“What I guessed would be a particularly unique sencha in the same vein as a few others I’ve reviewed from Thes du Japon, has actually felt a little more like ‘coming home’ to a familiar tea. If I...” Read full tasting note
Type of tea : Futsumushi sencha (normal-steamed sencha)
Origin: Shizuoka Prefecture, Fuji City, Imamiya
Cultivar: Sôfû
Harvest: First spring harvest (ichiban cha), hand picked
At the foot of Mt Fuji, the talented Katsuhide Akiyama grows around 40 different Japanese tea cultivars. They include Sôfû, a variety of tea plant originally developed for semi-fermented teas (Oolong). It is thus a cultivar that we can expect to have a strong fragrance. Sôfû is born of the crossing of the great Japanese classic Yabukita with the excentric Inzatsu 131 of Indian origin.
It is a green tea, a hand-picked futsumushi sencha (normal-steamed sencha), with delicate, finely rolled leaves. After infusion, the leaves release a subtle fragrance of sweet flowers from the lands of monsoons. This is a quality that is also found in the aftertaste of the liquor, which has a good balance between sweetness and astringency, mixed with light notes of lily of the valley, a legacy from Inzatsu 131. The taste of this tea is light, but long in the mouth, and also contains subtle hints of white grapes.
It is a delicate, subtle tea.
Steeping method
Quantity of leaves*: 3-4 g / 1-1.3 tsp per person
Quantity of water: 70 ml / 1/4 cup per person
Water temperature: 70°C / 158°F
Steeping time: 70-80 seconds
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