Yunomi

Curse my phone to the bowels of the abyss! I want to join the party and play Pokemon Go! but the blasted phone won’t let me, I am so sad. Granted I don’t leave my house much, but it would have been nice if I could have had fun with it when I did go out and about. I am, of course, being entertained by the internet explosion that it has unleashed, so at least I get the vicarious joy.

Today’s tea is a fun one! Recently a bunch of samples arrived from Japan via my pretty much one stop shop for all things Japanese, Yunomi! Many samples of Shincha, but also some of the more unusual stuff like dark tea and some black teas, like Chakouan: Ureshino Black Tea Leaf Stems. From the Chakouan Tea Shop in Ureshino, this is similar to the green tea Kukicha (as in it being a pile of stems) but is processed as a black tea (or Wakoucha) making for a uniquely pretty tea. What can I say, I am a sucker for teas that use the stems, it seems very efficient. The aroma is light and brisk with a surprising crispness, notes of sandalwood, malt, gentle raw peanuts, and a touch of tomato leaf. It is not a very potent aroma, but what is there is distinct and a little odd, but pleasant.

Into my shiboridashi the stems went, ah I do love this shibo, but I have a new one on the way that is more perfectly suited for Japanese teas and I am so excited. The stems float on top of the water, which looked really quite pretty. The aroma is malty and a bit tomato, usually I find a black tea with tomato notes smells like sun dried or leaf, but this is fresh tomato note. Alongside these notes are sandalwood and a bit of potato starch. The liquid smells very light, crisp and refreshing (not something I associate with black teas usually) with gentle notes of malt and sandalwood with a touch of starch.

The first steep is immensely light, it has the crisp refreshing quality of a green but with none of the green notes. It starts with a gentle woody notes, sandalwood and tea wood, with a touch of fruit wood. There are notes of black pepper and malt with a slightly savory finish. This might be the most refreshing black tea I have ever tasted. I went for another steep, because how could I not? This one was still light but had a bit more complexity of flavor, taking the previous notes and and adding a starchy rice milk note along with a subtle sweetness in the middle. This tea is in a whole different ballpark than the usual hong cha or western style black teas I have had, it is wonderfully light and refreshing, I find myself wondering what it would be like iced.

For blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2016/07/yunomichakouan-ureshino-black-tea-leaf.html

Naturally, I don’t really know what to expect from this new kind of tea. It might probably taste like mix of green and black or something completely different.

The aroma of tea is completely unique, I haven’t met another tea like this. Malt with cacao, wood and fruits. The aroma is not strong, it’s fairly mellow and soft and reminds me from Assam teas from India. I was waiting for something closer to Darjeeling or Chinese black teas, but this is far from those.

Small 10g package has crushed some leaves for good. Luckily, most of them are fine. Leaves are dark brown with reddish brown stems.

Yunomi suggest to steep 5g in 200-300ml of water, but I don’t own a pot that size. Closest one is my new 145ml Ruyao-teapot, that will have to do. I compensated the size by putting only 3g of tea.

Steeped leaves have extraordinary aroma. I think I can smell some carrot and broccoli. Generally the fragrance is vegetal and sweet. The color of the brew is dark amber.

Yup, the flavour is as weird as the aroma. I haven’t tasted anything like this before. It has some kicking tannins with floral aftertaste. Spicy start with tannins, red berries and vegetal carrots and broccoli. It has also some funky orange zest note.

Really, really weird tea. Not in a negative way though. It is really entertaining tea. It could be compared to a roller coaster, the flavour has a lot of unexpected turns, ups and downs. That is how quickly the flavour chances.

I tried Haruo Ogoses wakoucha as a milder version and to be honest, it was better for my tastes. Taste is the same, but not as crazy and strong. I can suggest trying this tea if you want to try something completely different.

Full review with photos:
https://finnsips.blogspot.fi/2016/07/a-tea-review-yunomi-haruo-ogose.html

The first time I had this tea was on Liquid Proust’s trunk in the parking lot of a strip mall, because tea time can truly be any time. I think the water was much hotter than today’s brewing. The flavors I got were in the range of bitter, grassy, seaweedy, and cucumber. There was also a bit of buttery flavor. These would appear and disappear based on LP’s steeping times.

I’m kind of amazed at how different this tea tastes today.

I took the kettle to 165 (a little higher than recommended) and had several sessions as it cooled. First couple of steeps were flashed, and then I increased the time up to a minute as the leaf wore out.

