Den's Tea

The aroma of this is wonderful! The color of the loose leaf mixture is gorgeous! I’m so excited to try this! Yup! YUM! This cup is HOT but I’m seeing a ICED one in the near future as well! This is lovely! The dry leaf smell tops the taste but the taste is sure up there too! Taste-wise mostly green tea – a sweet green tea – with lovely grape and cranberry notes. I can barely taste the raspberry tho. Regardless…very nice!

This smells great for a Genmaicha – roasted rice almost like a soy sauce type stir fry thinger-muh-jig. The taste is more mellow than I expected but still good. I would drink this again but don’t know if I would buy a large quantity

I’ve been wanting to try this for a long while and recently got a sample from Den’s!!! I’m told this will change my opinion of matcha’s! :)

One thing I have found is…I have been using TOO MUCH while preparing! Well, that could do it, eh!?

It smells like buttery vegetables…in a good way. Yes, it’s creamy. That’s a plus. It’s NOT Chalky…a definite PLUS.

Um, yes. This is CERTAINLY better. MUCH. I now like Matcha. Thanks Den’s Tea. I’m a changed girl!

Cofftea is sure to be proud! :)

The more I drink – the more I like.

YAY!

THE BIG FUKAMUSHI TASTING CONTEST
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 Special
6 oz + 2 tsp leaf
1st- 160, 30scds: clear/light green color. No astringency, no bitterness. First a little watery, but then quickly full of umami. Finished with a sweetness that hit the mouth very intensely, and then slowly dissipated.
2nd- 180, 15scds: darker/deeper green. More astringency, still flavorful, some umami. Not much sweetness or other flavor, a little uninteresting.
3rd – 212, 15scds: yellowish-green. A lot more astringency and bitterness, but still a very pleasant amount (more interesting than 2nd, good taste).

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)

Ahhhhhhhhh! PURE Fresh, Pineapple! Perfect scent of Pineapple
If you like Pineapple…check this out!

Before, During, and After it’s all about the freshly cut Pineapple Smell…once you infuse add the fresh Pineapple smell to a Green Tea and there you go! It has a typical Sencha type color and the taste is refreshing and creamy, yes, creamy! I was shocked it was creamy…I mean it says it’s creamy but I didn’t believe it for myself until I tried it. AND it’s still all about the Pineapple! YUMMY Juiciness! The Green Tea Taste is still true as well!

This is a darling of a flavored green sencha tea!

Almost forgot to log the other day…enjoyed it more than before upped my rating on this one…see my other notes :)

This is my first Den’s Tea and I’m REALLY excited. I’ve been wanting to try Den’s for a while! Dry loose smells like gently toasted nuts or oats, even. The liquid post infusion is even more gentle in scent. It’s very light in color. It a bit on the mellower-side than I assumed…which isn’t a bad thing…just an observation, really. It’s a toasty, semi-sweet, honey-like flavor with woodsy aftertastes to it. This is a pretty solid Houjicha! I have had some ‘iffy’ ones but this makes me want to voluntarily try more and start even liking them more than before. Well Done.

Another yummy tea from Den’s. I really want to roll around in their tea fields! Brewed as stated in the instructions, comes out perfect. This reminds me of a Chinese green tea. A lush tea. And at first, it wasn’t my favorite tea. Once I had it 3 more times, I am in love with it! I am looking forward to trying it iced.

I would buy this again.

I’ve had genmaicha in the past and was greatly turned off. They always have a burnt flavor. Well, not this one! Brewed as stated, and it was perfection. Nutty, light, and sexy! Second brew was just as tasty. I will try iced next time, but loved it served hot! I tasted peanuts it in, too! Truly an awesome tea, will have it again!

I love this tea!!! I first had it at a sushi restaurant and saved the wrapper to remember to buy it. I finally found that wrapper and bought a box. It’s lush and very green in appearence. I am in the process of trying the novice pack from Den’s Tea.

But this tea changed what I thought was green tea was. Kind of like listening to the Beatles for the first time in your life.

Yummy for breakfast, with my PB&J sammich. I actually left my packet of Sencha Fuka-Midori at a friend’s house and only recently retrieved it, so for almost a month I was drinking mostly chinese greens. Today, reunited with my tea, I was reminded why there was a time early this year when I just HAD to have my morning sencha at the office. If not, I’d get really snappy by 9:30 a.m. You do not want snappy. I have pointy objects in reach at my desk.

To be completely honest though, I can’t really tell the difference yet between this tea and my cheaper Japanese supermarket sencha. Can’t afford the premo stuff now either, which is a shame, what with Shincha season around. But for now, I love this for what it is: a good staple.

And oh crap I forgot to try this out with my banko houhin. (d’oh!) Next time.

PS. I have to make a not-so-secret confession. After my second steep I peered into my kyusu and those slices of leaves just looked so delish so I reached in a pinched me a bit and gave it a nibble. heh-heh… It’s actually not bad. But I still felt sheepish about it, for some reason. But why should I? I’ve read you can really eat the leaves anyway. So there’s nothing wrong with me, right? Right?? Gah. Joins Tea Leaf Eaters Anonymous

Tried this for the first time this morning. Towards the end of the cup, the sweetness definitely came through.

I am curious to try it with a lower temperature, to see if I can bring out the sencha flavor. So far with every genmaicha I’ve ever tried, the roasted/popped rice flavor overpowers the sencha. This is a nice flavor, but I wish I could taste it in combination with sencha.

