Maeda-en

I am so excited that Auggy included some of this in the package of tea that she sent me. It sounded so weird and interesting that I’ve wanted to try it ever since it made the rounds a few months ago. The hardest part of getting packages of new tea is caffeine management, or at least enough restraint to achieve something akin to it. A few steeps of Bohea and Golden Monkey were delicious, and I very much wanted to continue down the roster of black teas she sent me, but prudence requires that I consider uncaffeinated options instead. Soba-Cha to the rescue!

Confession: I screwed up my portions. I added my standard 2tsp. to the infuser of my 16oz cup, only to find (after two minutes of steeping) that the recommended amount was a tablespoon per cup! I didn’t add quite that much — just another two teaspoons — because I wanted to have enough left to make more later.

I was never a huge fan of puffed cereal as a kid (except for rice krispies, and even those were hit and miss with me). When I went off to school for highschool I grew rather (unfortunately) fond of corn pops (hello, early freshman fifteen!). I think that genmaicha has completed the revision of my prior wariness, and paved the way for my enjoyment of soba-cha.

And I do enjoy it! The nuttiness is delicious. There’s something just sweet enough about it that seems to recall honey-nut cheerios to me, which is a win. It’s not an incredibly complex flavor, but there’s more complexity than I might have expected, and what’s there is warm, roasty, and savory. The fact that this is not only a caffeine-free option for the evening, but also edible as-is so that it can be sprinkled onto other things — those are just extra wins in my book.

Every now and then I try a tea that I am certain I will get cravings for in the future, and I know that I need to buy it because it’s going to begin creating very specific itches that only it can scratch — like Ryokucha, or the Sticky Rice Tuo-Cha. This is one of those teas. My wallet, it groans with the strain of many upcoming tea orders.

Only vaguely related: I saw in one of Auggy’s tasting notes that she wanted to sing ‘Jimmy Crack Corn’ while drinking this. It kind of made me lol, but I have to agree. This is what I decided to queue up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRX91eF_cY0

(Stuff like this is why I can’t set my itunes to shuffle. This, sandwiched between Burial’s dubstep and things like Arcade Fire, would make for a totally schizophrenic listening experience. The trials and tribulations of having a wide musical palate! These guys are pretty good though. This is the money-tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKTXJUYiAT4 )

A tier below the Maeda-en 88th Night 2010 Shincha in enjoyment. It has less complexity and depth and less elements of interest overall. Still nice to drink, but definitely prefer the 88th Night. I think this might get boring quickly with a larger sample as well.

Price: $10 USD for 85g.
Buy Again: No

Well rounded mouthfeel with a nice kick of sweetness. Very good, but doesn’t quite live up to some of my other favourite Shinchas from 2010.

Price: $20 USD for 85g
Buy again: Maybe

What an utterly delicious green tea. It’s brilliant green leaves have a fresh and vegetal aroma. The brewed tea (2 mins) is sensational: one of the best—if not the best—green I have had. It does have a very buttery vegetable taste with both elements of natural sweetness and a tinge of a bitterness that is not at all unpleasant.

This is like a really good liquid salad!

This tea almost tastes like brown sugar to me. Well, brown sugar it it wasn’t sweet. I don’t know, it makes sense in my head.

I’ve got some serious Steepstering to catch up on. Saturday night, I (through my own stupidity) broke my Zojirushi. Not awesome. At all. But with the combination of an understanding husband, an Amazon Prime free trial, five additional dollars for a next day shipping upgrade and, of course, the joy that is the internet, I am now the proud owner of a new Zojirushi (the CD-WBC40). Thank goodness. The kettle and I just weren’t getting along.

To celebrate the return of temperature-controlled water-dispensing to the household, I thought I’d give this one another go, this time with Shinobicha’s suggestion of just a tiny amount of water. I did 4.2g of tea to 4oz of water and gave it about 30s in my preheated Tokoname.

First off, I was surprised at how mild this was with so much leaf. And sweet! Not quite creamy like my first delightful taste of this, but still very enjoyable. Oddly, it made me think that if the Japanese made green tea gum (what am I talking about? I’m sure they do somewhere), this would probably be what it would taste like. Like a sweet mint gum but without the mint – just the sweetness and freshness.

