfriend claimed it reminded him of some form of meat stew (what?). This tea tastes quite similar to Den’s Sencha Shin-ryoku that I tried a few days ago. On Harney’s website, it says that this is a medium-steamed sencha. The taste is sweet, strong steamed spinach melded with squash and a slight grassiness. The flavor here is quite deep. It has a buttery spinach aftertaste that lingers for a long time, and is my favorite part of this tea. Quite tasty. And hooray, Steepster added “butternut squash” to the flavor list after I emailed them! :)

Flavors: Butter, Butternut Squash, Grass, Spinach, Sweet

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 1 min, 0 sec 1 tsp 8 OZ / 236 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

88
152 tasting notes

Light green in color with a steamed vegetal aroma. Brothy vegetal taste with spinach and sweet pea flavors. This is a delightful green tea.

Preparation
160 °F / 71 °C 1 min, 0 sec 5 g 6 OZ / 177 ML

Login or sign up to leave a comment.

68
1 tasting notes

My first steep of this tea is a little bitter; I think I should have steeped for about 2 minutes, not the 3 minutes suggested on the tin. Aside from the bitterness, there’s a deep, brothy flavor. There’s a warm, buttery aftertaste with some sweet, grassy notes. I’ll drink this a few more times, do some second and third steeps, then come back and edit this note.

Preparation
170 °F / 76 °C 2 min, 45 sec

Login or sign up to leave a comment.