Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms

I spent the morning updating my cupboard. I haven’t really been drinking much tea since I was last here, but I did sign up for the Obubu tea club before visiting their farm in Wazuka, Japan last fall. My husband and I got married last October and took a trip to Japan for 18 days for our honeymoon. Of course, I had to visit a tea plantation while I was there! It was a great experience, the staff were all wonderful and the setting gorgeous. Plus we got to sample several teas! Would definitely recommend the tour if you are ever in the area.

So anyway, I now have a ridiculous stash of Obubu teas, mostly from the subscription box which is a generous amount of tea. Please feel free to send me a message if you’d like to try a sampling of their teas!

Had a lazy session with this tea on the couch (or tried to, as the pugs tried their best to sit in my lap…). I used a ~200ml kyusu that I also picked up in Japan and did three steeps of 60s, 10s, and 30s.

This is a shaded tea, so it has a somewhat intense and umami vegetal flavor. The first steep especially had a nice intensity, and strong spinach and cooked green bean notes. It felt very thick and silky on the tongue, with a nice creamy quality. There was a touch of pleasant bitterness and light astringency at the tail end of the sip, and a lingering umami aftertaste on my tongue. As it cooled, I picked up more seaweed notes and perhaps a hint of apricot.

The second steep was lighter and sweeter, still with the same vegetal notes but with less intensity. The third steep was a bit too light, I should have steeped it longer than I did. The vegetal notes gave way to a grassier flavor, and it was the sweetest of the three steeps.

Definitely a very satisfying tea, with a nice savory vegetal flavor up front giving way to more sweetness in later steeps. It reminded me how much I love Japanese teas! I’m not going to rate it for now, as I’ve been out of practice so I don’t have a good point of reference.

(here’s a couple of Instagram posts from our Obubu trip):
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4gUNC-gTBt/
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4gVwpEAUyS/

Now this is ONE cool tea. I recommend steeping this in a glass vessel so you can see the magic unfold. You just take one single cherry blossom, pour hot water, and wait 5 minutes. In that time you can see a beautiful cherry blossom expand. Now, after this, I’m reading mixed directions. Some say to transfer the cherry blossom to another cup and pour hot water in that, making a new cup of tea – because the original cup will be VERY salty. You are supposed to add the salt to taste. That is recommended if you’re not a salty hot beverage person, or if you just want to taste the cherry blossom in your tea and nothing else. The cherry blossom tea on it’s own is actually very pleasant, fruity, and slight hint of sweet. You could of course use more cherry blossoms for a more powerful flavor, but I like the subtlety.

As for the original salty broth, it’s actually very pleasant on it’s own. Fair warning the salt does overpower the mixture if you drink it straight. You can also add “the salt mixture to taste” to the original cherry blossom brew and the taste is MUCH tamer. It’s really all about what you’re in the mood for.

Highly recommend this tea – if only for just the novelty (or should I say “novel tea”) of it.

It’s recommended to soak the flowers in warm water for five minutes before use to remove excess salt. Of course you can save the salt water to add into the tea once it’s brewed.

Directions are rather simple: Two Flowers and 195F/90C water.

Visual
Dry Leaf: Shriveled petals and leaves. Vibrant pink petals, brown steams and leaves. Grains of salt apparent.
Wet Leaf: The petals opened up to reveal pale pink coloring. The stem and leaves are showing a hint of green.

Smell
Dry Leaf: Fruity vinegar (plum and cherry), floral. Slight mineral(?)
Wet Leaf: Same as the dry leaf

Tasting: Salt with hint of plum vinegar. Floral and light cherries.

Wow, okay, this roast is much too dark for my taste. All I’m getting is smoke. So much so that it’s kind of overwhelming. It’s not necessarily a bad thing and I’m sure that if you’re into that sort of thing, you’ll love it, but this really isn’t for me.

This tea was pretty meh all around, I would say. Now, I’m not saying that because it compares unfavorably to nicer sencha or even gyokuro, because that wouldn’t make sense. This one didn’t stack up particularly well with a couple other similarly-priced and underprocessed teas I’ve tried from Yunomi.

The leaves were very interesting in appearance – you could say ugly or just “different.” They had a crisp grassy and nutty aroma when dry – after the first steep, they smelled like steamed spinach.

The flavor was pretty weak really. Some crisp grassy notes, along with a bit of a green spinach-y flavor. Getting three steeps out of it was a bit of a stretch, but they were all decent tasting. This tea wasn’t much more than drinkable. I think it might have done better on a warm summer morning, but even then I’d likely prefer even a cheap sencha.