The first couple of brews were an almost overwhelming mushroom flavor that lingered on the palate for a while. The buttery taste and creamy mouthfeel came in and blended well with the mellowed mushroom flavor as the kettle cooled and the leaf settled. There was also a “green” sort of taste that I don’t really have the vocabulary to describe, but it was a dark green (yeah, the synesthesia is kicking in).

Every once in a while, there was a slight hint of bitterness or a little drying on the back of the palate, but this would disappear and reappear between steeps.

My thanks to LP for giving me a bit to sample again!

This tea, despite being the cheapest tea in my Yunomi order (I think anyways) was quite tasty. The main area where I noticed a difference was longevity. With all the other teas in this box so far, I’ve been able to get at least three really tasty steeps, whereas this one was basically just the first steep. Yes, I drank the next couple after it, but they paled in comparison.

So, that representative first steep: I used 5g with 175F water for 1m as recommended on the package. The brewed leaves smelled grassy and sweet with a touch of astringency. Basically like a sencha but not quite as nutty I think. The flavor was good, but unexpected. I got grassy sweetness with the unmistakable aftertaste of caraway seeds (the little seeds in rye bread). It was weird. I don’t know if it was a trick of the mind and flavor association, but the tea started tasting a little bready about halfway through the cup. This first steep had not detectable astringency. In my second session, I did a longer first steep at 90s. I felt this ruined the tea lol. Failed experiment. With that longer first steep I got a decent bit of astringency and didn’t get the cool caraway flavor.

In both sessions, my subsequent steeps were much flatter in flavor with a pretty prominent bitterness. The second steep did still boast a slightly sweet grassy aftertaste, but it was unremarkable.

I almost wrote that this was a lower tier of tea than the rest of what I’ve been drinking, but corrected myself, remembering that this is a “raw” tea. Having looked that up, it seems to mean unsorted, so there’s still all kinds of stuff like stems and parts of the leaf not usually used in sencha still in there. It’s interesting to be able to drink something at this stage of production. And while it was good, I think that a direct comparison with a finished and/or blended sencha makes it obvious why production usually goes further than the aracha stage.

This is my first time trying a Houjicha – I enjoyed it :) I used the temperature recommended on the bag – 195F, with steeps of 60s, 30s, then 2m. The aroma of the leaves after the first steep was a bit overwhelming, at first I thought it just smelled like charcoal, then I gave it a second whiff and smelled what seems to me like roasted pumpkin seeds – come to think of it, I had a different roasted Japanese green (wasn’t Houjicha I don’t think), that had a similar aroma. This one smelled better though. The liquor was a beautiful amber color, true to the tea’s name. The first steep was the best in my opinion, that nice and sweet roastiness reminding me of coffee (not in flavor really…just the roastiness).

The roast flavor wasn’t as strong in subsequent steeps, which to some people seems to be nicer, but I really enjoyed the roast in this one, so I found the subsequent steeps to be a bit lacking. Still had a nice burnt sweetness to it – caramel or brown sugar, but not overwhelmingly sweet. Certainly a robust and enjoyable tea to drink. The pumpkin seed flavor was also kind of there throughout – it was the underlying flavor that was sweetened by the roast I suppose.

My first Gyokuro! I tried to do it at least kind of like the “traditional Gyokuro” way I’ve seen in a few places online. First steep used really cool water, probably around 130F for 2 minutes. On this steep, I also used a good deal less water than I normally do (I have an 8 oz kyusu, which I normally fill around halfway to use my 4oz teacup when drinking Japanese greens – I just filled it a bit under halfway on this one). This first steep was kind of outta this world. Super thick, umami vegetal flavors. First time I’ve felt any qi from a non-puerh tea. It was crazy good. After that, I did a steep at 195F for about 12s, as suggested on the bag. That steep was also good – lots of umami and that strong vegetal grassy taste as well, though nowhere near as powerful as the first. After that, I kept the water at 195 and did a few more steeps – I think 20s, 30s, 45s maybe. They all still had some umami which may have started to trend more towards bitterness while still keeping a decently thick texture with a nice and sweet grassy aftertaste. I definitely need to put more Gyokuro on my next Yunomi order – which I’m already working on, having been inspired by this one :)

Apparently I accidentally ordered the 2015 version of this tea instead of the fresher 2016. Oops! Oh well, drinking it anyways. I could tell this one wasn’t as fresh as the others I’d been drinking. I got much better results with this one keeping temperatures/steep times a bit lower. When I used a longer first steep (2m), the astringency was a little out of control throughout the whole session. With the shorter first steep time of 1m, it was a much more balanced session, as is advertised in the tea’s description. Bitterness and astringency certainly were present, but did not overwhelm the sweeter flavor. Main taste I got in this was grassiness with some vegetal notes – these were not the crisp and fresh vegetable flavors I was tasting in fresher shincha but almost reminded me of some kind of squash I think. Decent, and maybe the 2016 would’ve been better, but this one was a little disappointing.

