I am drinking these teas at a good pace! Hopefully I can keep this up without aggravating my gastric (people with high caffeine tolerances: I want to be you when I grow up).
Today’s sencha is from the Musashi-kaori cultivar and comes from Masuoka-en.
First Impressions
Interestingly, the tea is pretty tightly packed for this (vacuum-packed?). Like with the Fukumidori, the dry leaves are a dark green, but this one smells sweeter.
Tasting Notes
First steep: In terms of looks, this looks almost identical to the Fukumidori. In terms of taste, however, they’re very different. The Musashi-kaori is much more like the sencha that I’m used to have – sweet, grassy, and with a distinct umami note. The umami isn’t as strong as I imagined, but it’s there and it makes for a delicious tea.
Second steep: The fragrance has dropped drastically in this steep, although the taste is still pretty strong. The taste is very much the same as the first steep, so the sudden lack of smell is a bit surprising.
Spent leaves: The leaves look a bit bigger than the Fukumidori? Or perhaps I’m imagining things and there’s not much value in looking at spent sencha leaves (unlike in Chinese teas, where I’m trying to see if the leaf is whole). I have not yet gotten the impulse to try eating this, although I know some people have it with ponzu.
I managed to make 6-7 cups out of this. Funnily enough, the first time I had this, the caffeine made me really jittery. I didn’t see that the second time I made a few batches, so that may or may not have been a one-off.
Personally, I think this tea is great for people who like their sencha with a more subtle umami flavour to it. The dominant notes of this tea is grassy and sweet, and I enjoyed it very much.
Tea Description
According to the tea card:
“[Musashi-kaori is] an organic tea which harmonises citrus, fresh aroma with mild umami taste. It won the gold medal at the organic tea category of C’est bon le Japon in 2018, a Japanese tea competition held in Paris.
“Musashi-kaori” is a brand raised by Saitama Tea Research Institute, and registered in 2001. […] This tea tastes good as hot tea, but it also tastes good as cold tea because the leaves are roasted rather strongly.”
I did not really get citrus here, so I’m planning to cold brew these and see if I get it then! Will report back!
About Masuoka-en Description
From the tea card:
“Masuoka-en owns a tea plantation of 3.1 hectares in Kanekodai, Iruma city, Saitama. It went organic in 1972 and was certified as an organic grower by passing JAS standards in 2002. The planter, Mr Shinichi Masuoka, has been passionately researching organic growing methods.”