Sugimoto America

This is a very typical green tea. Smelling it is very buttery and then a hint of grassiness. The butteriness is missing almost completely from the tea when drinking and is instead replaced with a slight bitterness at the end. The leaves are a very pretty blue-green color and are smaller than most other leaves, brewing up like spinach. The packaging suggested 140 degrees for steeping but I think this would have done better at either a lower temperature or lower steeping time since it did have a tad of bitterness.

Miss cookies was kind enough to send me a sample of this one (along with their Genmaicha powder). I must say, I was quite curious as to exactly how this would taste. The powder is very fine and it has a slightly greenish brown color, the same color I would expect to see in regular houjicha. It also smells extremely similar to houjicha and has a nice sweet roasted aroma. I used a half teaspoon of powder in 8 ounces of unsweetened soy milk.

Ooooh I could smell the lovely roastiness as soon as I popped the lid open on my Blender Bottle. Yum, this is delicious with the nutty and very slightly sweet soy milk! It tastes exactly as I would expect a houjicha prepared chai-style to taste. It’s roasty but not overpowering and the creaminess of the milk accents it perfectly. So good! :D

Cookies, if you’re reading this, try this one with milk! :D

This is certainly the lightest Hoji Cha I’ve had to date. I do tend to prefer mine a bit more roasted, but that’s just a personal preference. This one is really quite nice. Smooth and mellow with just enough of that roasty hojicha flavor present to keep it from being dull. If I had more than a sample I’d have tried less water/another tea bag but sadly I only had a one to play with. Overall it’s not bad at all, but there are other hojichas I would prefer over this one.

Sipdown 18/75

Backlog:

I got some of this year’s harvest of this tea (it’s now sold out.) What an incredible tea it is. Definitely one of the very best green teas I’ve yet to taste.

The dry leaf resembles slender, long, green needles. Beautiful. These have been hand-rolled. Amazing, the craftsmanship that goes into this tea. This tea requires a very low temperature (just 100°F) and I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes. The tea is very pale but very, very flavorful. Sweet and a thick texture.

This tea is really, really awesome!

Rich, buttery, grassy, creamy. I infused the leaves three times and the third infusion was my favorite. After that, I even ate the leaves after dressing them lightly with sesame seed oil and a squeeze of fresh orange.

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/05/25/temomi-shin-cha-green-tea-from-sugimoto-america/

Backlog:

This is a really good Genmaicha with Matcha. The Genmaicha tastes fresh and nutty and sweet, and the Matcha adds just a touch of creamy sweetness to the cup. I received this Genmaicha with Matcha in the most gorgeous Washi Paper covered tin. It’s absolutely beautiful and very well made.

It’s a really good Genmaicha with Matcha. The flavor is everything you expect from a top-notch Genmaicha. Sweet, nutty, smooth, and soothing. Nice.

Here’s my full-length review of this tea along with photos of the gorgeous tin: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/05/21/product-review-genmai-cha-with-matcha-green-tea-washi-gift-set-from-sugimoto-america/

Backlog:

I love, LOVE, love these tins from Sugimoto America. They are absolutely gorgeous! And they were well crafted too, the patterns in the paper line up perfectly, these weren’t just slapped together haphazardly. I like the care that went into the tin.

Yeah, I’m a sucker for packaging. Especially when it’s a gorgeous tin like this.

And what makes it even better is that the tea inside is a great Sen Cha. Sweet, buttery, and notes of grass. Not overly vegetative and not quite as bitter as some Japanese Sen cha teas that I’ve encountered.

Fresh, vibrant, and a very lovely, appealing taste. Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2014/04/19/sen-cha-green-tea-washi-gift-set-from-sugimoto-america/

Tea of this afternoon is a matcha latte. I used soymilk for this and added cardamom per the suggestion of one of my Twitter friends. I also used my cheapo milk frother. This is just as good as any Starbucks matcha latte for about 1/8 of the price…

Good news also, my fracture is healing according to the doctor. I will be at home for 3 more weeks convalescing and drinking lots of tea. :)

I got this matcha yesterday in Japantown. Normally I go for the Maeda-en standard grade matcha but they were all out, so I thought I’d get this instead. I mostly use matcha in tea lattes and smoothies so I didn’t see the point in getting anything ceremonial grade. I had some this morning when I woke up: in a pineapple/banana/soymilk/chia smoothie. That was super tasty!

