Den's Tea

This is my first loose leaf from the Den’s sampler, and already the greens are growing on me. The dry leaves here are a really rich emerald green color, and the liqueur is a pretty spring green. The flavor is green, of course, but a very savory/sweet richness; a little bit umami, I’d say. There is a hint of bitterness, but just a hint, at the beginning of the aftertaste. The lingering taste is sweet and mouthwatering.

This is delicious for what it is, but I’m not sure that I like greens enough in general that I’ll be buying a larger quantity yet. I’m trying, though!

3 steeps and counting, though they only suggest 2, all around 1 minute steep times.

Having the last bit of the Den’s sampler of this variety. It never ceases to amaze me how different these drinks can be and all still be tea – from the vanilla black I had this morning to the Japanese green this afternoon. I really like the buttery vegetable quality of this one, so clean and fresh, but still with a really rich body. Good stuff.

A bad bout of hay fever since yesterday has kept my sinuses throbbing and taste buds non-functional. Still, I believe this tea seems healthy enough to at least give me the illusion of being good for me, even if I can’t really taste anything…

It’s kind of funny not being able to taste anything, actually, as that makes me focus more on the texture and other qualities of the drink. I get the little bit of astringency, and a nice mouth feel, and I can admire the beautiful green color of the liquor without being “distracted” by the flavor!

This one from my Den’s sampler pack; it gives me a chance to compare it to their Fukamushi sencha. The dry leaves are dark and feathery light, and exude a clean vegetal scent with an interesting top note. What is that? It’s very clean, so clean in fact it reminds me of soap!

1st steep: 180 degrees, 60 seconds. Like lots of different green vegetables all rolled up into one. I taste broccoli and spinach, slightly sweetened. Den’s tasting notes indicate a slight bitterness, but I’d go so far as to say very slight. There’s also a slick background of roastiness – one coat of paint on the walls of the room the veggies are sitting in.

2nd steep: boiling, 15 seconds. It’s amazing how far these leaves transform themselves during the short second steep. They are now bright green and easy to make out as large pieces of torn up tea leaves. Beautiful! The aroma is great – I want to put butter on that scent and serve it up with brown rice. The taste: much more pronounced astringency this time, sweetness toned down, vegetables still very much present.

I like this tea, slightly more than their Fukamushi.

Second try at this one, this time giving it a minute instead of 30 seconds steeping time. That definitely brings out the roastiness more, which is nice, but it also highlights a strangely astringent characteristic I hadn’t noticed before: I’m feeling the “puckeriness” more at the top of my mouth than at the back or on the sides.

It’s still just okay for me. I think I’d enjoy it more in the morning than in the late afternoon. We’ll just have to try it again!

The uncooked leaves are medium brown and have a deep and pleasant roasted aroma with a hint of sweetness; it’s actually reminding me of tobacco.

1st steeping: boiling, 30 seconds. The roastiness continues, unsurprisingly without the vegetal flavors I got from their genmaicha. There’s a natural sweetness to the flavor too, whch is pleasant. After several sips it’s tasting more like a roasted chicory drink – something I’ve never been too fond of, but in this mild form I may come to enjoy it. Very slight bitter aftertaste.

2nd steep: boiling, 15 seconds. As above, but with the volume turned down by about half.

Not a huge amount of complexity with this tasting; I’ll put on my deerstalker and see if I can detect anything new next time around.

Once again, I’m attempting to make some Iced tea, still attempting to get iced tea the way my host mother made it. I steeped this hot (30 sec, with boiling water) and then waited for it to cool and stuck it in the fridge.

The roast smell still is there, and this is pretty similar tasting to the iced tea that my host mother in japan made. The taste is very good. A little nutty and the roasted flavor is coming out. The roasted flavor is almost a little too strong for me, but this was definitely a successful attempt at iced tea. I should try this method for other teas. I just think this tea works as an iced version very well. I don’t really even want to try it hot!

I was a bit at a loss on how to brew this one up – I’d never done genmaicha in a bag before, and Den’s steeping guidelines for loose tea of this variety call for boiling water and 30 seconds. In the end I went with boiling water and 90 seconds, and found it flavorful without being bitter at that stage. The aroma is wonderful; really nutty and toasty, with a grassy scent in there too.

The flavor follows that lead, with roasty and toasty up front; reminds me of puffed wheat cereal. Mild astringency, very subtle grassy note. I’ll be interested to see how this compares to Den’s loose leaf of the same variety!

Two infusions of this go-to Sencha. Great as an after-lunch “digestif”, especially if I feel like I didn’t have enough veggies in the middle of the day!

I wanted a fresh, light, yet complex green tea this morning, and reached for this one. Good choice! It still amazes me how much flavor can come out of a briefly steeped green tea, and how much the flavor can change from the first steep to the second. This stuff tastes good and somehow it just feels healthy, too.

Already received the green tea sampler pack from Den’s which I just ordered a few days ago – what quick service! I’ll agree with Micah below that they’re good on customer service and providing interesting reading material with the order. I’ll also agree with the tasting hint from the company – this is a mild but complex sencha that reveals a little bit more with each sip. The leaves are light and thin.

