I’ve generally been slowly and quietly drinking the teas in Lupicia’s Book of Tea, but I could not resist talking about this one. The English name is Sencha Fuji, but the Japanese name is 富士 香駿 (Fuji Koshun). Apparently, the 香駿/Koshun cultivar is a relatively rare cultivar, so I decided to dig around and see if I could find any information about it!

Basic Information about Koshun

Date of registration: 27/6/2000 (Heisei 12) [1]

Cultivar Registrant (品種登録者): Shizuoka Prefecture [1]

Parent Cultivars: Kurawasa and Kanayamidori

Notes about this cultivar [2]: The scent is what makes it special – at times, it has a milky scent and at other times, it has a floral scent. The taste of the tea can differ based on when it’s harvested and when it’s processed, but the spring of freshly harvested tea is refreshing and the tea sweetens as it goes into autumn. It’s apparently popular among young ladies, and according to Moriuchi-san (the farmer interviewed), when a technician (I assume a tea expert? The Japanese is 技術者) from Taiwan came, this was the only cultivar that he praised as good. I’ll excerpt the section of Moriuchi-san’s interview, in case anyone who wants to read Japanese wants to read it:

森内：とにかく香りが独特です。ミルクみたいな香りがする時があったり、花の香りがする時があったり…。作り方とか時期にもよるけど、お茶が出来立ての春は爽やか、時間を少しおいて秋になってくると甘い感じになってきます。あとは、火入りや発酵の具合で、本当に香りが大きく変わるから面白いね。台湾の技術者が来たとき、唯一日本の品種で「これはいい」って言ったのが香駿だったな…。いろんな人の意見も聞き入れながら、時代の嗜好性に合わせてお茶づくりをしています。

My tasting notes

It’s a pity that I only had one teabag of this sencha because what I tasted was delicious – vegetal and sweet. While I sadly did not get any floral or milk aromas, I enjoyed this very much. During my second steep, I forgot about this tea for a few minutes but the tea liquor remained sweet with barely any bitterness. All in all, this was an easy to drink tea that I would like to get to know better.

Footnotes

[1] Information from Wacha Club (Japanese)

[2] Information from an article called Shizuoka Girl Project (Japanese)

[3] The information above is from a farmer, but if you’d like more general information, I recommending looking at this link: Ocha Net (Japanese)