Den's Tea

Sampling a little of this right now and it’s quite pure!

It’s a light lime green in color and it tastes like a smooth buttered-veggies. No strange aftertaste.

Thumbs Up!

So, I am not a big tea bag person because you can tell that most of the tea bag leaves have gone through the crush and tear process…. but I was impressed that the tea leaves (for green tea) were at a moderate to good level.

I must say this was a convenient way to have an iced tea ready to go during my morning rush! It was great not sweetened but surely a different quality from drinking loose leaf green tea. Still, if you need a quick iced green tea with a good flavor I would recommend this teabag

Wow, this tea is really good. Fresh, almost citrus leaf smell, good dry leaf color and nice bright green brewed color. Tea is sweet but with strong umami.

Just got some of this since it’s on sale. First brew, used about 3oz water to 2.4g tea, for 90 seconds at 150F. The color is light yellow and very clean, almost no “dust”. The taste is…similar to a Chinese tea, like a good Dragonwell. There is just the right amount of bitterness and plenty of umami. Not as vegetal as some…this is a little more on the floral side. Overall, a very good tea, but a little expensive at it’s regular price.

Oh and as always, the extras Den puts in the order make it just that much better. Got a free sample of Mugicha (barley tea) that I’ve always wanted to try.

This is cloudy and has a texture to it but it’s a lovely green. It’s mellow and calming but quite flavorful without being grassy or bitter. I would say it’s semi-pan fried and almost popcorn tasting. This is nice!

So yummy, spinach like. I think it’s thick, and lush. I, too, did the sample tasting, and it’s a fantastic trip! I recommend anyone to try it! I brewed it from 45 seconds to a 1 minute and didn’t become anymore bitter. Second brew, just as good, not as lush. Again, another winner from Den’s. I think of all the Senchas, this was my favorite. Though I’ve only tried three from the sampler. I am planning on trying them all!

The first thing I noticed was the incredibly green color of the liquor. I think it is just a shade lighter than Den’s “Extra Green” stuff.

The aroma of the tea is nutty with a steamed vegetable scent in background.

The taste is grassy and nutty. The aftertaste is that of steamed vegetables. It’s a little astringent, not bitter. I am really digging the nutty taste in this one; it fits so well with the vegetal flavor. It is somewhere between a light and medium bodied tea.

I like it. Too bad I only have a sample of it. :(

Had a sample of this in a recent order.
The rose flavor was very strong, it was actually difficult (at least for me) to taste the sencha. If you like rose-flavored things or rose in tea, you will like this one. The aroma is the best part about it for me, and it feels like very good quality.
The second and third steepings were better, because while it was still very floral, it was less so, and it tasted sweeter (I think it was a sweetness that was left by the rose flavor).

I wouldn’t buy a whole 2oz package of this, but that is because rose tea is just not my thing. Like I said, this seemed like it was high quality. I wouldn’t mind having it again if there was a free cup just sitting there, lol.

Not my favorite, but still a nice tea to try. Was too weak, had to add extra tea for my liking. Not the best of Den’s. It was too bitter, and I like a bitter edge usually.

Sweet. The instructions say boiled water for two minutes, but I just poured boiling water into a room temp gaiwan, which dropped the temperature down to about 180F. Then I tossed in a large pinch of the tea.

I love how the dry leaves smell like cocoa.

I was going to go for a second round, but there are magic elves in my house that whisk away used cups and dishes as soon as you leave them somewhere for more than two minutes. (Hi, Mom!) I’m kidding. Off to get a new cup to compare whether I like it better with boiling water, or cooler water.

EDIT: Def better with hotter water. Also: not that tasty when chilled. Because I made some extra and popped it in the fridge overnight and the next morning I poured it out and it was, uh. Hm. Sticking to this one taken hot. :P

SIPDOWN
Award winning…indeed! See previous notes to see why I think it lives up to it’s name and recognition!

This is FANTASTIC!
:)

I received an EXTRA Surprise from Den’s Tea…one that is NOT FOR SALE!!!! This lovely lil gem! This award winner…this 10th Anniversary celebration tea!