1st steep: 180 degrees, 30 seconds. The scent reveals a pronounced vegetal note, and the first taste confirms it. About every other sip (how do they do that?) there is a hint of seaweed rumbling about in the background. There is a faint but persistent aftertaste, grassy and green.

2nd steep: boiling, 15 seconds. A more grassy scent this time, and more astringency in the flavor. A pleasing amount of umami makes it feel more robust the second time around.

I am just getting started exploring green teas, and found this one to have umami that overwhelms the honey-sweet that I crave, especially when infused as long and as low as Den’s recommends. I think it will is a great tea for those who are seeking that deeper vegetal flavor. It never gets remotely close to bitterness. It’s just not the tea for me, yet.

My rating reflects my preferred shorter hotter infusion time; because the longer steep is so much less to my preference, I would have to give it a lower rating under those conditions; but people who really crave that deep green vegetal umami, I think the rating would be much higher.

I infused it 5g per 5 oz at 140 for 140 seconds, as recommended, but prefer it 160 degrees for 30 seconds, 4 grams per 5 oz. I have trouble getting a pleasing second infusion because the umami takes over.

I had this again yesterday evening, and I noticed something for the 2nd time that really impressed me.
There is an underlying umami that comes out of this tea, especially in the aftertaste. It is a really unique flavor I’ve only found in green teas, almost marine-like, but it comes through at the roof of the mouth and in the nose at the very end (again, the aftertaste). It is a little sweet, too. Anyway, I was surprised that this came through in a roasted tea, and so wanted to give this one another thumbs up. That doesn’t seem like something that would come through in any roasted green tea….I think it probably has to do with the fact that these are tencha, rather than bancha or some other low quality leaf.

So after 3 steepings, the tea STILL smelled good. And we had the leftover leaves (only steeped once) of Florence (Harney & Sons). My wife had a good idea – we mixed the two teas together, covered them with ice, and let them sit the rest of the day.

That evening we had a nice, cool cup of chocolately, semi-hazelnutty, semi-toasty/roasted tea. The two flavors actually went pretty well together, though I’m afraid the tencha-kuki probably wouldn’t have come through if it had been our first steeping of the Florence.

I am curious to try these two together hot though. Definitely a fun experiment, and another testimony to the quality of this tea (Tencha-kuki), as we got 3 hot steeps and one iced out of it and had flavor every time.

This is very good. I don’t have anything new to add to what others have said. After trying once, I recommend it.

I steeped it 3 times, always boiling, but a little longer each time, and a little less water. It barely lost any flavor, so it seems like a good deal; sometimes it’s disappointing or feels wasteful if a (loose leaf) tea only stands up to one good steeping.

The last of this year’s hashiri shincha!

I hadn’t tried it iced (at least, I didn’t remember if I had) so I got about 2oz water, put it in the freezer until it was almost at freezing (35F). I poured that into the side of the kyusu (which had a little more than 1T loose leaf), so that the leaves weren’t completely covered in water, more just sitting in it. (I of course steeped it more, one at 140, 160, and 200F…the 140 was awesome especially too).

It was so good; had as much umami and almost seaweed-like flavor that the Award Winning Premium Gyokuro had. This is definitely my favorite tea so far (with the Gyokuro coming in a close 2nd). I will miss it until next year; hopefully it will be just as good!

On the brewing instructions that they send out, Den mentions that his grandfather liked brewing hashiri shincha with boiling water, and that he likes it as well. The instructions go on to recommend playing with the parameters too, to see how it affects the flavor so you can find what you like best. The only rule of thumb is higher water temp = shorter brewing time, lower water temp = longer brewing time.

So I just had to experiment and try it with boiling water.

It was STILL excellent. The bitterness (or young/fresh flavor) was more pronounced, but not at all overpowering. With a low quality green tea, boiling water can make it undrinkable, but not with hashiri shincha. While it wasn’t my favorite brewing thus far, it was still delicious and I would definitely do it again. All of the previous flavors I’ve talked about were present and came through after the initial rush of young bitterness and then intense sweetness. Even an amateur like me can tell the difference; this is good tea and I recommend it to anyone who likes Japanese green tea!

Wow…wow…

I steeped this 3 times, and it was so good; I didn’t know tea could taste like this!
Before I say though, I looked more closely at the brewed leaves today, and they are such a nice even green (sometimes I’ve seen in other teas bits of stem or other parts of the leaf that shouldn’t have gotten in there; or, the roasting was done more unevenly and so there are more browned leaves in there, etc.). This tea is not that – almost all of it is made of whole leaves and the color is a very nice, even tone.

The first steeping (140 for almost 2 mins) and second steeping (160 for 1 min 20 seconds) were like a wave.
The front of the wave (or underside) hit with a little pleasant bitterness (young flavor).
The ‘crest’ of the wave was just a moment when the bitterness quickly transformed into sweetness. The best way I can describe it is exactly what I was thinking as I drank it – it tasted like the burnt sugar on the top of creme brulee. A bitterness that gave way to an intense sugary sweetness. This sweetness was not a sickening or rich sweetness, but more like a very thin layer of deliciousness. It REALLY surprised me, as it seemed to come out of nowhere.
The top side of the wave (or back) was a rich umami flavor. That sudden, sweet flavor quickly gave way to this, which filled my mouth.

