Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! Day 3 of Teamas is here and today I’ll be reviewing a Kabocha (Japanese Pumpkin) Roasted Green Tea (Hojicha) from Yunomi. Again while this tea is sold and was gifted to me by Yunomi it is from The Ocharaka Tea Shop so all credit for this goes to them. One of my favourite things about Yunomi is that they give me chance to try teas from tea shops/factories/farms that I never would have known about had they not have stocked it on their website. I love that they give the smaller companies a place to shine.

You all know how much I’ve been loving Hojicha through 2019 so when I saw that this had been included in the box of teas for this series I couldn’t have been happier. While I’ve had a few Hojicha throughout the year I’m yet have a flavoured one so I was really excited to see what this one had to offer and to see if I would enjoy it just as much as the non flavoured ones that I’ve had and loved this year.

Here’s what Yunomi have to say about this tea over on their website: ”Imagine pumpkin pudding and it smells very nice! Drinking with milk or soy milk is our recommendation!”

Ingredients: Green tea leaves grown in Japan, linden (also known as basswood), marigold, flavouring.

Tea Tasting Notes

I’ve become a huge fan of Hojicha during 2019 and I am also a huge fan of pumpkin so when I saw this on the Yunomi website I knew it had to be a part of this series. For this tasting session I steeped this on it’s own in 85c filtered water for 3 minutes and that was perfect for me. It resulted in a cup of tea that was a gorgeous caramel colour and smelt absolutely fantastic. I honestly think that when it comes to “green tea” Hojicha and roasted green tea is my absolute favourite; there’s just something so unique about it that I love and this particular blend just made me love it even more.

The dry leaf is rich and roasty smelling with a hint of caramel and with a note that makes me think of milk chocolate. The overall aroma reminded me of a chocolate bar we have in the UK (I’m not sure if it’s sold anywhere else) called a Crunch which is milk chocolate with crisped rice. I didn’t get much pumpkin from the aroma but I was hopeful that it would come through much more in the taste. To look at it reminded me a lot more of a Kukicha than a Hojicha as there’s a lot of stems but I didn’t mind that at all as I love Kukicha as well.

Taste wise this is honestly delicious just like I thought it would be. You can definitely taste the lovely hojicha base which is definitely the star of this show and shines so brightly it’s not as dark as some hojicha I’ve had but still has that lovely roasted flavour profile and subtly sweet caramel like notes. You can also taste the lovely and rich Japanese pumpkin flavour. which actually reminds me quite a bit of butternut squash mixed with sweet potato. I don’t know why it didn’t come through in the aroma but I’m very glad that it came through much more in the taste. I can also still pick out that chocolate note I got in the aroma in the taste which adds a nice creaminess. As with every other Hojicha I’ve had its got a really nice smooth mouthfeel and it’s a pleasure to drink.

The packaging suggests trying this as a latte prepared on the stove top which I am yet to try but something tells me it would be absolutely phenomenal so I’ll try it out as soon as possible and come back to update this post with my thought.

Overall Teacup Rating: 5/5

If you want to find out more about Yunomi and purchase some of this tea for yourself, you can do both here. As always if you have any questions at all either stick them in the comments or send them to me on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley

*The tea featured in the post was gifted to me for the purpose of this review/series. All opinions are my own and have not been paid for*