A friend of mine came back from Japan recently and she gifted me this packet of teas as omiyage! I love Japanese teas so even though I’ve still got quite a lot of loose leaf green teas left, I decided to try this as soon as I could.

This set of three consists of three teas: Genmaicha (green tea with rice), Sencha (green tea), Kabuse (shaded green tea). Each box contains two tea bags of that tea. Although the teas are in pyramid teabags, the bags themselves are pretty large and even after brewing, there was still some space left in the teabag.

Here are my notes on the teas:

• Genmaicha: This had amazing toasted rice notes and was a very satisfying tea. The toasted rice note was stronger than the green tea note, but not by much and I could still taste a subtle marine note at the end.
• Sencha: I was surprised by how sweet this tea was. The sweetness from the tea balanced well with the grassy notes and there was a nice hint of umami as well.
• Kabuse: Unlike the sencha, the umami notes in the kabuse are much stronger while there isn’t much sweetness. There were also umami/marine notes in here that I loved.

All three teas were great teas and I was so happy to be able to drink them. One thing I noticed is that all three teas had very little astringency, which made them go down incredibly well. I originally opened them to help with digesting a particularly full lunch (I know tea doesn’t work that way but I tend to crave tea after a big meal) but ended up feeling even more stuffed because of the numerous cups of tea I could not stop myself from drinking.

About Gion Tsujiri (+a mini mystery)

Established in 1860 as “Tsujiri” as shop making and selling Uji tea. Later on, it moved to Gion, Kyoto, where it changed its name to “Gion Tsujiri”. I couldn’t find the three-tea set that I received, but they do have a five-tea set (there’s also houjicha and gyokuro) for sale online.

While looking for information about Gion Tsujiri online, I came across what is, to me, a tiny mysteary. There is another Tsujiri company named Tsujiri Chaho (辻利茶舗) – this is the one with branches in Japan, Singapore, UK, Malaysia, Canada, Hong Kong, etc

I looked up both companies and I discovered the following:

• They both have slightly different company names: Gion Tsujiri is 株式会社 祇園辻利 while Tsujiri Chaho is 株式会社辻利茶舗
• Both companies say they’re founded in 1860 by 辻利右衛門 but
• Gion Tsujiri was incorporated in 1949 while Tsujiri Chaho was incorporated in 1956 (both have different presidents)
• While they both have the same founder, the names on their respective websites have different names for the second generation leader (徳次郎 for Gion Tsujiri and 辻仙助 aka 辻利兵衛 for Tsujiri Chaho)
• The logo for each company is also different

Luckily, this was a mini mysteary that could be solved with the help of Wikipedia. According to the Gion Tsujiri Wikipedia page, the son of the founder, 徳次郎 married into another family, but his grandson and a cousin set up 辻利茶舗 together in 1948. There’s still some timeline discrepancy (the Tsujiri Chaho has their main shop being set up in 1947) but this makes enough sense that I’m willing to call it a mysteary solved.

(Which calls for more tea)

Gion Tsujiri’s About Page and Company History

Tsujiri Chaho’s About Page