Because I was working Singapore Tea Festival last year, I didn’t really have a lot of time to slowly ponder and shop for tea. All my purchases were rushed and as a result, I completely forgot what this was:

The only thing I remembered about this was that it’s from Arinobu tea. I was pretty sure I didn’t get the sencha or the houjicha because those sold out on Day One, but they had a few other teas!

The teabag was pretty much opaque so the only thing I could do was the brew it! I brewed this for the first time before the lockdown started so I had a fellow Japanese-tea loving friend who was going to help me taste.

The tea was a light yellow colour with very strong toasty notes. It’s intensely sweet and reminded me of rice. But, if I drank deeply the tea reminded me of mugicha. I was so torn between the two options and so was my friend.

In the end, I realised I could cut open the teabag and take a look. It was mugicha after all! I guess one of my guesses was right?

Why am I posting about this now? Because I forgot about this tea (again) until my dad asked for some Japanese tea that was not green tea (he’s not a fan of the marine notes). I gave him this and when I told him it was mugicha his immediate response was “oh yeah I can taste the barley”

I guess it’s just my tastebuds that need more training! But seriously, this was a good lesson not to take myself too seriously when it comes to tea because I am still learning about it. I mean, I thought I knew what mugicha was after drinking it countless times, but I fumbled hard here just because Arinobu processes theirs a slightly different way.

Anyway, I’ve got one Dong Ding oolong that I purchased from Kenny and I found a 2016 Tie Guan Yin in my cupboard, so I shall try one of these two next! Any thoughts on which to try first?