Then I decided to try some of this the standard way using the ceremonial matcha bowl and whisk. Drinking it plain, it is definitely bold and grassy with bitterness. When it comes to drinking matcha plain, you definitely get what you pay for. I’ve had some really nice ceremonial matcha that’s naturally sweet and delicate but almost 3x the price. I wasn’t expecting this to be great on its own, but for mixing with other things it’s fine.

Lately I feel like I should be trying to drink more green tea just for the health benefits especially theanine. That is difficult when black teas are clearly my favorite!

Anyway I picked this up in Japantown yesterday. I got the mesh teabags but I don’t think I’ll create a new entry for it.

I steeped this for 60 seconds and got a vivid neon green color. This appears to be a fukumushi sencha, according to the Sugimoto website. I’m getting mostly gentle grassy notes with a bit of nuttiness and a slight astringency in the finish… It’s far less “seaweed” like than some other Japanese green teas I’ve had, but not the most flavorful fukumushi I’ve had. You can definitely get two steeps out of these teabags. This is a good everyday tea, however I prefer the bagged sencha from Den’s.

Had a small one-serving pack from them. I may have not gotten to see how good the flavor could have been because I made cups for me and my wife (12 oz, when this teabag was probably made for 6oz or so).

I couldn’t tell Matcha was added because it was a very light color (usually the tea I’ve seen with Matcha added is a neon glowing green color). Anyway, it was very smooth, good…seemed like a typical Genmaicha, with apparently some Matcha added.

However, after 3 steepings (the first two had the most flavor), I squeezed out the teabag (the sample wasn’t loose tea), and a small amount of very dark green water came out. I tried that and it was so sweet and very delicious. If the whole tea had tasted like that it would have been amazing.

I’m going to refrain from giving this a number, since this one try I may have skewed things by ignoring the amount of water. But like I said, if the whole tea had been dark like the small sip I squeezed out of the bag, and had tasted like that…it would have been some incredible stuff.

I’ve not had a better Genmaicha. Holds up under rebrewing better than I’d thought it would.

I was looking forward to this part of the day all day. Settling in the couch with the big kid (13) to watch Community and enjoy my toasty tea in my cast iron pot. It used to be a beer. And sometimes still is. But man, these roasty toasty teas are really good for the end of the night! And just slightly healthier…

This is a really tasty Hoji Cha. Could be my favorite so far but I’ve only tried a few. So far the first steep is living up to my expectations

I’m pretty sure I’m allergic to something in this tea, so I ended up giving it away. Too bad.

Being only familiar with matcha powder (Teavana) for my lattes I was a bit hesitant to try anything else, but finding good prices on SA’s sencha, genmaicha and hojicha powders I figured it was worth the risk. I found the sencha powder darker and more bitter than my matcha but am relieved to discover that it tastes just fine in my lattes (tea powder, skim milk, sugar-free Torani syrup). The taste is different, but just as good. (I’m tempted to say “almost as good”, but that may well be because I’m so used to the taste of the matcha.) Obviously a slightly coarser grind than what I’m used to, as it doesn’t clump in the sifter and exhibits a bit of a chalky(?) feel in the mouth towards the bottom of the cup. I don’t know how good this might be prepared traditionally, but in a sweetened latte it’s definitely acceptable.

*Quick Note

I got this from a Marukai Japanese market in San Diego during my spring break. I thought it was plain sencha until read the back of the packaging and realized it was a fukamushi type.

Anyways, I was pleased with the taste of this tea. It is lightly sweet, medium bodied, a bit nutty, and with no astringency whatsoever.

Very good store bought sencha.