Kimberley's Kyusu

When it comes to Sencha, I have sipped and sampled my way through many since the start of my journey with Japanese tea, and I still continue to do so, despite having favourites I regularly return to because there is always something new to try, be it from a new farm / garden, a different cultivar or from a company I have never tried a sencha from before, like Ippodo. Despite having tried both Matcha and Gyokuro from them, the sencha I’ll be reviewing today is the first Ippodo Sencha I have ever tried.

If you have read my recent post featuring their premium Gyokuro and their Seiun Matcha, you’ll know that I have been completely enamoured by the consistent level of quality across the board. With that in mind, my expectations were incredibly high going into my first session with their Sencha Kumpu, and luckily it did not disappoint.

Below are my notes from my two sessions with this tea, during which I focused on experimenting with different water temperatures to see how they would effect this tea.

1st Session Parameters: water temp 65C, 210ml of water, 10g of tea, first steep 60 seconds, second steep 30 seconds and third steep 40 seconds

2nd Session Parameters: water temp 85C, 210ml of water, 10g of tea, first steep 60 seconds, second steep 30 seconds and third steep 40 seconds.  

The dry leaves of this tea are a deep and rich green in colour, with some flashes of lighter green throughout. The aroma is made up of grassy vegetal notes, butter, lemon zest and dried mint. Throughout the session the liquor of this tea ranges from a pale clear golden yellow green to deepened tones of golden yellow, with only a touch of cloudiness present in steeps two and three. Overall, the aroma of the liquor has notes of steamed green beans, peeled white potatoes and lemon juice.

Even when steeped at a lower temp of 65C, there’s a decent sharpness within this tea, alongside a little dryness, both of which sweep across the tongue from left to right each time you take a sip. This dryness does not stick around for very long at all however, transforming and leaving a lesser sharpness across the entire tongue with and a touch of citrus.

Rich and elegant is the perfect way to classify this tea, it is intensely buttery and brothy (vegetable), the first infusion has a citrus element, while the second steep has notes of pine, dried cucumbers, hints of marine air and sea vegetables. There was a floral note present throughout the session, starting off mellow in the first steep and getting a little stronger in the second and third. There are sweet notes with this tea but they are grassy and do a great job of stopping those sharper, bitter notes from getting out of control. 

While I don’t usually discuss the empty cup notes in my posts, I had to include them in this one because they were incredibly unique. There were elements of a traditional fish and chip shop, chips with salt and vinegar, seaweed salt and seaside air. 

The finish is just as complex as the flavour profile, it is refreshing, sweet, vegetal, delicate, slightly sharp and long lasting. The sweetness is the last thing to dissipate from the aftertaste and it is much stronger than it was in the liquor, taking on a honey taste right at the back of the mouth and into the throat. The sweetness in the aftertaste is even more intense when steeped at a higher temperature, which is a nice respite after the more savoury, slightly sharper vegetal notes in the flavour profile when steeped at a higher temperature.

I think that going forward when sitting down to do a session with what I have left of this tea, I’ll stick to steeping it at a hotter temperature and following Ippodo’s guidelines, because I did enjoy the balance that the heightened sweetness brought to the cup. This Sencha is fantastic and as I believe that both long time Sencha drinkers and people who are new to Sencha would love it equally. I simply do not understand how you could not sip on this and love it no matter where you are at in your journey with tea.

Art Pairing: When picking a piece of art to pair this tea with, I wanted to make sure that it matched the way in which this tea is rich, elegant and incredibly complex and the first piece of art that came to mind that is all of those things and more is Sandro Botticelli’s – the Birth of Venus

A masterpiece that is rich in symbolism, materiality and technique. Complex within its composition and narrative, being diagonally balanced to help create a sense of movement with Venus drawing your eyes to the centre of the canvas and the surrounding landscape and figures creating depth.

From top to bottom, it is incredibly elegant and despite it’s richness and complexity, it is clear that so much refinement and restrain has been used, shown in the calmness within the brushstrokes that are incredibly detailed and precises. There is just and overall harmony to this piece and I feel like that is reflected in the tea I paired it with.

Should you want to try this tea for yourself, it is currently still available over on the Ippodo website and should continue to be for the foreseeable future. If you have tried this tea, I would be interested to hear what you think of it in the comments as well as what pieces of art you think it would pair perfectly with.

Until next time, Happy Steeping – Kimberley