I’m completely stunned at how gentle this hojicha is! It’s not smoky at all – the leaves smelled slightly green dry, toasty warmed and post steep. The taste of the tea reminds me of a seed mix I use for my oatmeal, and leaves a strong floral finish across the tongue! I’m really loving it, although it doesn’t have nearly the richness I look for in a hojicha. Kinda thinking about buying more to experiment with…

This tea is taking me back to my childhood summertimes in an agricultural town, and it is such a winner from the sampler!

It is deeper than the Spring Sun, though maybe a little less complex. Dry leaf is gorgeous – a few shades of green varying in the leaf, and smelling like fresh cut grass (a big summer signifier for me). In the warmed kyusu, that became the scent of hay, then finally in the cup, a very vegetal taste – big leafy greens, like a rich salad in a cup.

I did not find this particularly astringent, though there were light notes to the bitterness (think kale stem), and more savory than sweet. Absolutely pair this with something bolder in flavor, as it has the strength to cut through.

Starting to think I’ve ruined my palate, even though it has been hours and I’ve had plenty of other beverages between trying the Hojicha Dark Roast and this Kyobancha. I still taste something mushroomy.

There is a light sweetness to it; not nearly as toasty as I would expect from a roasted green. Definitely vegetable notes.

The liquor is a nice burnt orange colour; the broad dry leaves were beautiful to look upon. It’s smooth to drink.

This tea made me nervous when I opened the bag, because the only scent I got out of the dry leaf was mushrooms, which I despise. The moment they hit the warm kyusu, I began to smell smokiness, which deepened as it steeped to campfire, and finally into a charcoal taste in the cup. It’s almost Lapsang Souchong-esque, but instead of Pine, I taste Cedar.

It feels not unlike a french roast – almost overwhelmingly dark, but leaving a sweet finish. As it cooled, it tasted a little fishy as well? Finally leading back to that initial mushroom taste. Blergh.

Not bad overall, but this is a sample I doubt I’ll buy more of this sample, just because of my feelings about shrooms.

The first thing I noticed about this tea is how intensely smokey it is compared to my usual Hojichas (Harney & Sons, MEM Tea Imports). The size of the leaves impressed me too; again, I am used to teas that run on the kukicha side, or using fairly small broken leaves.

It brewed a nice cup – heavy on the wood/cedar scents, though I can definitely see where one gets tobacco from the wet leaf. A little thickness on the tongue, but not much in the way of mouthfeel. We did a second steep (~2 minutes) that felt almost espresso-esque. Roommate commented that she might want to try this longer steeping in her next bowl of chazuke – too bad we drank the whole sample!

I feel like I love this tea more and more each time I brew it. This sencha has some body, and a brothyness, that makes me really want to make chazuke from it some time. The spent leaves already make a good salad ;)

I got this as a free sample from Yunomi. Very excited to try it… After sitting through it this morning, however, I’ve decided it’s not my cup of tea. I think that it is very good tea, but personally just not my favorite flavor profile.

I started this session with 5g of tea steeped at 140 degrees. The initial cup was sweet and grassy. There was an ever so slight hint of astringency and umami, but both were quite balanced. The overall flavor was of green beans.

The second steep was done at 175 degrees and was surprisingly similar to the first steep. It was overall still sweet, yet still had a strong “tea” flavor without the astringent bite. I realize that is not very descriptive, but it is very hard to describe. Almost the flavor of an astringent tea without the bite of astringency. Perhaps I simply mean a very vegetal tea. Not sure… :)

Finally, the last steep was conducted at 190 degrees. Finally, the tea was a bit more astringent. At the same time, however, it starts to lose its fullness and flavor. It was simply like a cheap astringent green tea. The wonderful flavor profile dissipated quite fast.

Overall, the quality of this tea was quite good and I did enjoy it. I just prefer less sweetness and more bold flavors in my Japanese green teas, or at least I did today.