On the 3rd steeping, of course the matcha flavor is gone, but has been replaced by an almost houjicha-like roasted sweetness.

My last serving of this from the Den’s sampler. I like this one and will probably order more. It’s got such a nice balance between the vegetal and roasty flavors, and a lovely level of natural sweetness to it. And, I’m finding it equally good in the afternoon as it is in the morning – gotta love versatility!

Felt like a toasty morning tea – it was between this and Den’s Houjicha, and this one seems to be hitting the spot. I’m tasting less of the vegetal element this time around than last, though it is still there. Since trying this the first time, I still haven’t gotten around to ordering a straight matcha to experiment with, but tasting this is renewing my determination to do so. I went to a great little shop in San Francisco when I was there a few weeks ago that specialized in all kinds of Japanese things (just had to pick up some forms for making sticky rice into star and heart shapes!) and they had some nice looking teas – unfortunately I didn’t take the plunge and buy any of them. I know there is matcha in my future though…

Opening up the sample packet, I’m struck by the bright green color the matcha lends to the ensemble. Amazing that tea can be so, so green. Fantastic aroma of roasted grains and vegetables. The first steep (boiling, 30 seconds) was also bright green, and sweet. The toasty and vegetal flavors are holding hands in the middle of the room, making googly eyes at each other. No bitterness at all, and just the tiniest hint of astringency.

2nd steep: boiling, 15 seconds. Losing some of the nuttiness in the aroma this time around. Still a really bright green liquor though. All the flavors are still there, but now they’ve mellowed with the passing of time and are content to simply be present in their own subtle way.

I think I like this one a bit more than Den’s bagged Genmaicha, if for no other reason than to enjoy the sight of the leaves as they transform under the influence of the water.

This is the last of the sample that I got from Den’s novice sampler.

Buttery, sweet, fantastic! I wish all Sencha teas could taste as good as this!

Enjoying a second infusion of this tea now. The flavor is a bit less sweet this time around with just a tad bit more bitter to the cup – but this is not an unpleasant bitterness, but more of a savory kind of bitterness to offer a nice balance of flavors to the palate.

I can also taste a bit more of the roasted nutty flavor to this cup, of which there were only vague hints of in the first infusion.

Still a very enchanting cup of Sencha tea.

This is another sample from the novice sampler that I bought some time ago…

The leaves resemble the Gyokuro leaves from SpecialTeas… they are very slender, deep forest green, and smaller than most Sencha leaves I’ve seen. At just 1 minute’s worth of steep time, the liquor is a beautiful celedon in color. And the flavor is just as lovely!

The flavor is very vegetative, sweet and absolutely delicious. It has a very pleasant mouthfeel that is a bit thicker than most green teas that I’ve encountered.

I will say this about Den’s – they KNOW Sencha!

The pyramid bag design is nice; not sure if increases the flow of water over the leaves, though that would seem the case, but it does make a stronger bag that doesn’t look like it would burst easily.

Very finely textured, powdery tea inside – it’s pretty clear that they adjust the size of the leaf bits downwards for the tea that’s going into bags. Nice clear yellow-green color to the liquor. The taste is good, but I’m not getting as many flavors bouncing around as I did with their loose senchas. I agree with other reviewers of this tea that it’s rich and buttery, with the vegetal quality at a pleasing level. I could see having this as a good standard sencha when I don’t feel like taking the extra time to work with loose tea.

Ah Sencha Fuka-midori, you were only with me for such a short time before you were gone again.

I tried multiple resteeps with the last cup’s worth of leaves but here the tea let me down. The resteeps were rather dull-tasting and lack-luster, and few of the flavour notes from the original steep carried over. The tea will lose a few points over that I think.

This sencha is one of the loose tea samples included in Den’s Tea’s Green Tea Novice sampler. The dry leaves are lovely to look at – shiny, dark green needles of tea that have a full, savory sort of smell with hints of nuttiness. When I took the leaves out after they’d steeped they looked almost like pieces of fresh leaves that had been picked today.

The colour of the tea is a vivid lemon-yellow hue despite having a fairly short steeping time. The tea itself hovers somewhere between the grassiness of matcha and the flavour of cooked vegetables. It has a distinct savory undertone to it – I think someone else called it umami and I agree with that. There’s also a bitter tang on the end of each sip that leaves a bit of a sour aftertaste in the mouth. Nothing too horrible though, and the other attributes of the tea more or less make up for it in my opinion.

I’ve not had much experience with authentic, good-quality Japanese teas, but within my limited experience I can say that I think this is an excellent sencha and something that I might consider buying a full bag of one day.

I received this tea bag as part of the novice sampler. And… after reading a few notes about this tea, I also agree with the majority and there does seem to be some Matcha in this tea. I can taste it.

Very nice vegetal flavor to this tea, and it is REALLY good, especially for being a tea bag (pyramid)… It is one of the better sencha teas that I’ve encountered and this probably has a lot to do with the matcha. Sweet, smooth and delicious… and perfect pairing with my egg rolls that I’m eating for dinner! Yum yum yum.

If you haven’t yet tried Den’s novice sampler package, I encourage you to do so. I have enjoyed each and every tea that I’ve had from the package thus far – it really is an excellent offer!

Mmm. I still don’t drink green tea every day, but this Den’s Tea sampler has me drinking it a lot more often. I’ve steeped twice so far, and it’s just this light, sweet green taste that’s been growing on me. Peculiarly satisfying. I may end up buying more of this, though I have another sencha from Den’s yet to try.

2g leaf, 4oz water