Yunomius

Backlog. Yesterday was a series of semi-disasters that physically left me in pain, so of course I had to bust out my go-to comfort tea. I’ve gotten my whole family hooked on this tea in particular, so my stock is dwindling much faster than I am comfortable with. But for now, I’m just going to enjoy it and think about restocking later.

Backlog. After walking around on a chilly night without a warm enough jacket, I decided to steep up a household favorite for my family in the evening. I have to say that all the people I have served this tea to have really enjoyed it. It’s such a nice, roasty, comforting tea, and I love sharing it with other people.

Backlog. I had this tea yesterday because my stomach was feeling a bit queasy and sensitive, so I had to go for my favorite roasty comfort tea. I have to say that it really did help. I even resteeped a couple of times but had to stop myself because it was getting a little late in the evening. My stomach is feeling a bit better today, so perhaps I will venture out to other teas…

Previously, I had only thought to cold brew my fruity teas, but since I have so much of this particular houjicha (and houjichas in general), I figured why not try it as a cold brew? It maintained the same dried anchovy and roasted almost smoky taste as it does when it is hot, yet something about having it as an iced tea made it seem more refreshing. I’m thinking that less smokier houjichas will probably fare better, so I may use up some of my dwindling samples of other houjichas to experiment with cold brewing. Yay, I’m excited! :)

Backlog. After an uncharacteristically unpleasant experience with a sencha earlier in the day, I needed a palate cleanser of sorts. I love this tea with all my heart, so I decided to steep this one after dinner. It also is supposedly lower in caffeine, so I felt okay about drinking it later at night. I’m bumping this tea up to a full 100 since I always seem to reach for it when I need something reliably delicious and roasty.

Today’s biostats lecture was particularly heavy on notation and derivations, so I’m glad that I brought this tea with me to simultaneously calm me down and keep me focused. It’s definitely become one of my go-to teas for comfort, convenience, or anything else. I’m glad that I have so much of it to last me a long while!

After standing in line for hours at the airport and having a flight cancelled on me, I came home exhausted and quite frustrated. I thought I ought to make a cup of tea to calm me down, so I reached for my reliable hojicha. Unfortunately, I only had a little of this left that I brought with me, so it was a bit weak this time around. Now let’s just hope that my rebooked flights aren’t cancelled, too.

Yesterday, I impulse bought a cast iron set of a teapot, two teacups, and a wooden trivet at World Market. I went there to pick up some tea tins, saw this set, fell in love, couldn’t believe the price, and somehow found myself at the cash register buying it, haha. Anyway, I wanted to break it in with a less picky tea, so I went for this hojicha. Delicious as always!

After getting really into Japanese greens, I tasted a bunch of different houjichas and this is one that I decided to reorder. I think I have like 4 oz of this stuff now, so I took this morning as an opportunity to start drinking up! Just enough roasted taste without being overwhelming and resteeps well. I have a feeling it won’t take me too long to go through this batch :)

Ok, so I didn’t exactly do a side by side comparison with the smoky roast because I’ve been swamped, but I will say that based on memory and multiple tastings now of both teas, I think I prefer this one overall. It has just the right amount of roasted intensity and flavor for a more everyday kind of tea. The smoky one was just a tad over the top to be drinking all the time for me. Now that I’m fully obsessed with houjichas, I now need to compare this one to the one I got from Den’s for my final final decision on which one to heavily stock up on. Or maybe I’ll just do both, haha.

So far, I have tried the light and basic roast houjicha from Yunomi and enjoyed them. However, I felt like the flavors could have been stronger in those two in particular. When I tried this tea, I felt like I had finally found that intensity of flavor that I had wanted from the previous two. This may sound strange, but the smoky flavor almost reminds me of roasted dried seaweed. My tasting notes on houjichas always make them seem so weird and unappetizing, but I swear that I love them! I think that houjichas have officially taken over genmaichas in my book. Anyway, I have the smoky roast left to try, so I’m thinking I’ll either prefer it to this one or it will be a little too intense for my taste. I’m excited to find out!

I received this as part of my Yunomi monthly club package. I enjoy playing Japanese RPG’s and drinking authentic Japanese tea :) So that is my plan for this lazy Sunday.

The loose blend is rather large in size and whilst raw smells dry and herbal but nicely so. In other words it’s not too strong like herbal teas can be.

Steeped with the 10 minute recommended guide line and using boiling water. My sample was 10g so I only had one pot worth of this.

Once steeped it’s brown in colour with a mild herbal, ricey and earthen spicy aroma.

It’s very aromatic and Japanese in flavour. Medium strength with a refreshing taste similar to mint but more herbal based and milder. It also tastes toasted with a slight sour after taste.

A very interesting herbal blend that I’m considering purchasing more of. Would make a nice bedtime tea, or even morning tea.

I got this in the post a few days. Since I had gotten into green teas again. My kitchen smells like chocolate cake, except the tea mug which smells like rice cakes. Which is a pleasant scent.

This is only my second time having genmaicha. I like the toasted rice flavour. And I’ve always enjoyed matcha. I still feel like I should be having this in a tea house with onigiri. Thanks to Yunomi for letting me try this.

Sipdown (116)! I brought the remaining bit of this to school today. I overleafed a bit, so it was roastier than usual, which was a pleasant surprise. All in all, a very nice tea to have had in my cupboard. It will be missed (but not too much because I have so many other houjichas!).

