Kimberley's Kyusu

Hey there Teacups! Day 10 of The Twelve Days of Teamas is here and for today’s post I’m going to be reviewing Macha Tea Company‘s – Nanadan Asamushi Okumidori Sencha, which was as I’m sure you all know by now was sent to me by Yunomi tea for this series. When it comes to Green tea Gyokuro is probably my favourite but Sencha comes a close second so I was really excited to see that Yunomi had include this in the box of teas they very kindly sent me.

As I said towards the start of this series Green tea it something that I probably don’t appreciate as much as I should and I never normally reach for it over other teas I have. But doing this series has helped me gain more of a appreciation for green tea but it’s helped me to gain more tea knowledge and I love that. When I started this series I had no idea it was going to teach me so much and I’m so incredibly grateful to Yunomi for taking a chance on this brand new series.

Here’s what Yunomi have to say about this tea over on their website: “Nanadan” Organic Asamushi Okumidori Sencha is a Yunomi collaboration with one of our oldest, most trusted customers, Macha Tea Company in Madison, Wisconsin. We tested dozens of candidates from our extensive supplier network to finally find this delicious, lightly steamed, beautifully shaped premium Sencha. This Sencha uses an extra early April harvest of tea leaves shaded for a few days for a splash of umami, and is lightly steamed to preserve the delicate needle shape that can be obtained only from leaves as young as these.

The Okumidori cultivar has come under the spotlight recently among Japanese tea experts here in Japan and abroad. It produces a deep green colour and a naturally sweet flavour.”

Tea Tasting Notes

To cut a long story short I love this tea and what I really like about it is that it has personalities of both Sencha and Gyokuro. It has a light buttery flavour, with all the best characteristics of both shaded teas and fresh spring Sencha, It is simply beautiful and it’s probably one of the best Senchas I’ve ever had. The leaves reminded me of freshly steamed green beans, intense green and perfect. I knew with the way that my health has been recently that I wasn’t going to be able to do multiple steeps with this tea so for this tasting session I used the steeping instructions over on the Yunomi Website that they give for the first steeping.

The instructions are as follows: ”Tea: 3 grams. Time: 2-3 minutes. Water: 50˚C/122˚F degrees. 60 ml. If enjoying with several people, added 3 grams / 60 ml per person. Adjustment to this recipe may be needed depending on your water. For those who know, this is the typical way to enjoy Gyokuro. The buttery umami flavour will be lighter than Gyokuro, but delicious! If you prefer a stronger flavour, use 5 grams of tea leaves. Steeping it like this worked really well and resulted in a cup that was an absolute pleasure to drink. I would have never thought to steep this like a Gyokuro so I’m really glad I took the tome to find out how to steep it properly.I was a little bit worried at first that I wasn’t going to enjoy this tea as the dry leaves smelt far to vegetal for my liking but it was nowhere near as vegetal when it come to taste. While steeping I was a little surprised by how pale and yellow the tea was It almost looked somewhat milky to me, I had expected it to steep up a pale green colour and be somewhat clear rather than a milky pale yellow. The flavour is incredibly delicate, buttery, somewhat sweet and vegetal and there is no astringency or bitterness to it t all. It’s honestly almost addictive hence why I said that this if probably the best Sencha I have ever had.

I can definitely see this being a great tea to experiment with and I’ll definitely be preparing it a few different ways throughout 2020 to see which way I like it the most. Something tells me that it would probably be great cold brewed and I’m really looking forward to trying it. I’m very glad that I have almost a full bag of this left because this is absolutely a tea I would have ended up breaking my tea ban for and once I’ve lifted my tea ban if Yunomi are still stocking this I will definitely re-purchase it time and time again.

Overall Teacup Rating: 5/5

If you want to find out more about Yunomi and purchase some of this amazing Sencha 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 over on Twitter/Instagram @teaisawishblog and I’ll answer them all as soon as I can.

Speak to you all again soon. Happy Steeping – Kimberley