Den's Tea

Found a sample of this at the back of my tea drawer, and admittedly, this has got to be old…like, real old, since I haven’t ordered from Den’s tea in quite some time (not because I don’t like their tea…I just don’t have enough money to order all the tea I want to. haha).
Anyway, even being old, I really like this. It’s bright, with that vegetal bitter note I was expecting. I don’t think I’ll rush to buy it (again…in my dream world, my tea budge would be HUGE….), but it’s definitely a nice cup.
I wonder what it would taste like if it hadn’t been hiding in my tea drawer for such a long time….

oh i do so like this! it’s definitely NOT one of the rich deep-sea brothy senchas, but a nice delicate light (chartreuse!) green that is accented wonderfully by the genmai. TASTY! and a perfect after-meal cuppa, as it won’t weigh you down, not at all.

haven’t tried a second steeping yet, but am thinking of steeping for longer next go-round, just to see what happens.

Toasty and roasty and delicious. I am SO glad to have found a good teabag option for when I am dog sitting. These have the bonus of being individually wrapped, which I normally would find to be wasteful but make them perfect for my purse tea stash (yes I carry about 10 higher quality teabags in my purse for tea emergencies) or travel.

Writing this on my phone because my computer is broken, the charger port is loose and I am waiting in fear for the repair man to get back to me to tell me how much it will be to fix and how long it will take.

Well, this is the closest thing I have to a grapefruit tea after that Adagio sample. At least I know this one will be high quality! Stephanie and I split a package of this since neither of us wanted a full 2 ounces without trying it first. Yay for tea frens! I really liked the two Kukichas I tried recently from Yunomi, so I’m excited for this one. Inside the pouch are flat green stems along with teeny pieces of citrus peel, all coated in fine green powder. Dry scent is fairly strong on the citrus (I’ve never had a yuzu before, but I would describe the scent as somewhere between tangerine and lemon).

There’s actually not a lot of yuzu flavor in the taste, but it’s very delicious overall. The kukicha is mildly grassy/vegetal with a ton of sweetness (probably from the matcha as well). The yuzu flavor is more of an accent than the star. There’s just a bit of citrusy freshness that pops out at some moments, and especially in the aftertaste. Overall, it’s sweet, creamy, and delicious!

If you let it steep for awhile it will eventually smell of Genmaicha but the taste is always like roasted Kukicha. Really, it just tastes like Kukicha so why not just buy Kukicha?

I found this to be a really bitter tea. Not fun to drink at all. I followed the instructions when making it and I wonder if messing around with the amount and volume might have helped. But I only had a sample. Still, I didn’t find anything in the flavor to really love.

The tea smells like a particularly sweet (but not cloying) apple cider. The taste is also more apple cider than apple. I actually find the taste to be very cloying (unlike the smell).

When preparing the tea I found it very easy to make it over-steeped. It got bitter very fast. So I use a much shorter steep time. This creates a blander tea but that’s better than an over-steeped tea.

Over all I can’t say I can recommend this tea. Neither the smell nor taste were terribly compelling.

This tea is from cookies. I find that I prefer this style of tea to regular houjicha, which tastes rougher and more “leafy” to me. Visually, this tea looks quite similar to the Kaga Bocha I tried from Lupicia, but a touch darker in color. It’s made up of very fragile and brittle roasted stems, and the color is a medium tan. Dry scent is sweet and roasty, and I can smell something that reminds me of apricots.

The steeped tea has a strong roasted aroma, but it also smells like toasted nuts with a touch of sweetness. The taste is quite mellow. It has a nice, comforting roasted flavor that’s not overpowering. I can also taste heavily toasted nuts such as pecans and walnuts, as well as dry autumn leaves. Overall it’s yummy, but I tend to prefer genmaicha or oolongs when I wanted a roasted tea. :)

This is a very mellow yet well defined green tea. Mellow in that it isn’t very acidic. Well defined in that it has a definite green tea smell and taste. It is just so well mannered and refined I felt like I should sip it out of a porcelain cup at afternoon tea.

The smell is awesome and I find that if I take an extra long steeping (a full 3 minutes) that it brings that awesome roasted rice flavor into the tea. This is becoming my go to Genmaicha. That or Den’s super green.

Thanks to The Cookie Lady for this sample tea. I liked the pineapple sencha from Den’s Tea and figured this might be good also.

I followed the instructions on the packet: 30 seconds of steeping, 1 tsp. of tea in 4 oz. of water, luckily I do have a little Japanese teapot that is around 4 oz.

I found that this yielded a very light cup of tea, vegetal and creamy with just a bit of green apple flavor. I was hoping for more apple flavor in this one. My second steep was around 30 seconds and now I am getting lots more green tea flavor but almost no apple flavor. I think this is a fairly subtle brew but I think it would be amazing as a cold brew in the summer time! I’d like to try brewing the remainder of my sample at some slightly different parameters before giving this a number rating.

