Den's Tea

Mmmm. I love Japanese green tea…This sencha is very nice, although I’m having trouble tasting things lately, and I’m not sure why. It smelled lovely enough in my infuser and cup. It is rather expensive though.

I loooove genmaicha! This one seems pretty standard; not really wowing, but not bad, either. It’s a good tea for a hummus sandwich.

I agree with the other two posted on this. I do also feel it is a bit too light on the peach but yet what peach that is there is very good! The green base is wonderful. My daughter tried it and liked it and said it was very refreshing so thats not bad – I like for her to have green tea every day so this is one I know she will drink. Hubby loved it too.
I got a couple of other flavors I have not yet tried – hopefully they are a bit stronger in flavor. Still this is very nice for what it is.

Just enjoying this delicate yummy cup and liking the fact that I have been so sparing with it thus far. It has to last till next spring! Yikes!
Its always a pleasure to enjoy this tea.
See other notes for more details! :)

This tea makes my mouth water just sniffing it in the dry state! It is such a pretty spring time tea, to look at and savor the flavor of!
Sakura is the Japanese word for cherry! So this is a cherry flavored sencha!
I also love Den’s Tea! From my first impression of them when they sent my 3.00 sampler pack along with 3.00 off my first order, to their super fast shipping, to the quality and diversity of teas, to their fair price structure. Everything about Den’s is wonderful!

This tea though, oh this tea … its my favorite Den’s tea to date and that is saying a lot because I absolutely have a love affair with Den’s Genmaicha! This is a beautiful display of tiny budded cherry blossoms laying dreamingly atop a grassy green field of buttery nutty sencha leaves. They look like delicate little fairies that could blossom open and dance about playfully at any moment. This is a tea that anyone could enjoy but younger girls would delight over if you wanted to teach them through a sweet tea party about quality tea! I am sure just the look of this tea would make young girls squeal in delight but the smell and flavor is what is truly to cherish!

It is a light tea, be careful not to over steep or you will lose the cherry flavors that make this tea so bright and cherry! Just as this is a delicate looking tea, dainty in its presence, it is a delicate tea that needs to be treated as such. On a good note its not bad over steeped, just a deeper grassier, butterier green flavor. You can’t go wrong but I am all in for the cherry cheery flavor! I realize that the steeping instructions on the canister, and the website make one pause and wonder… “Can one really get the full flavor of a tea in only a 30 second steep?” Yes one can, and one will, if one simply allows this tea to be what it is meant to be, a light, refreshing, cup of wondrous yum! Don’t push this delicate jewel of a tea to be more than it is because it is delightful left to a short dip in a warm splash of water.
Brewing instructions are 3oz of leaves at 180F for 60 seconds. Steep only 15 seconds on second cup. Of course I had 8 ounces of water in my kettle so I added the appropriate amount of tea leaves.

Other flavor profiles include, buttery, grassy, nutty, earthy, floral and vegetal.

It is sad that it is only available in early spring and even more sad I only ordered one canister! Tea this precious and wonderful however should be something we cherish, like the cherry blossom tree itself, presenting in early spring for our enjoyment, one should savor it while they can! This is surely one for my permanent supply and a tea I will never become tired of. I can’t wait to steep some of this and enjoy it with my daughter! 

LOVE this tea! Follow steeping instructions on can – yes JUST a 30 second immersion! Multiply your leaves per ounces you want to drink. Its a delicate tea and needs to be treated as such. I tried over steeping and failed, tried again per instructions and succeed. It is not a POW in your face flavor but the flavor is more than present when you do it the way they suggest. I ADORE this tea. It is cherry cherry and oh so yummy! A new permanent stash favorite!

When you open the package to Den’s green tea and you smell the seaweed scent, you know that that’s what a Japanese green should smell like. I’m so happy my order came today; I’ve been dying to have more of this tea. I tried to brew this in my yixing, but realized that was stupid after all the little bits of tea got caught in the holes of the pot and clogged it up. So, I switched to my ceramic pot.

Anyway, the tea is tasty and delicious. It is a bit astringent, so sip with a little caution until you figure out how it works. Very tasty and seaweed-y though. Just what I love in a Japanese green.

Sipdown! 149/365!

Another yummy tea gone. I quite enjoyed the light cherry sweetness of this green, and the lovely mariney base.

One of the first teas I ever got; this is still pretty tasty! Loving the cherry flavour – floral yet sour and realistic. The base is probably a little less vibrant than it once was, but there were no off-flavours. Just lovely.

Ok….. my bad. I left this tea waaaayyyy too long (in the opened packet) before going back and finishing it, which I haven’t yet even done, and then when I finally brewed some up today, I definitely didn’t follow the brewing instructions, just made up my own. Oh well… It’s still tasty – I can taste the green tea (which is a bit astringent), and absolutely delicious fresh, tart cherry flavour, though it’s a bit mild. I have to say that this tea tastes a bit old, which like I said is entirely my fault, but I imagine that proper brewing parameters may have also helped! Luckily though, it’s still tasty enough to drink and enjoy, so I didn’t completely ruin it! This reminds me a good deal of Butiki’s Strawberry Oolong, and I have a feeling that my mom would really enjoy it… so one day, I should acquire some to give to her!

