This is the second of the three wakoucha that I’m planning to drink and compare (while I ignore an unopened box of tea) and it’s actually the one that intrigued me the most!

This tea is made from the same cultivar as the amazingly floral Yame Organic Benifuki Wakoucha that I recently drank and loved, but it has been aged for half a year and instead of Yame, it was produced in Nara.

First Impressions

The dry leaves are long and twisted with a green tint to them. There’s a woody and medicinal scent, which is a bit surprising but it’s okay, I’m still expecting the floral notes.

Tasting Notes

For the first steep, I got a rather woody scent but a very smooth tea liquor (the word that popped into my head as I was drinking was “creamy”, make of that what you will). It’s slightly bitter, as though I oversteeped it, so even though the newsletter with this tea recommends a longer steeping time, I may start with something shorter in the future. After all these come a floral note that’s present but not very strong and I noticed that there’s not much aftertaste to the tea.

Things got better in the second steep because the bitter note starts to make sense – it’s not unpleasant but it’s giving the tea some depth and I quite like it because the floral note has shifted to because part of the aftertaste, so it kind of lingers in the mouth after you swallow the tea.

The tea liquor has lightened quite a bit by the third steep and the bitter note is completely gone. The tea is mostly woody and floral, which is pleasant and quite different from most other wakouchas. In total, I managed to get about five steeps in one session.

I thought the spent leaves would be a little greener, but they’re actually pretty red!

Overall

It seems like either the ageing process or the change in terroir (or perhaps there’s a change in processing method) has led to the floral notes in this tea being a lot more subdued than in the other benifuki wakoucha that I had. But, at least now I know that this cultivar has these notes, and it’s up to the farm and farmer how strong it’s going to be.