Yunomius

This tea just didn’t appeal to me. I found it was too much like a black tea but not the Chinese blacks. Much more like the black teas in the grocery store. I don’t know- I just didn’t get any other notes off this. The leaves looked pretty though- a nice chocolate brown when infused.

Thank You Liquid Proust for this sample. This is a tasty tea with a most unusual brewing method. I did my best to follow the directions on the Yunomi website. You basically boil the hell out of this tea on a stove top for ten minutes. SO that’s what I did. I was expecting something bitter but there was no bitterness to this tea. This is quite good. I would order this the next time I put in an order with Yunomi. It had a natural sweet flavor to it but I added sugar anyway. It is incredibly smooth. I am basically at a loss for why this tea didn’t turn bitter. Normally boiling water will turn some teas bitter and this was not boiling water that you were allowing to begin cooling. This was steeping at a rolling boil. I don’t know more about how to describe this so I think I’m going to give up trying.

I have heard that this is a Japanese version of puerh but to me it is vastly different, except that I guess it is fermented in a manner similar to ripe puerh. The taste, however is nothing like ripe puerh so a comparison can’t be made in reality.

Another crucial difference in the way this is brewed in comparison to gongfu brewing is I only used 2.8g of leaf for 500ml of water. For a small 180ml teapot and puerh I would use 10g. I do not know if this can be resteeped.

Enjoying this tea this morning. I find a lot of Japanese teas are so over the top that they make nice occasional teas but not everyday teas. At least that’s my experience on tasting some. I realize there are plenty of everyday senchas out there.

This one has a delicious green bean, mossy green & sweet flavor without being over the top. It still borders on decadent because it’s soooo good but I could it enjoy it more often.

I would definitely consider adding this one to my next Yunomi order.

This tea was from the Yunomi group buy that Liquid Proust arranged.

I can’t believe I’m the first one reviewing this tea.

I brewed Western style and only infused 40 sec at 185F. It brews up a bright emerld green with a sweet grassy/mossy aroma. Lovely! This tea is supposed to have the Sakura cherry blossom aroma which ups it price a bit I see. Well, like I said, I got a nice aroma but I didn’t think it was like a Cherry blossom. I don’t eat or smell cherry blossoms so I’m not sure what I am looking for. This tea had great umami but not overly strong like some gyokuro teas. Sweet and grassy/mossy.

So when I got near the end of the cup and it had cooled down, I could pick up this aroma that was kind of cherry blossom like. It was very good and this was just the first infusion so will have to see how other infusions go.

GCTTB4

I steeped this using Western parameters this morning: 12 oz, 1.5 tsp, 70C, 3 minutes or so.

The resulting liquor was a nice pale yellow green and tasted fairly mild but typical of a Japanese green tea: that umami vegetal flavour that was slightly sweet.

Glad I got a chance to try this. I think my heart really belongs with Chinese greens over Japanese ones, but it’s always good to try something new.

This is a most excellent matcha and the most unique flavor profile I have ever come across. I would not hesitate to repurchase when I run out. craftsmanship at it’s finest.

http://sororiteasisters.com/2015/05/26/cha-ginza-roasted-matcha-green-tea-yunomi/

I am not going to explain this experience… you, yes you who is reading this, should try this yourself.

What I will inform you of is this: This is the Japanese equivalent to pu’er and is very interesting because it steeps for 10 minutes before it is ready to be drank.

I may or may not have a little extra that I would be willing to trade… what you should be thinking is “who will I drink this with?”

While this is a very smooth taste, it does have a black tea taste to it- though that is no surprise. I will not rate this tea on my own taste, which is what I generally do, but rather I will rate it on the merits of aroma, freshness, and leaf quality. The integrity of this black oolong leaf is rather strong for a Japanese tea as it taste very fresh and has a very smooth taste. Though I personally am not a fan of black tea, this does not have that strong bitter taste that I associate with black teas so it would be preferred over a straight black tea for me.

Oh, yes. This hit the green tea spot this morning!

So buttery smooth, fresh and vegetal. Perfect balance of umami and zesty citrus brightness. I feel like it’m drinking spring in a cup! Too bad it’s been cold as fuzzzzzzz lately. I miss warm and sunny days ;/ what the hell spring?

I drank an entire pot of this last night :)
Looking at the only other review on here kind of makes me curious… but, to clarify there is no citrus taste and astringency isn’t something I’d associate with this tea unless you over brew it of course.
175f for 90 seconds = really green liquid that makes one’s mouth happy :)
Lots of vegetable taste with a very fresh and smooth after taste. Even if I gave all the top of the package to others in the group buy, the bottom leaf is fantastic; just make sure to have the right steeping utensils.

Here’s to drinking a Japanese oolong for breakfast. I have been excited to try an oolong from Japan (I even have 3 kind!) so this was a looked forward to tea time. What I find interesting about this tea is that it taste very similar to a mild black tea if it was flavor was identified with the vegetable and fresh taste that Japanese teas have. Even though it’s an oolong tea, prepare yourself for a mild cup of black tasting tea with a kick of Japanese earth as I would call it. Very smooth. Again, very smooth.

Bleah, I am not feeling too great today for some reason. Woke up with big allergy face and also taking an antibiotic for an unrelated condition. Seems like a good day to focus on green tea and eating fruit.

