Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms Sencha of the Spring Sun 2016

This was a pretty decent sencha – I enjoyed the irony of drinking it as some of the season’s first snow was falling today. I liked this one best with a longer/cooler (2m at 140F) first steep. That steep was nice and bitter, but mouth-wateringly so, rather than mouth-drying. It had a nice milky flavor and texture to go along with the grassiness. Decently vibrant in its grassy notes. I was able to get 3-4 steeps from this one, all of which were tasty. A solid, if not spectacular, sencha. Doesn’t stack up with some of the other Obubu sencha I drank earlier, though that may be unfair, as this one isn’t as fresh at this point.

This sencha has a good grassy taste and just a bit astringent on the first brew at 65 – 1 min. . The second brew was 10 sec at 80C and it became a bit too astringent at that temperature. It was lacking sweetness which I enjoy in some of my senchas and the deep grassy flavour had faded away on the 2nd steep. Perhaps it’s a matter of just getting the right steeping parameters , but this was only a sample and the last of this tea. I wasn’t overly impressed with it, there being plenty of other senchas that will outshine this one.