I know I’m probably getting repetitive about houjichas, but I needed this one today to really re-set myself tea-wise. For the past couple days, I just haven’t been in the mood for tea, so it’s nice to come back to a reliable, comforting tea to get me excited again. Like I have said in previous tasting notes, this particular houjicha is a bit less roasty than I prefer, but it’s still very delicious!

I’ve fallen into a pattern of drinking houjichas after I have an unpleasant tea experience to re-set my palate. I guess it’s because houjichas have never failed me so far. This houjicha in particular has more of a pronounced dried anchovy taste. Sounds weird, but that’s what it reminds me of, and I do like it. My little sample has gone lasted quite a while, and I still have some left, thankfully.

Backlog from yesterday. Has slightly fishy taste to it, but I liked it. I recently reordered a bunch of the dark roast houjicha from Yunomi because this tea is a little light on the roasted taste than I’d like.

I wanted something a little more delicate but still comforting this evening, and this is what I came up with. It has that nice roasted houjicha flavor without being completely overwhelming. When my sample runs out, though, I think I will opt to restock on a houjicha with a stronger flavor (like the dark roast). Enjoying it while it lasts, though!

I’m finding out that all these hojichas that I’ve been drinking have the same dried anchovy smell when I open up the packets. This one has a lighter roasted taste than hojichas that I’ve had before, which makes sense given its name. I think this is a good one for the evening but overall, I would prefer to have a slightly stronger roasted taste. The texture is very clean with no bitterness or astringency. A very comforting cup of tea, especially since I feel like I might be getting sick.

I was actually given some of this tea by a Japanese woman who works at a cafe I frequent on the way to class. She helps me with my Japanese and I help her with English (not that she needs it). She told me that the tea was produced by some of her family members who work on a tea farm in a place called Yame （八女） which literally translates to 8 women. I was given the impression that it was 8 of her sisters, cousins and aunties producing delicious tea on the island of Kyushu. This is apparently not the case.

Now I’m not actually sure as to what kind of tea it is, as all she had told me was that it was ‘YAMECHA’. After a few cups and a whiff of a Gyokuro at a nearby tea supplier, I surmised that it was in fact a Yame Gyokuro (similar leaf colour and aroma, and apparently about 50% of Gyokuro produced in Japan is from Yame, so the odds are in this assumption’s favour!)

I was very grateful for the tea (she had given me a lot of it), and was eager to figure out how to brew the stuff.
One of my Chinese acquaintances, while we were having a tea session, exclaimed that he knew exactly how to brew it: he took a huge scoop of the tea, ground it down to a powder in a pestle and mortar, and then poured the powder into a tall glass and proceeded to pour boiling hot water over it.
The product was an extremely bitter brew that nobody could finish.

So that’s not how you do it.

I was still curious as to how to brew it, so once I got home from the taste testing I gave it another go, using only my instincts.

I brewed it as you would brew a regular green tea (about 80C for about 1.5 minutes), and it produced a very murky cup of tea. It appeared that due to the varying sizes of tea leaf particles, a good portion of the tea had passed through the strainer and into the cup. In addition, there was a mysterious white foam collecting around the rim of the cup. I thought to myself, “protein?”. Not entirely sure what was going on there. It was a pleasant cup of tea none-the-less.

I decided today to give it a traditional brewing: sitting down with all the bits-and-pieces, my tiny tea gong and my laptop at hand to record the fleeting sensations and the pass through my sensory faculties.

Brewed at 70C for 1.5/2 minutes

This tea has a very warming sweetness, delicate grassiness and faintly nutty flavour. It has a satisfyingly full mouth-feel, and lingers long enough for you to be able to fully appreciate it, as well as time to bid it farewell. The flavour is deeply rich, much like the ‘Pakistan green’ of the leaves (I had to look that colour up; it seems like a slightly awkward descriptor though).

Aroma: Again very warming, deep and rich.

The colour of the liquid is a nice bright green, however I notice that there are particles of varying sizes swirling in my cup, giving it an almost murky appearance. Once they settle it is almost a ‘Paris green’ (again, had to look it up – so many types of green!).

I’m not entire sure what is meant to be done about the particles. Are they an intended feature of the cup? Or perhaps a fine strainer is necessary? I’m not entirely bothered by them, simply curious as to their intentions. Perhaps they add to the mouth-feel that was so satisfyingly bold.

Either way, this is one of my favourite green teas to date, and I intend on making each cup as special as the last.

Backlog:

A very unique Oolong – different is good! Sweet, mild, fruity … with a hint of sour to provide an interesting sweet and sour experience.

Notes of flower in the distance, but this is much more a fruity tea than a floral tea. Definitely one worth trying if you’re an Oolong fan! And the price is right!

Here’s my full-length review: http://sororiteasisters.com/2013/05/08/certified-organic-oolong-tea-by-the-takeo-family-from-yunomi/

Its interesting. Tastes like my other fuka from o-cha (Sae midori) but more sour and has a distinctive citrus flavor. It tastes like… someone dropped some citrus powder in my tea. its ok, but i don’t think I would buy it. the gyo i tried was good and I’ll probably buy that :)
If you like astringency this one is for you~!