2016 Harvest

I Haven’t done a non-puerh review in awhile.
I had last year’s harvest, and I think I liked that one more.
The leaf are long thin delicate emerald shards. They carry a sweet and inviting scent of warm grass, seaweed, and a creamy undertone, I dusted off my kyusu and prepared for brewing. I made mine thick, so I can pull more sweetness out. The brew was slightly clouded, but I bright pale jade. The taste is sweet with a lemon finish. The aftertaste presents thick umami which wipes away the citrus tone. I can catch some bitterness and harsh veggies within the body. The final finish is with raw kale; a very strong vegetal tone that strikes with bitterness. I brewed another pot (different leaves) to see if I can spot any other tones, and the brew was mostly consistent with what was previously stated; however, a slight dandelion floral tone was spotted mid sip. I liked this tea, but I do remember 2015 being sweeter, thicker, and less bitter green tones.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BMhJ7tqgpBm/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

These leaves look crazy compared to your average sencha! Long leaves with some thick stems mixed in as well. Flavor was pretty different as well. I got a bit of grassiness, but it wasn’t quite the super green umami flavors that I sometimes get from sencha – it was more of a dry grassy flavor. I’m not 100% sure if that’s a result of the clearly different processing of the leaf or if it’s because it’s not quite as fresh as other ones I’ve been drinking. I preferred it with 175F water, as opposed to the 195F temp recommended on the package, but both were good.

I’m really liking the senchas from Kyoto Obubu that I picked up on Yunomi. One of their Hojichas was really good too. This might be my favorite sencha yet (I think I might have said that about the last one I tried from them too). I found this one best with a 1m first steep rather than 2m. This had decently large leaves as well, like the Sencha of the Wind. Also, some small print on the bag states “this tea is an aracha (unrefined) version of sencha, the state which tea is sold from the farm to refinement factories.” I’m pretty sure this is a misprint. I’m fairly certain sencha can’t also be aracha…maybe? If it is aracha then I’m super confused lol.

The brewed leaves smelled like nice steamed vegetables, maybe asparagus as another reviewer noted. The first steep was a bit bitter with nutty and piney notes and a sweet grassy honey finish. Reaaaally good. This one was pretty powerful as well. I’m sure it wasn’t just this tea, as I had been drinking quite a bit before this one as well, but I noticed myself just trance out listening to whatever house-type beats my brother happened to be playing for a couple minutes at a time. Good times. Next steep was less bitter, but also not quite as sweet on the finish if that makes any sense. Still grassy, nutty and piney though. Went for another couple steeps, so didn’t quite have the longevity of the Sencha of the Wind, but I’m a sucker for that strength which comes through as a bitter flavor in tea, so if I was forced to choose, I’d pick this one.

I have more from this farm coming in another Yunomi order, including a Sencha of the Summer Sun or something. I wonder what it would be like to drink a blend of Sencha of the Wind, Earth, and Sun…Sencha of Earth, Wind and Fire? Anyways…good tea from Kyoto Obubu! Recommended for sure.

This one was just too roasty for me. I enjoyed the Amber Roast, but knew this one might be a little rough after I smelled how roasty the comparatively lighter Amber one was. Yea, if the last one smelled a little charcoaly with nice roasted nuttiness to it, this one was just a charcoal blast, a little sour smelling as well. It tasted alright, and I did get some decent sweetness coming through, but I just couldn’t get past that roast. Good to know I guess! And some people might like this if they’re really into roast. Maybe it’ll be better in a few months when its had some more time to rest as well.

This may be my favorite sencha I’ve tasted so far. Interestingly, the leaves looked quite similar to the aracha I drank earlier today, rather than the more fragmentary look of most of the other sencha I’ve had. I again tried two different steeping methods – one with a longer first steep and then very quick steeps with hotter temperatures immediately, and then one with a shorter first steep and keeping temps down a bit. On this one, I preferred the shorter first steep method.

I don’t know if this is just an association in my brain between the name of this tea and the taste, or if whoever named it just did a good job, but I think a good descriptor for this tea’s flavor is “breezy.” Reading others’ reviews, I had to look up the word “petrichor,” but I think it descries the aroma of the warmed leaves very well. The flavor of this tea was very sweet and grassy. The tea had a thickness to it, but it didn’t feel heavy if that makes any sense. The leaves also just kept on giving. I got five steeps and feel like I could’ve gotten at least one more decent one if I wanted to. At the third steep, the grassiness died off a bit, replaced by a sweet green floral flavor. This is what kept it going for me, that flavor was awesome and didn’t feel like it was about to give out at any point. Good stuff, this.

I followed the steeping instructions from Yunomi for this one and it tastes like crap to me. First sencha I’ve not liked. It’s not grassy and fresh like most sencha’s. Just tastes old and astringent with a bit of bitterness. I’ve got some sencha’s a year old that tastes better than this. This is supposed to be a 2016 tea. Glad I only got a sample. Most others on here left a good review so I’ll try some different brewing of this tea before rating.