ETA: Got a decent second infusion here with a 1.5 minute steep in 70C water. Not too astringent, as some people have been remarking the second infusion tends to be (although my first infusion parameters were not standard anyways). The first infusion is definitely infinitely better though.

Ok, figured I should get going on trying my samples from Den’s Tea before my $3 off coupon expires!

I wasn’t in the mood for a straight green, so was eyeing up the genmaicha w/matcha until I noticed this one! Yes! Yum, fruity green tea. That’s what I want.

I’m not exactly sure how this one will turn out though – as I was waiting for the water to cool to 180F, I noticed that it indicated the volume of water should be 3oz. Three?! I probably have 10 or so in my cup! So I made a quick decision to split it in half, and infuse one, then the other. Soooo we’ll see. The teaball was an inappropriate choice due to water volume, as it turned out, because it wasn’t even fully covered… oh well.

The dry tea smells mostly like tart cherries. Yum.

First infusion (179F/1min):
The aroma is slightly sweet, and a little cherry-tart. Weak, but smells delicious. Woah. Hmm. How to describe the flavour. There’s a bit of cherry sweetness, but not much, and there’s a definite slightly seaweedy green tea flavour. Drat – I drank some oolong before this and just realized that the flavour is lingering in my mouth too much. Time for some Malted ChocoMate (?) Great, now I have malty goodness lingering in my mouth. Sencha Pear? Ok, that was probably the best choice. Now to wait out the lingering pear flavour.

…

Ok! Back to the tea. Oh yes, flavours much clearer now. A nice sencha base with just a hint of floral, tart-ish cherry. Really lovely, actually. I thought I wasn’t a big sencha fan (probably because it has usually been bitter or astringent for me), but this is neither, and quite tasty. Ok, my taste buds are getting confused. I’m tasting oolong aftertaste again. Maybe I’m getting it confused with green tea aftertaste? Maybe they are one and the same!? Ack!

Second infusion (180F/2min):
A bit more cherry here, and definitely more astringency than I’d like, but no bitterness. Should have gone with another 1 minute infusion, I think, not 2 minutes. I really like how subtle the cherry flavour is. I was expecting it to be more overpowering, but its probably much better just being light and subtle. I feel like this tea has at least 1-2 more good infusions to give me (but I think I’ll drop the time back to 1.5 minutes).

ETA: Third infusion
Light cherry flavour, but I can’t really taste the green tea anymore :( I think I used too much water, in part, and I may have worn it out with the last infusion. I must remember that greens can’t be re-steeped as much as oolongs (IIRC). Oh well!

Delicious.

I don’t tend to use tea bags, but I was heading out and the place I was going doesn’t have a great selection of tea. I remembered there was a tea bag included in the sample pack I got from Den’s, so I brought it along. Upon trying it, I was surprised to find that it was quite good. Surprised both because it was from a bag, and because I tend to dislike green tea (though I got the sample pack to see if that was because I had just had bad teas before, or something). It was slightly earthy, but not overwhelmingly grassy. Slightly sweet; I added sugar about halfway through, and that was a mistake.

I barely brewed this. I had heard you weren’t supposed to brew green tea very long, but I didn’t remember to check how long was ideal before I left. I just took a sip when the water seemed dark enough, and liked the flavor so didn’t brew longer.

I also wasn’t in control of the temperature, since everyone was using a communal electric kettle.

I’ll probably buy this regularly. =)

Drank it again. Still love it (see previous notes). Need to buy more. If I could only drink one green tea for the rest of my life, this would be it.

I’ve decided this is my favorite Japanese green, and I’m upping the rating to 100 because I think it’s perfect. I like it even better than the Shinchas I ordered from Den’s this spring (as good as those are). It has such an incredible sweet, yet savory, buttery, brothy, thick flavor. I’m sure I need to sample more green teas from other companies, but it would be hard to imagine how they could top this.

This is the best sencha I have ever had. Delicious! Rich and almost savory, as others have mentioned. Vegetal, buttery, grassy, thick. No bitterness or even a hint of astringency. It doesn’t taste like vegetable soup, but it gives a similar effect.

I realize this tasting note is short…I will update soon, when I have time to drink it, savor it and record all of my impressions. But seriously, if you are thinking of buying this, you will not be disappointed. I think even those who aren’t big fans of Japanese greens would like this. It’s that good!

I finished this up today. It was a good tea! I love the matcha in here and the bright green brew! Very colorful and very much like spring. It is a bit astringent, even with my shorter steep time. Overall, a good green tea. Not my favorite though. The only other matcha green blend that I’ve tried and absolutely love is genmaicha with extra matcha.