Did this one with both a really long first steep and in my more normal method, like I did with my last shincha. I liked this one better. The leaf fragments seemed noticeably larger in this one.

First session: (160F) 2m, (180F) 20s, 45s, (190F) 60s, then one long steep at ~175.
The first steep was certainly bitter, but it was a bitterness which lent the tea such wonderful depth when combined with the thick texture and succulent green floral note that I got out of this. At least that’s what it seemed like to me. I also could’ve been getting some of that umami flavor and struggling to describe it. Second steep had a touch of bitterness left to it, gone by the third. Those two steeps had a sweet vegetal flavor, like peas or green beans with a slight grassiness. This shincha is a lot less grassy than the last one I tried. The last two steeps were notably clearer and had a gentle, sweet vegetal taste.

Second Session: (160F) 1m, 30s (175F) 45s, 1m (158F) a longer steep.
This one definitely had a sweeter first brew with that sweet beany vegetal flavor in the fore. It also had a toasty flavor which reminded me of sweet bread – this is something I didn’t get at all in the last session. The second steep was vegetal with a grassy aftertaste, the strongest I tasted the grassiness in this tea. My next two steeps were grassy/vegetal with a really nice sweet fruity aftertaste, reminding me of melon. Last steep was, like in the previous session, a softer echo of the vegetal flavor I had been getting. This was a pretty nice one.

I’m quite excited for my package from Yunomi – my first decently sized order from them. I have very little experience with Japanese Green tea, but I got a cool starter set from Den’s Tea (just a kyusu really), and figured I’d give some shincha a try this year! So I have about 10-15 different shinchas to try, and this is the first one I randomly pulled out of the box.

I tried two different brewing methods – the one I’ve been using for the few sencha I’ve tried, and then the “Warm water” method recommended on Yunomi’s site. My method is 160 degrees with steep times of 1m, 30s (raise temp to 170), 30-45s, (raise temp to 180 – sometimes), 60s.

The other method was 160 degrees, steep times of 2m (raise temp to 180), 20s, (raise temp to 190), 45s, (raise temp to 212), 60s. This seemed weird to me, especially with the really long first brew and the high temps at the end (granted, the site said to use “hotter” temps on subsequent steeps, only being as specific as 180-212F).

I’m afraid that, as I have little experience with this sort of tea, my reviews may all be similar – It will probably take me time to differentiate the flavors I’m tasting in these teas, just as it did with the puerh tea I’ve been drinking more of. So far though, it seems that Japanese greens as a category (vs. sheng puerh) is a bit more homogenous when it comes to flavor – they all have a decent bit of grassiness, mainly.

So! Onto this tea specifically. As foreshadowed above, both methods produced a nice and yellow-green liquid with strong grassy notes. I believe I preferred the “warm water” method, as the tea had a thicker texture and a more bracing bitterness. It seemed that the first couple steeps in both methods had some bitter notes, but with the longer first steep, the thicker and richer texture seemed almost to mellow out the bitterness. Having trouble discerning much besides grass. In the second or third steep on warmer method, I think I detected some fruitiness in the aftertaste, but that was about it.

I think I’m going to be looking at this shincha box as a crash course in Japanese Greens. I may not get “full enjoyment” out of this tea, like I might if I had more experience with this sub-type of tea, but it will be a good learning experience, and can help inform me on what I like in the future.

Anybody with more expertise than me – how different is this shincha going to be from other senchas and whatnot that are harvested later in the season/year? Thanks!

This is a different tea. Usually it’s green tea they add rice too. In this case the rice comes across as a slightly burnt note. The black tea base is nice but it’s hard to get past the burnt note. I don’t know if it is supposed to have a burnt note. Still, I am enjoying it.

I steeped this one time in a 16oz Teavana Glass Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 2.5 minutes.