It has an oh-so-slight aroma of fresh green fields. The taste is so light and airy, even! It’s VERY clean tasting and thirst quenching with a very small hint of earthiness to it.

I makes me think of sunshine!

This is wonderful! In every way!

This is a VERY strong vegetal smell and taste. The liquid is murky but the taste is actually quite good. It’s a semi-sweet grassy taste but isn’t bitter or that funky grass taste. I would agree with the production description from the company saying it’s ‘hardier’. This is a pleasant tasting green that I would have again!

Finished this up today! Glad for more space for new tea, but it was excellent. Next year I may not get it again only because I still want to try other shinchas and get a good idea of what is out there, however I would guess in the long run it would be one I get in the spring.

This is almost gone! :( Maybe 2g left?

I had tried this once a while ago at 140, but I must not have steeped it long enough that time, because the only flavor that came through (that I can remember) was an intense sweetness combined with some pleasant bitterness (not that warming soup-like-greens quality, that extra depth that I was hoping for).

This time I went ahead and steeped it a lot longer, for 90 – 105 seconds.

It really tasted like the most delicous soup broth (without the saltiness), but at the same time it is STILL tea, and doesn’t feel weird to have it with breakfast.

I am not a vegetarian, but the savouriness of this tea makes me a believer that one could find, in vegetables alone, all of the wonderful flavors that roasted meat, beef stock, or bbq provide.

These are just leaves! Yet, they have just as much heart-warming deliciousness as a savoury french onion soup, and a sweetness alongside that rounds the flavor so nicely.

The 2nd steeping was almost as good as the first too… I’m going to miss this tea!

So I recently tried 5 different fukamushis, took notes each day, and now I’m ready to post the results and rank them! I used as equal parameters as possible to eliminate factors that could have affected the flavor or results. I am no expert or scientist; plus the results pretty much lined up with the cost of each tea, so there’s no big suprises here either!
(I’m going to put only the tasting note for each tea involved under the steepster profile of that tea, but the results I’ll include on each one).

Shincha Houryoku
6 oz + 2 heaping tsp leaf
1st – 160, 30scds: The brewed leaf was a really pleasing, beautiful color; it looked like fresh leaves just picked (though it was very small pieces of course, because the steaming breaks it up like that). The initial flavor was almost exactly like the hashiri shincha, that young, somewhat bitter then sweet flavor that tasted very fresh. This tea seemed at first just like a more mature hashiri shincha. However, this gave way to a pure, powerful, mouth filling, broth-like umami, which was very different than the hashiri. Don’t imagine it tasted like ramen broth, but imagine it tasted like delicious tea, and had the same wonderful feel and effects of the most delicious, (even sweet) broth you’ve drunk. Yes, I could describe it the same many do, ‘vegetal’, but it was still tea. It was like all the richness you get from cheesecake or some other dessert, without being sugary, or giving you the feeling that you’d get sick after a couple of bites. You could drink cup after cup and experience that delicious richness without becoming sick in the process. So good!
2nd – 180, 15scds: I got 5 steepings from this, and 2-4 were also very good. The flavor slowly changed in each one, but was good for different reasons. I remember the 2nd having still a lot of that pure, almost thick flavor…almost as if you could eat it. It wasn’t as powerful as the 1st steeping, but had a bit more of the lingering sweetness at the end. By steepings 3 and 4, I remember the initial flavor being excellent, a delicious bitterness that quickly transformed to intense sweetness. After that dissipated, there wasn’t much flavor left in the taste, but was overall very good for being the 3rd and 4th steeping.

Drumroll please…

1. Shincha Houryoku (Den’s)
2. Fukamushi Sencha Yame (Den’s)
3. Sen Cha (Sugimoto USA)
4. Fukamushi Sencha Special (Den’s)
5. Ocha-Zanmai Fukamushi (Yamamotoyama)

I love this tea. It has such a nice underlying toasted quality to it. As others have said, it isn’t a sweet-based sencha, but rather very heavy, strong umami and grassiness. It satisfies the same desire you have when you want a bowl of warm stew. No, it isn’t savory, but it has that same delicious, satisfying effect.

