O-Cha.com

I feel like it is very balanced: delicate, smooth, and gentle, yet this is where it definitely stands out from other matchas. It could be a beautiful daily matcha, if your wallet goes deep deep deep. Would not be a taste that you can get bored with, but more like simple and delicious that you would want to just drink again and again. I like that there is no after taste and the mouth always stay fresh. I want to also prepare this matcha as thick matcha, I am not a thick matcha person but this invites me try.

Manten matcha is perfect every time. Very worth it.

Please check out my full review with photos!
http://matchagirlparis.blogspot.com/2013/08/matcha-review-tsuen-manten-via-o-chacom.html

Dark, cloudy and brothy with a deep umami taste. Delicious.

Deliciously light and grassy. Very wonderful aroma and color.

I’ve found my daily sencha. I had been getting the Kagoshima Yutaka Midori from O-cha, which is excellent. When I found out that this is a variety of the same tea, but for less cost, I wanted to find out more.

The appearance of the leaves is definitely more broken. However the taste is sweeter and slight astringency than what I experienced with the Yutaka Midori. The only major difference is that it lacks a very slight depth and butteriness. The vegetal, sugar snap pea taste lingers. The third infusion is not so bad either.

For the price, I think this is an exceptional tea.

Adjusting up. I enjoy this tea with salty/greasy heavy foods. I don’t know why.
I have found that brewing for: pre steep 10 seconds, 1 min 1st brew, then 30 second brew, and 1 min 3rd brew works rather well. Very much sweet water after that, but still enjoyable. Had some of the last bits of fuka, what a striking difference between the two flavors. I think I prefer Fuka but this kab is slowly growing on me. And plus it’s nice to switch flavors every so often so you dont get bored. increasing rating.

Still getting bitter-cucumber flavor, but now the first brew smells a shade bit like jasmine flowers.
It too a few pots of this tea to get used to it. I drank it to day after a chawan of Kiri no mori and noticed they tasted very similar, yet different. the sweet after taste of Kiri added some nice sweet complexity to the Kabusecha. Delicious.

First infusion: 1 min- strong cucumber flavor, slightly on the bitter side. After drinking so much Fula this one just tastes funny. :(
Second infusion: ~30 seconds. Tastes like yummy grassy cucumber. Like cucumber peels. Alot less bitter and tad bit sweeter. Has more of a tea flavor now.
3rd infusion: btw- getting slight matcha sensation in back of throat (but not as sweet and more green) . Same, but less cucumber an more if a perfumey flavor.
Softer flavor. 45 sec.
4th 1 min infusion. Same.

This one tastes different. Don’t know if I like it yet.

I tried to like this, but it is too light for me. Not a bad tea, but very light color and flavor. Nevertheless, it does has some sweetness and umami. I brewed at 175 degrees and found it to be too astringent. I recommend 158 (or 70 C).

2013 shincha.
It tastes to me: Grassy, vegetal (zuchinni/cucumber), Floral (perfume), sweet, Marine (my friend said it tasted a bit like seaweed, it just tastes marine to me), and a slight kick of umami at the back that makes for a very sweet after taste.
the first infusion tastes like sour fish.

I brewed this tea for about a minute, longer than that it becomes too strong. It’s very good but it has a subtle bitter aftertaste. It’s not as sweet as other senchas I have tried.

I admit, I bought this because it was the highest rated from O-Cha. Even so, I find myself looking forward to waking up in the morning so I can make this tea. I never thought I would be excited to switch from dark roast coffee to a slightly creamy, emerald green broth reminiscent of young asparagus. I cannot recommend this tea enough!

ok, much better.
EXACTLY 1 tsp Toyo Mukashi, EXACTLY 4oz hot water straight out of the water dispenser, AND EXACTLY clean palatte. 3 hours prior to drinking matcha i had some oolong sweetened and drowned in milk. pretty sure that didn’t influence my taste buds though.
Official flavor: enjoyable, sweet, vegetal… tasted like zucchini soup! velvety and rich.
www [dot] mountaintea [dot] com/blogs/tea/6993384-how-to-taste-tea-the-tea-flavor-wheel <———- this thing is very helpful ;)
i would rate it…
Sweet, slight Floral- perfume, and very vegetal-vegetables-zuchini. and i could be mistaken but i tasted a bit of umami, and earthy-marine. shall keep trying this matcha to see how it tastes. i may change my mind in the future but for now that is what I tasted.

Ugh second bowl. After a whiff test with Ito en matcha I have decided Ito en matcha has a strong grassy fishy smell and not sweet note where as toyo smells like veggies and zuchini and a background hint of sweetness. I sifted the matcha this time and I am not sure if I measured 1 tsp or 1tsp and a half. This bowl of toyo hits in stages: bitter→ zuchinni→ slightly sweet. I’m getting some umami but toyo is not as sweet at kiri :(. I might need to knock it down to 1/2 tsp. this is slight better quality than the Ito en but I still prefer my kiri no mori.
If you don’t mid bitter than this one is good for you.

EDIT: I just realized earlier my bowl had a funky hot paper smell so I sprinkled a small amount of Ito en in it to freshen it up…. I never rinsed or dusted that out!!! Oops! Because toyo doesn’t smell nearly as bitter as what I just drank! I just finished washing and rinsing it very well as well as drying it out with more paper towels. I wasn’t paying attention when I was cleaning up and stuck my plastic measuring teaspoon in my mouth to lick te last bits of matcha off before I washed it. It tastes pretty good, a strong flavor somewhat more bitter than kiri but with a soft sweetness. Really thinking that the dusting of the other matcha threw the flavor off (or I am going insane!). I will try this again tomorrow maybe. Maybe I will have a small cube of sugar or some pallate cleaner before I drink this.

After one bowl….I don’t know how I feel about this one.
When I opened the bag yesterday it smelled strongly of vegetables, I had a small amount that didn’t fit into the new canister so I decided to brew it like regular tea. Tasted like zuchinni! And matcha.
Tossed it in the tea cabinet. Opened it up today to make a bowl. Not as heavily sweet as kiri no mori and I detect more bitterness. It does not taste like veggies but has a slight zuchinni smell to it.
I will def. try this again before passing a verdict and give it a rating number. It was interesting. I opened my can of Ito en matcha and did a sniff test. Yesterday the toyo smelled like veggies and sweet matcha while the Ito en smelled blah and grassy. For some reason today they smell identical. I guess my nose must be off today! We are cooking ham and other strong smelling foods and I ate chocolate not too log ago, so that might be affecting my perseption of smells. Shall try again tomorrow. Or later this evening. After we eat some ham :)

Brewed at low temperatures, this turns out to be a mild and pleasant fuka. It has the usual elements of an O-Cha fuka (vegetal, brothy, grassy, swampwater-green in appearance), but in a more muted form than others. Quite pleasant.

First infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz water, 60 deg., 45 sec.

Second infusion – 5 g. per 8 oz. water, 60 deg., 1:15 min.

Third infusion – 5 g. per 5 oz. water, 60 deg., 10+ min.

I normally like o-cha’s senchas and I primarily drink asamushi senchas…but this one’s TOO light and clean for my taste.

A decent dose of umami compared to the light asamushis that I prefer, if that’s what you are looking for. I didn’t like this one.

I’m saying “not recommend” ‘cause I wouldn’t buy it again.

Very grassy and vegetal. For a asamushi-drinker such as myself, this is a good fukamushi – light, clean, relatively sweet.

Amazingly fragrant leaf. The resulting tea is light, delicate and grassy. A tea for savoring, not gulping down.

Merry Christmas!
A very delicate sencha to sit and be thoughtful with.