I’m still not raising the rating any on this one though because 1) for a higher rating, I need easily-found buttercream and 2) as tasty as this is, there’s not a whole lot of depth to the flavor aside from sweetness and fresh green-ness. But still, this ratio is definitely worth repeating.

So yeah, I’m dropping the rating on this one down a little bit. It’s just too picky. Sure, my first cup was amazing but I haven’t been able to repeat the brilliance and since then just gotten a very nice but not overly special cup. I know that there is delight hiding somewhere in there, it’s just hard to find. Hopefully I’ll be able to recreate it before I run out of this tea.
Tokoname pot, 5.1g/10oz, pour started at 25s. I’m thinking it doesn’t do well in larger quantities.

The dry leaf smells so fantastic. I can’t quite place the smells but there is some brine, some grass, some sweet fruit. It’s intoxicating. It brews up a bright, vibrant green and the smell becomes more like buttered grass. I almost expected something like Yutaka Midori since the brewed smell is so similar but wow, it’s not. This is so buttery and creamy. The mouthfeel is deliciously silky, it’s quite fantastic. Then there’s a sharpish, fresh cut grass taste. Then there’s a fruity, almost honeydew rind aftertaste.

This is a difficult one to rate because I can’t help but compare it to the Yutaka Midori I just had. The YM is the epitome of the stereotypical sencha profile. This one though, is the buttercream-icing version of sencha. If I could only have one sencha in my pantry, I’d go for the YM since it’s so perfectly sencha. But the creaminess and mouthfeel of this tea just really blows me away.

3.1g/6oz/ Pour started at 30s, finished at 45s

Whether or not this was in fact a different tea than the 2010 Maeda-en Shincha Gold, it did taste significantly different (and better!) to me. It is possible, though, that my palate had adjusted to some of the characters in the first tea, now able to plumb the depths of the following tea in greater detail. Or it was just better.

In the warmed houhin, a blast furnace of ocean brine and kelp, rich and detailed. The flavors blossom in delightful theanine sweetness, strong, with an initial flavor profile holding great honeydew and muskmelon, bright hothouse cucumber skin, and some faint herbals. It finished out with delicate grassiness that rounded the cup and the strong sweetness so potent in the first meeting of tongue and tea.

The second and third steeps held unique qualities of their own, with the second bringing a strong herbal mint character that gave both flavor and a crisp cooling sensation to the lips and back of the throat. For the third steep, the ocean rolled out and it became low tide, with intense oceanic brine and kelp, some intertidal mud, and some bristled sandworms, all coming on quite strong. I found this tea much more complex than the previous one, with an even more dazzling array of enjoyable textures and sensations. I don’t think I hold it in as high a regard as the 2010 O-Cha Sae Midori, but it’s a very close and very pleasant second.

I thought the leaves from this tea looked a little bit more peculiar than others I’ve inspected. They had a leathery appearance and some artificial-looking green colors. I’m not saying there’s anything artificial about this tea, just that the greens were stunningly odd.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=105

The leaves spill out onto paper with a neat blend of moderately small needles and quite a few particles, the apparent result of fukamushi steaming. Warm and in the pot, they glow with briny ocean delight. The first steep smells of light florals, pollen, and some faint plant-like mustiness. In the mouth, the texture is very soft, near-cotton and linen-like. This is pleasing, but the flavor composition is touch duller, with the average blend of kelp, melon starch, and maybe an edge of asparagus. There’s a bright sparkling glow of pepper-y spice right on the front of the tongue.

The second and third steeps yield greener, murkier soups, but fade on the flavor depth, as expected. I absolutely adore the soft textile texture that lingers in the back of the throat, but wish it was paired up with a wee bit more flavor complexity to hold the palate’s interest. Nonetheless, solid, well-handled quality leaves, in my opinion.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=94

I absolutely LOVE it!!!!!! There is NObetter tea than the earliest crop. I am ordering more.