Made this as an iced matcha latte with almond milk and sugar. It is really delicious and chocolaty. I think I went a little heavy on the almond milk but it is really good. With the almond milk the taste of the matcha doesn’t really come through but the chocolate taste does. I brewed approximately three matcha spoons worth of chocolate matcha with approximately five ounces of 175 degree water then whisked it and added sugar and almond milk. This came out really good as an iced latte. For me this will be my last caffeine of the day.

Not at all sure that I got this right. My matcha scoop has disappeared and I had to use a spoon designed for leaf tea. So I’m not sure I got the amount of matcha right. I think is is a little weak tasting. I used nearly a teaspoon of matcha for about four ounces of tea. It tastes quite chocolaty. The matcha is also there. But less so than the chocolate. Despite the fact that this is chocolate matcha it is still green in color. It is good, even if it is a little bit weak.

Very unique tea. I have had other smokey teas, notably Lapsang Souchong, which I didn’t like due to the strength. This one had me worried, because the dry leaf smelled like ridiculously intense campfire. Crazy level stuff. I did Western style with 4g in a 300mL Kyusu and 195 degree water. Steeps of 2m and 2.5m.

It certainly was smokey, but I didn’t find it to be particularly distasteful. It was a very sweet smokiness. In fact, this tea tasted like some sweet bbq sauce to me – like Sweet Baby Ray’s lol. When I think about that flavor in a tea, it sounds revolting, but it worked at least well enough for me here. Not sure I would have been a fan of it all by itself, but a good enough complement with the cheese/fruit platter I was enjoying – Gouda, 2-year aged cheddar, and Balsamic Bella Vitoni with strawberries and Golden Berries. Not complex in flavor, just got that sweet smoky bbq flavor for the most part.

Whenever I am faced with entering review notes for a Japanese green tea, I flail about, my mental arms noodling around my head and torso awkwardly.

I have no idea what I’m tasting or why I sometimes like one tea more than another. My phone’s autocorrect wanted “tasting” to be “rafting,” and it seemed somehow appropriate to have my note devolve into nonsense. Fixed it anyway.

So, the tea tastes green and grassy, with some richness and sweetness lingering after the sip. Green beans?

It’s making me smile involuntarily, so it’s got some good theanine content.

I’m enjoying it and I don’t really know why.

Good enough.

This was bought because the owl mentioned it and I was like: What an awesome thing to include in the mystery buy!
A Japanese black tea smoked with whiskey barrel wood? That should have been reason enough, but I didn’t know about it so thanks owl :)

So I approached this like I do with all five of the black Japanese; just brewed it as if it was a roasted oolong. Here’s why I do that: I believe Japanese tea is the most delicate and pure of all the types I’ve had, tasted, ripped apart, ate, and overall evaluated as I drink all the teas possible. I’m quite thankful that I did that with this because the leaf when brewed looks like that of a first flush Darjeeling; you know, that dark seaweed olive color.

90c for 150 second in the large kyusu (western stylin’)

This is among the top 10 most unique teas that I’ve had from the first few sips. When I think of smoked tea I think of lapsang smoke… like, campfire in my mouth smoke. This is something completely different. Immediately I’m reminded of bbq by the aroma; how did I not think of bbq smoke vs campfire smoke vs ashtray smoke as possible for teas? There really is this odd taste which comes somewhat from the aroma of a woodsy roastish liquid… with this underlying cooked vegetable taste. Unfortunately I cannot decipher if this is a roasted or smoked vegetable taste underneath, it’s just too frickin’ weird.

After drinking a decent amount of this I realize it reminds me most of wood chips that were left to the side so you pick it up and get that smoked wood smell on your finger and sneak a smell in every once in awhile because it brings back a good memory of some awesome bbq.

This is pretty good, but it’s just hard to explain because I feel as if it is an experience type of tea and not a taste type of tea… what a unique thing. Maybe I’ll try smoking tea with my barrel one day when it retires :P

Glad that this is in the mystery buy as I know I will thoroughly enjoy reading the thoughts of others :)

I used 4g of this tea with 150mL of 160F water, later increased to 165F. Steeps of 1m, 30s, 45s, 90s, 2.5m. First steep was mostly some sweet grassy taste with a bit of a sour bite. Second steep was a tad bitter with that same grassiness and sour combination. The aftertaste left in the mouth after sipping was a soft and sweet fruit flavor, reminding me of melon. The remaining steeps were grassy and sweet, with the melon notes at times appearing during the sip, but they had faded completely by the last steep. In the last couple steeps it also tasted a bit salty, like vegetable broth. Possibly just a kind of oversteeped or steeped-out flavor. Pretty good Sencha I thought. Just starting to gain some experience with this kind of tea though :)