So I recently tried 5 different fukamushis, took notes each day, and now I’m ready to post the results and rank them! I used as equal parameters as possible to eliminate factors that could have affected the flavor or results. I am no expert or scientist; plus the results pretty much lined up with the cost of each tea, so there’s no big suprises here either!
(I’m going to put only the tasting note for each tea involved under the steepster profile of that tea, but the results I’ll include on each one).

Fukamushi Sencha Yame
6 oz + 2 tsp leaf
1st – 160, 45scds: The leaves were small (as to be expected), but were a very consistent shape and color (a darker green, it seemed, than the other fukamushis I’ve tried). As soon as I poured the water over the leaf, it let off a delicious, sweet smell…I knew it was going to be good. The color of the tea was a beautiful, clear green like matcha (in powder form, not the whisked tea). It had that glowing brightness, without the dark cloudiness that matcha has. Just by the look and smell I was guessing it was going to be very good.
It was. It came across first as a little sweetness mixed with just a hint of bitterness. There was no astringency at all. After the initial taste (which, did taste like that delicious aroma that arose when it was steeping..mmmmm), it quickly filled the mouth with such that familiar umami flavor…yet it was unique in some way that is hard to describe. It was like that to the last drop.
2nd- 180, 15scds: I don’t remember anything in particular about this one, other than it was also delicious. The umami wasn’t as strong but was still present.
3rd – 212, 15scds: A little yellower, as seems to happen with subsequent steepings. The flavor was more subdued and the mouth-filling/vegetal/umaminess wasn’t there, but it had a subtle sweetness to it. This was completely yummy in its own way. Really cool to see the different flavors this tea gave in the multiple steepings.

Drumroll please…..

1. Shincha Houryoku (Den’s)
2. Fukamushi Sencha Yame (Den’s)
3. Sen Cha (Sugimoto USA)
4. Fukamushi Sencha Special (Den’s)
5. Ocha-Zanmai Fukamushi (Yamamotoyama)

OK, so I just don’t get why anyone would cold brew except in the case of an iced chai emergency… but my quest for the perfect pear green tea makes me do weird things. It was on sale a month or two ago, so I “had” to try it.

1 bag/18oz cold water in the fridge for 1 hr.

The liquor is a very yellowish green and just a touch cloudy… almost like lime juice.

The flavor is very light like I expected it to be, but is very vegetably w/ a bit of matcha-esk qualities to it… and… lime? huh? I’m tasting lime instead of pear. Could all of my pear fataliTEAS have totally screwed up my perception of what a pear tea should be?

Well, now that I have prepared this correctly I must say it’s a very good tasting iced tea and a very sweet and healthy green tea. It’s very, very green in color…almost like a wheat grass health-juice looking thing. It’s very refreshing but at the same time the peach it’s very strong. It’s very green tea tasting and VERY very light on the peach…I would have loved some more peach flavor but this will certainly do for a pleasant taste and the yummy factor is there.

WHOA…
I soooooo read this wrong! LOL
I let sit for 60 secs not 60 mins!
Well, I did pour into a glass but will try the real deal in an hour…stay tuned…

WOW. I’m the first to log!? Surprising…

This is a no non-sense type tasting green. It’s fairly strong and sweet but almost on the verge of grassy towards the end of the sip onto the aftertaste. Mostly it reminds me of buttered veggies…broccoli, maybe!? Or Asparagus!? Regardless…pretty good.

I wasn’t too excited about this year’s Shincha season because I ordered Shincha from O-Cha last year and I wasn’t that impressed.

I tried Den’s this time because they have never failed me before… and they still haven’t.

The taste is delicate, super sweet, and smooth. Hardly any astringency – only when I get to the bottom of the cup does the dryness start to build. No bitterness… just the silky smooth grassy flavor. Hands down, one of the sweetest green teas I have had to this point.

I’m upping the rating on this one since I have yet to find a Grape Sencha I like better than this one yet. I’m having a cup before sending the rest to LiberTEAs.

Method: My New Libre Teas Loose Leaf Glass – now that I have watched a video on it I prefer the loose leaves in the main part/glass and then pouring into another mug VS the way I was doing it before with infusing the leaves in the top and flipping it upsidedown. I am working on a full review for SororiTEA Sisters so I will have some notes thru-out for a while…