My favorite flower? Sakura. Judging by my screen name, I’ve kinda got a thing for just about anything sakura. I’ve been wanting to try this tea for awhile and finally splurged. I understand that the salted blossom tea is the traditional, accepted version, but I’ve had salted cherry blossoms in pastries and Japanese dishes, and it doesn’t thrill me. More beautiful to look at than to eat. Besides, I’m watching my salt intake these days. Sugar’s not healthy, either, but hey, YOLO.

Faintly sweet and almost fruity, this is nuanced on the palate, but a feast for the eyes. The blossoms looked so beautiful floating in the cup, I had to take photos. Because you only need a few blossoms to make a cup of this tea, it’s not overly flavorful, but very contemplative. I found it rather soothing. A beautiful, subtle tea that welcomes spring. Glad I purchased it!

I have taken up fighting games again! So a bit of backstory, not sure the exact cause but a couple years ago my hands decided that playing fighting games and beat’em ups was not going to happen, all that movement was stupid painful. I gave up playing them and just delved deep into watching the pros play them at tournaments, but that seems to have changed. Ben got Killer Instinct on a whim (it has a free character that rotates so you can try it out, which is handy) and I played a bit, and what do ya know, no hand pain! Now I have to get back in shape, maybe in a year of grinding I can go to a tournament and play with the pros! Guess all the hand exercises and Ark playing paid off.

Today I continue on dreaming of spring teas (mine are still slowly making their way to me) by drinking the last of my stash from last year. Presenting Yunomi’s Obubu #4 Sencha of the Earth Spring Green Tea (2015 specifically) I love the names for Obubu’s Sencha, it is their names that has made me go along and try almost all of them, I think I have two left I have not tried yet. This tea is called this because it is made from Zairai plants, and those are tea plants grown from seeds taken from a tea plant before it was recognized as a specific cultivar. These specific plants are over 30 years old, and the strength of the earth is celebrated in the strength of the plants, because tea that tells a story is awesome in my book! They were not kidding when they said this tea is potent, the aroma is sweet like broken hay and sweetgrass with a very tiny touch of cotton (like the plant, not like the fabric) there are also green notes of course, blending edamame, bell pepper skin, and cut bamboo leaves. At the end there is a touch of dried seaweed and rice giving a bit of starchy and sea air quality to it.

I love how vibrant Sencha leaves get once steeped, they go from pine green to summer grass and its so pretty! What I don’t love is the deafening roar of the lawnmower outside destroying my ability to think, one day I will live in a place that doesn’t have grass…my yard will be moss, clover, rocks, and flowers! Anyway, the aroma of the soggy leaves is so green! It smells like crisp bamboo leaves, clover leaves and flowers, edamame, and sea air, it smells to me like summer. The liquid is light and sweet, like clovers and honey with distant cut grass and broken vegetation, it smells refreshing.

The first that that struck me about this tea is the really pleasant mouthfeel, it has body kinda like an Oolong, being thick and smooth. Usually I find Sencha to be fairly light, so this was a fun change of things. The taste starts with a blend of starchy rice and edamame with a gentle sweet quality to it, this moves onto the more expected green notes of broccoli and cut bamboo with just a subtle edge of mown grass adding a subtle bitterness. The finish is distant flowers and sea air, and I am sorry I cannot remember the name of the specific coastal flower I am thinking of, but it is light and a bit like sweet pea flower.

I steeped this tea a couple more times, jacking the heat up and flash steeping it for a double punch of intense sweetness at the front and bitterness at the middle with a lingering honey sweet finish. The thickness of the first steep stuck around which was fun, and later steeps bring out spinach and stronger ocean notes. As much as this was a spring tea it really reminds me of summer, late May when everything is lush and warm but the heat of summer has not started doing its worst yet.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/05/yunomi-obubu-4-sencha-of-earth-spring.html

a bit too dusty/bitter tasting for me, but it smells wonderful — flowery, sweet, and after three steepings i ate the leaves with salmon furikake (wish i had rice as well) and that was wonderful. it’s a bit too light with the 160F temperature so i went up closer to 180 for shorter steepings, which is when i got a stronger astringency and vegetal taste.

I really enjoy this tea. It’s sweet and grassy but doesn’t have that slight astringency that other senchas have. It’s very smooth and bright.