Backlog 4 March 2016 from Dark Matter 2016

Notes:

My wife just asked whether I was drinking pickle juice or not….The aroma DOES have that dill pickle smell, as well as the flavor of the tea. However, it’s satisfying. Nice sweet-wood-dill flavors. Fortunately, I like the flavor of this—and I like the flavor of pickles, too. So it works. Not recommended for someone who doesn’t find those flavors appealing.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BE6WJ9hg-3m/?taken-by=s.g_sanders1

This tea comes in small 2g sachets. Directions are to steep 4 minutes at 90C (194F) in one cup. Hard to say if one cup is 8oz, rather doubtful., probably less is better. I used 208F slightly hotter water and brewed for 2 minutes.

Flavor is malty and sweet, rather like a Yunnan black but nowhere near the strength. Adding milk somewhat kills the delicate profile. I only ordered 50g or 25 tea bags for $9.99 and wish I’d ordered the 500g, but then this is really pricey for tea bags. Not exactly economical if you drink two a day. So it’s back to English tea bags, this is carrying me over until my box from England arrives. I’m trying to stay off coffee in the a.m., but I need milk in tea to buffer my a.m. Meds. The good news is, haven’t had a cup of coffee since mid-December of last year.

Still, have to recommend these as a step up from regular tea bags. Wish I was a tiny Japanese woman using an equally tiny tea cup. I’d feel so elegant and Zen instead, but have to accept I wake up Slavic rolling with a heavy mug. Japan all the way in the afternoon though.

I got a sample teabag of this with an order. Used my regular teabag cup, but the teabag has only 2g of tea, less than a usual teabag so admittedly I may have steeped in too much water. The tea has a slightly marine seaweed odor on the first steep, not unpleasant. I get slight flavor of black tea, but otherwise the color of the brew looked normal with almost no taste. Maybe the sample is old, I don’t know.

I did buy an order of black tea bags of another type from Yunomi, along with some loose leaf too. Will compare to see how those are. But otherwise, I prefer a tannin bite when I drink black tea, that savory sharpness.

Used this to make chazuke for dinner. It was such a nice savory accent to the rice. Also, sip down of this sample. Whooooo!

From Dark Matter 2016:

I’ve been looking forward to this one! The leaves are latge whole, and brittle. They have a mottled appearance and honestly look more like something you would find outside on the ground than processed tea. The smell is tart and very much like umeboshi. I used the second set of brewing parameters on the package.

The tea isnt sour but does have just a hint of tartness. The umeboshi flavor is there and a bit of a briney taste. It’s defiantly a savory tea, and goes down smooth. I grew a shiso plant once and preserved the leaves in salt, and this tastes much like those leaves once they were rinsed. I got two good steps out of this. When I first saw this added to the group buy I assumed this was a Japanese take on the shou pu erh, but instead this tastes very much like an anaerobic lactic acid fermentation.

This was about the most unique tea I’ve gotten recently. I can see myself getting this again just to have occasionally. This would be lovely in ochazuke. I might pick up some rice and use the rest of my sample to make it.

Had a friend try this. Their verdict: olives!

Tried as part of Dark Matter 2016. I will further preface this review by saying that I hate pickles.

This tea, as expected, smelled like pickles. This, I thought, was not a good thing. I was correct. Along with the vinegary pickle note, there was also something else there in the aroma that in my notes I struggled to describe – attempts included “rubber” and “yeasty?” The smell of the wet leaves was a bit different – more of wet autumn leaves covering a pile of pickles. The taste was sharp, but not bitter – quite sour. It did also have woody notes and some of that strange mystery flavor. I noticed a sweet finish as well. I will admit this is the first tea I gave up on very quickly – I got through three steeps, which all tasted rather similar. Made my stomach feel kind of upset and was not very good in my opinion.

I used 3.5 in a 100mL gaiwan with 190 degree water. With most other teas, I would give them a try with different parameters, but I don’t think i have it in me for this one. For the record, I made sure to drink it with my pickle-loving fiance (she’ll sometimes drink pickle juice straight from the jar – yuck), who also did not enjoy it.

Glad I got the opportunity to try something like this with just a 5g sample. Whatever else it is, it’s certainly interesting.

A delicious oolong, smooth and warm