So this is another sample shincha I got from Yunomi. By the way I noticed they are doing a free shipping deal on shincha this weekend if you spend $40 and with the discount code of KEY05. I just ordered from them (and have plenty of green tea too) but I don’t know if I can pass this deal up. I’ve been giving away some green tea to my BF because he likes it too. ;)

This is another good shincha, very vivid green in color and fresh tasting. You can get at least 2-3 decent steeps out of these teas. I feel like this is a little more bitter than the last one I tried from them. Maybe more of an asparagus flavor than spinach and definitely less on the sweet side. tasty though. I definitely feel healthy when I drink these teas but I don’t know if it’s the placebo effect.

Rice pops!
This was a lovely genmaicha. The little rice krispies in this blend were fun too! The sample I had was mostly genmai’s and rice pops and less ‘cha.’ Delicious nevertheless.

I’m okay with the flavor, but too much powder or too hot water will make this extremely bitter and taste like pith. My only negative here is that there is sugar already in this mix and I don’t know how much.. The site lists “granulated sugar” in the ingredient list before “matcha” – at least in the US, the ingredients that are listed first are more abundant in the product than those listed later. I don’t want to think this is all sugar.
Oh, and definitely don’t use the full recommended amount of matcha – that’s a recipe for bitter tea.

One of my press samples, since I wanted to try an oolong. There is a nice, kinda earthy scent. The flavour is a bit nutty, which comes out more in the second mug. I got a little bit of molasses in the first cup. It has a slight smokiness, which works for the tea.

Glad to try a roasted oolong again. Thanks to Yunimous for this sample.

Thank you Christina for sending some of this my way. :)
This is a pretty nice genmaicha. The green isn’t offensive – not too grassy, not astringent, but I thought there wasn’t enough roasty from the rice. This came across as more green tea than genmaicha. Maybe I’m being harsh, yes there is some toasted rice flavor, I just with there was a lot more.
Enjoying it, but not loving it. Thanks though for sharing – always happy to try new ones.

One of my ‘press’ samples. It smells vegetal, with hints of baked bread, and grain. Perhaps even vegetable bread. The flavour is on the floral side, with more veggies. Good to try more Japanese black teas. Thanks to Yunomi for letting me try this.

I definitely get notes of dried fruit, baked bread and malt with this tea. However, they are all subdued, fairly well balanced. I am not liking it quite as much as the Japanese black I reviewed yesterday from a different brand. I think Yunomi says this tea is meant to be drank without sugar. It tasted good without sugar but I added it anyway. This is, like the other Japanese black from yesterday, a bit like a mild Sri Lankan breakfast tea.

I brewed this once in an 16oz Teavana Perfect Tea Maker/Gravity Steeper with 3 tsp leaf and 200 degree water for 3 min.

I love Japanese green teas but they are brewed at such low temperatures! I like my tea to be hot. When it’s brewed at 140F or 160F and goes from a teapot to a cup (which have been warmed)it still cools down somewhat so that I am drinking lukewarm tea. Well, that’s my only beef about this tea. Otherwise it’s good.

I botched the first brewing. Didn’t read the instructions and just brewed at my regular green tea temperature (185F) for 1 min. It came out bitter. So I threw that out and started again. This time it’s sweet and grassy. Not as much umami as sencha or gyokuro. It is lighter and with less caffeine. I am now on the 2nd infusion. It seems to have lost some of the punch (sencha & gyokuro usually get stronger in the 2nd infusion). and there’s a bit of bitterness creeping back into it. This one gets bitter really easy!

After infusing, the tea smells very nutty and vegetal, like green beans

The brewed tea is a sort of yellow-green color, kind of sickly looking if I’m being honest. The scent is quite umami and reminds me of gyokuru. The flavor is unique. It has a flash of bitterness, but an agreeable kind and underneath that is a rich bed of umami with very green and vegetal tones, and some hints of herb and mushroom.

On the second infusion, the flavor is dramatically different, much more mellow and subdued, more sweet and nutty. I imagine this is because most of the matcha was poured and drank in the first infusion. There’s a bit of a sour tang in the finish.

The third infusion is even more subtle and tastes something like green beans and nuts. There’s a little saltiness as well. I got this sample from an acquaintance, so I can’t say how old it is, and it certainly hasn’t been properly stored for a Japanese green tea since I got it. I have had it in a little plastic bag just sitting in a box of other samples for months, so I imagine I am not experiencing this tea in its ideal state of freshness. I’ll lean a little higher on my rating to account for that.

I don’t know if matcha-laced teas are really my thing. I’ve only had a couple now. I enjoy sencha because most I have had are very calming and don’t have an intense feeling from caffeine. Adding matcha to the tea makes it seem more invigorating and gives me more of the sensation of caffeine rush, so I don’t particularly enjoy that. This wasn’t a bad tea. The flavor was nice, but it’s not really something I prefer… a little too “edgy” for me, I think.

One of my press samples. Decided to try this because I’ve been mostly drinking black teas lately. Since it’s Sunday, I’m also having my own Masterpiece Theater with the adaptation of my favourite Dickens novel (starting a young Harry Potter.) This tea smells so nice, it has that good toasty scent, along with some hints of grain and roast nuts. The roasted, nutty flavour is nice as well. Just what I needed for the cold, windy day.