The third steeping was also pretty incredible. As soon as I tasted it, the first flavor it reminded me of was baked ham. I didn’t believe it at first, I thought my tastebuds were being affected by something else, but I tried it again and again, and both times it tasted like ham or greens cooked in bacon. Almost as if you could eat it.
My description here is certainly stronger than it actually was; meaning, it still tasted like tea. I imagine reading a description of ham-tasting tea sounding disgusting. But it wasn’t, it really just tasted like pure richness.

I am SO glad I pre-ordered.
Had another cup this morning (well, make that 5 steepings of 3oz each, or 2 American-sized cups). It was delicious and worth every penny. I hope he manages to get his hashiri from the same farm next year.

But you won’t believe it – I just checked his website today, and he is ALREADY OUT!
He has 2 more Shinchas that just arrived as well…looking forward to trying the other one I ordered (Shincha Houryoku, which is a fukamushi) in the next week!

When I came home from work today, the leaves from the mornings 4 steepings were still in the pot. I decided to experiment and brew them again, so I did so (8oz water…original amount of dry leaf was 2 heaping tsp) at boiling for one minute.

The initial taste was, for just a moment, watery (though you can feel the tea and the color was still light green), but then gave way to very nice sweetness and umami. I was surprised and impressed. It was delicious.

I went ahead and brewed it a 6th time, with the same parameters, and though the sweetness/umami was weaker, it was still there.

This tea is REALLY good. And if you can get 5+ steepings from it, with developing flavor (each of which was positive for different reasons), then it is very good value too.
If you like green tea and are in the middle of deciding what to get, I recommend this while it’s still available this year.

So we wanted to try it with a little less briskness, to see if we could bring out more sweetness or umami. I brewed it more like a gyokuro, at 140 for 2 mins (as opposed to 160 for 1.5). It was milder, had a fuller (I guess umami) flavor, and was definitely less bitter/astringent than the first trial (when I say bitter, this tea was not so bitter that I did not like it, it is really more of a young flavor that, to me, is very good and not the kind of bitter you want to avoid).

I re-steeped this 4 times – the 2nd time was 160 for 1 min, 3rd was 180 for 1 min, and 4th was boiling for 1 min.

The 2nd time brought out more of the astringent/bitter/young flavor. It was cool to get two different flavors from this tea in such a short period of time (as the first brew was more mild).

I don’t recall the 3rd steeping having a lot of flavor. I was actually a bit disappointed thinking that perhaps it was already done after 2 steepings. However, I tried once more with boiling water and a whole minute.

The last steeping was delicious! There was no bitterness whatsoever, it brought out a new flavor, which I almost think was sweet and umami as well.

Really cool to see so many flavors come out of this tea and it to hold up to this many steepings.

First time having hashiri shincha — first impressions…
I noticed the loose leaf was a nice, dark green color, of mostly whole (rolled up) leaves. Little or no leaf particles. Once steeped, the leaves opened up fully and you could see many veins or stems (I don’t know if I can tell the difference between the two, but I’m pretty sure it was mostly the veins between the leaf and not stems (kuki)).
I steeped it three times for my wife and I, and experimented a little on the 2nd two steepings.

The first steeping I did according to instructions (3 oz water per cup for 1.5tsp leaf). It tasted SO fresh, brisk/astringent, with just a tad bitterness (not too much at all in my opinion, just on the edge). The main flavor was freshness though. I read on his website that they try to process it as little as possible to maintain its fresh flavor, but I had no idea how that would actually translate into the tea…yes, one wouldn’t be exaggerating to say it tastes like spring! (Yes, that is a very ‘artsy’ phrase that I don’t very much like, but it isn’t an overstatement). The description says this has a very young flavor, as if you were picking the tea and steeping it right in the field — though I am no tea expert, I don’t think it could be described any better! The flavor surprised me in that way, even though I was expecting a ‘fresh’ flavor.

The 2nd steeping, I wanted to have a little more sweet flavor, a little more full/umami flavor, so instead of increasing the temperature, I left it at 160, and left it to steep for 1.5 mins instead of just the suggested 30 seconds. It didn’t have as much fresh flavor/astringency, and had a hint of sweetness that was very nice.

The third steeping was good too (I think boiling for 15-30 seconds), but the flavor wasn’t particularly strong.

I look forward to trying this out more and experimenting with the brewing. But for a first try, I liked it a lot and am not disappointed. If I can extract more umami/sweetness from it, then I will be impressed by it’s range of flavor.

I’m raising this one up, it is really good and the flavors are amazingly blended.

Even though I had “steeped” this yesterday twice, I filled up my bottle with water a third time and left it in the fridge. Its not very strong, but the flavor is definitely coming through; it still tastes like pear, but the best words I can think of are blended and refreshing.

Another good value (3 steeps of around 20 oz each and still flavorful?)!