Dangerously Toasty! Recieved this sample with the Shin-Cha that I won from the Steepster contest! Thanks for shipping to Canada Maeda-En! Why did I choose this one to try first? Because Houji-cha seemed fun to say at the time. So the tea smelled very roastey toastey a bit like coffee. It seemed very thin and seemed to seep out of the tea bag a little bit. The taste was as toasty as the pungent smell, a tad bitter and at times grassy. Very good for coffee and tea lovers a like because it has a bit of both in terms of flavoring. For a tea bag pretty impressed with the variety of flavors makes me intrigued to try the other samples sent to me!
Funny Dialogue I had with my mom after enjoying this tea:
Me: "Houji-Cha is fun to say! Houji-Cha Houji-Cha Houji-Cha!!! :) "
Mom: Well that’s nice just put your cup in the dishwash-Cha!
LOL I love my mom

This has a very nice toasted rice taste; I think I liked the toasted flavor better than the other genmaichas that I’ve tried.

That being said, the matcha flavor doesn’t come through very strongly, nor does the sencha. 1TTEN’s genmaicha has a very wonderful, sencha, fruity-like aftertaste. Den’s has a very nice mix overall (the matcha adds a definite, delicious sweetness). But this is still good and as I said, I really liked the taste of the genmaicha.

For their premium tea bags, so far this is a lot better than the sencha, but not as good as the gyokuro.

I received this tea as a sample with my 2010 Shin-Cha Select.

This sencha is finely coated with a dusting of Matcha, which gives the brewed tea a slightly brighter color (as well as a slightly less translucent appearance).

The flavor is very fresh and vibrant and vegetative! The matcha gives a sweetness to the cup that I’m really liking. Just a hint of bitterness cuts through the sweet. Very pleasant cup indeed!

Affordable, a little too smoky for a sencha, had a musk to it. It just tasted off to me. It’s ok iced. I don’t think I would buy it again.

OK, I have to retract (a little) a previous statement I made.
Out of curiosity, I tried the steeping parameters that Maeda-en suggested for this tea. I was sure it was going to be bitter, but I did it anyway.
In my pre-warmed teapot, I put a rounded tsp of leaf. I then poured nearly boiling water (190F) over it (I was planning on doing 2 oz water, but instead didn’t quite even cover the leaf, so it was just around 1 oz water). I waited 30 seconds and then poured into the cup.
(Maeda-en’s suggestion is 190F for 30-40 seconds or so).

The result was nothing less than green tea nectar! Pure, intensely sweet, and fresh cooked asparagus. It really surprised me, especially how very sweet it was. I wished I had used all 2oz of water, just so I’d have had more tea!
So again, my retractment is, don’t necessarily ignore the brewing suggestions given! Try it out once. The very first time I had this tea, I ignored their suggestions thinking it would be bitter; but if you’re careful, this tea works at a big range of temperatures. :-)

This is so yummy!
The 2nd infusion left such an amazing aroma in my mouth after I finished the cup. I don’t remember all the flavors, but the lingering flavor actually continued to develop for at least 5-10 minutes after I’d finished!

Sweet, a little thick, so tasty – such good quality tea for the price!
I am very surprised that tea with this flavor is only $15.

If you are getting bitterness, try steeping the first one at 160, and slowly go up from there (10 degrees each steeping).

I couldn’t wait any longer and finally opened this tea today.
When I opened the canister and dumped the bag of tea into it, I smelled the dry leaf. Surprisingly, the leaf didn’t give off a lot of smell. I saw all the small leaf particles and realized that this was also a fukamushi. (Well, I wasn’t sure until I read other notes on this tea).
I ignored their instructions suggesting 195F water…that seemed too high to me, especially for a first steep. I used 1 TBS leaf, 4 oz water, and 155 temp, and steeped for 45 seconds to 1 minute.

The color was a pleasing light green, and I would say the_skua described the tea very well; I’ll do so again but in layman’s terms, haha!

Basically, it had a very pleasing, fresh aroma, and tasted of fresh cooked greens (without that yucky vegetable flavor that you get from greens…though don’t get my wrong I do love steamed mustard greens). Anyway, the flavor seemed to be a standard Japanese green, but I detected no bitterness, astringency, and a very lingering/filling sweetness that was very different than the other 2 shinchas I’ve tried. I really liked this sweetness, as it tasted like the sweetness of a perfectly ripe melon (no, the tea was not melon flavor, but the sweetness was more like that of a fruit), rather than the extremely intense but short-lived sweetness I’ve tasted in the other shinchas.