… thanks again, Cookie Lady!

HHTTB

First sip of this was a bit bleh! Reading other’s reviews, I may have over steeped this with a 2m time. Adding a little more water helps! This has a really nice aftertaste with what I associate as cherry blossoms or leaves. I get a little bit of the fruit at the beginning of the sip. There is a grassiness to it. I’m not super impressed with this tea (not really a sencha kind of gal), but I’d guess that in the right setting I might be. Like if I was sitting down for a meal of really nice sushi, this would be a pleasant surprise in my cup.

Very green due to the matcha being added.
Smell – toasted rice, nuts
Taste – vegetal, spinach

I always wondered what the awesome tea was that I got in some Japanese restaurants and now I know! The tea has a wonderful deep roasted flavor and I don’t even know how to describe the soft but wonderful aftertaste. This tea involves wonderful flavors I literally don’t have words for! :(

Stephanie was kind enough to send me a bag of this one. I promptly cut the cold-steep tea bag open and put it in a ziploc because I really like this kind of tea hot. This barley is crushed up and texture is fairly coarse. It smells strongly roasted and similar to coffee, similar to the other barley teas I’ve tried. I used about a teaspoon and a half for 10 ounces of water.

Mm, this is tasty. It has the rich roasted flavor of coffee without being as strong and overpowering as straight coffee is. And there’s no bitterness at all, which is lovely. There’s a clear, light sweetness that lingers with the roast in the aftertaste. Yum, very good, and I’ll definitely try a little cold-brewed as well.

This is an interesting alternative to regular sencha, but I’m not sure whether I like it better. It’s intensely vegetal, like steamed green beans. It has a brothy mouthfeel and lingers a long time, and I think I prefer it with food than without. It’s assertive enough to cut through strong flavors but not overwhelm them.

The tea smells more like grape bubblegum than normal grapes. It’s a very sweet somewhat aggressive smell. The taste however is a bit more subtle. Again, more grape bubblegum than grape the fruit, but much milder, less aggressive than the smell. It’s a fun tea for the morning and mid day.

The first tea I’ve tried from Den’s sampler pack. Very refreshing with a slight hint of bitterness.

Sample sipdown…
I could have sworn I reviewed this tea before but according to Steepster I haven’t. Anyway this is a sample I got from Den’s Tea which is a few months old at least, but it was very well sealed so I’d think it’s fresh.

I’m still sick and am going to the Dr. today because I suspect I have a sinus infection. I don’t know how much this is affecting my tastebuds, but I still feel like they are okay.

I definitely have enjoyed these type of fukamuhi senchas in the past. After steeping for 90 seconds, the tea liquor is light green and is very fresh and mostly sweet. I get a lot of spinach notes here and not a lot of noticeable astringency. Hopefully this will perk me up a bit…

I think I don’t like this one much because I can still kinda taste the bancha. If it were a roasted oolong I’d like it more. I really just don’t like the taste of grassy bancha. So this one isn’t really for me. Not horrible. But definitely not my favorite.

Well, I’ve decided I’m on a green tea kick tonight. Have so many things I need to try before Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales so gotta hurry and try all these samples so it will give me a better idea what to buy.
This one is probably the win of the night so far though!
Can’t believe it took me so long to try this one.
I love the extra sweetness the matcha adds to the genmaicha. It’s just the perfect combo. Would definitely buy more of this! :D

Bright and grassy both in nose and taste this is what straight up green tea should be. It’s just a mild round green hug. Both the first and second pulls were equally awesome.

If made via the instructions, 1 rounded teaspoon per 3 ozs, then this is going to be one pricey (but tasty) tea. However I did the unthinkable and on the third (yes, third, the shame!) pull I actually used my usual green tea approach of 165 degrees and used a ratio of 1 rounded teaspoon per 8ozs. The results were wonderful! In fact, I had thought it would be so weak that I let it over steep! The idea that you could over steep on a third pool hadn’t occurred to me.

If you like clean vegetal green tea, a ‘straight up’ green tea taste then this is a winner!

So…I think I brewed this too long (somewhere around 2 1/2 to 3 minutes) and was left with a slightly bitter tea…or maybe sencha just IS bitter? I don’t know because I think this is the first sencha I’ve tried. My fault. BUT!! The apple flavor still exceeded my expectations! While this smells very jolly rancher-ish in the bag, the aftertaste is that of having just swallowed a bite of a very juicy Granny Smith apple. Lovely! I was warned by Jennkay, who was kind enough to send this (and the grape sencha from Den’s, as well) off to me, that I may not end up being incredibly fond of this. As a result, my expectations were quite low…which maybe worked to my benefit here? I don’t know. What I do know is that this grew on me. I’ll definitely be drinking the rest and probably will try ordering some of their other flavored senchas, especially since I keep hearing about how good their pineapple sencha is.