As the_skua mentioned, other than the very fresh greens flavor (vegetal as many call it) and that accompanied sweetness, the flavor wasn’t complex or deep. That being said it was delicious! I’m not rating this one quite as high as the other shinchas I’ve tried, as they felt like eye-opening “WOW” experiences, and this did not. However, that may only be due to the fact that I tried the other shinchas first, and had more of an idea of what to expect from this. Even though I wouldn’t say the taste surprised me and made me say “WOW”, I would still say this is an excellent tea; if you’re on the fence about trying a shincha, then I can honestly say this is a good decision.
The reason I say that is because of the amount you get and the price…both of which are better (better price, more tea) than the other 2 I bought in the past couple months. If you’re new to shincha, I’d suggest going with this one; just don’t steep at 195F! (Lower temps always bring out more sweetness and are a lot more friendly to novices like me).

This tea also held up well to 3 more infusions, the sweetness being accompanied by a very slight but pleasant bitterness in the 2nd-3rd infusions, and in the 4th the sweetness was the main flavor. I increased the temp each time (170, 180, near-boiling) and decreased the amount of time I steeped the leaves.

I may buy more of this shincha this year (I think when I’ve finished this, I’ll have had enough shincha for the year!), but I already have my eye on a couple of other offerings by Maeda-en that I hope to get in the coming months.

Dear Maeda-en:
I just received this tin yesterday, I am excited to try it in the next couple of weeks and will post my review as soon as I have done so. (I am waiting to open it until I finish a little more of my open tea…I don’t want to have everything open at the same time and then some of it spoil.)

Thanks so much! Thank you too, for sending 4 samples of tea bags as well, I will certainly review those too! That was a nice surprise.

I tried this sample tea bag today.
I would say it is a decent sencha for a tea bag, falls in the average range, but wasn’t exceptional. It wasn’t a particularly strong flavor, and wasn’t eye opening like the first tea bag samples I tried from Den’s Tea; however, it did leave a very delicious, sweet aftertaste in the mouth.
I’d still go for their gyokuro tea bag if I was wanting to get something convenient and cheaper than loose leaf.

This tea has a highly vegetative scent.

Nice! The flavor is vegetative and sweet. It tastes incredibly fresh and light with a pleasant mouthfeel.

Having brewed this the first time with probably too much leaf and maybe too much water temperature, I pulled out my bag of this tea and brewed it the way I brewed the other five shinchas in the tasting set. I found it much more palatable.

The aroma was light, but quite briny when it made it’s way through my nostrils. Flavors in the first steep were bright, clean and had strong doses of kelp, spinach, and watermelon rind. It wasn’t as sweet as most of the other samples I’ve had, but was up there. The best part of the first steep was that it a fantastic minty cooling sensation on the lips, tongue, and back of the throat that lingered long after the soup disappeared, making me want to return to my cup for more.

I even took this tea out to a fourth steep since it was my only session this morning and was amused to find that it looked much like the first steep, but tasted like thin tea-water. The second and third steeps gave full-flavored and rich cups, but they held the more classic profile of ocean vegetables, salty brine, and melon pith. I think this is an exemplary and clean example of the classic profile of flavors for a decent shincha.

Full blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=21

In terms of flavor, this tea was clean and delicious, if a bit one-dimensional. It had friendly vegetal greenness, a faint bit of brine, and some distant tangerine leaves. The viscosity of the brew was enjoyable, with a long, lingering thick sweetness, dappled with near-savory umami. I did think, though, that the proportion of near-dust was rather high and may have contributed to my initial bitter brew.

What this tea did remarkably well was load me up with a massive theanine glow. It was nearly immediate, strong, and beautiful. A sensation of heaviness came over me, and I just sat on the patio, smiled, and watched the Sunday morning open with high clouds, a gentle breeze through the garden, and the cheerful song of goldfinches dance across the yard.

Blog post: http://tea.theskua.com/?p=21