TeaChat

That is most uninformative. That alone seems like a reason not to buy.

edkrueger wrote:That is most uninformative. That alone seems like a reason not to buy.

Did they read the questions before answering? Some answers make no sense while others are "uniformative" at best.

Personally, I think the person who replied has a political career ahead of them. Takes some skill to answer a question without answering it at all.

I particularly like #3.

beachape wrote:Personally, I think the person who replied has a political career ahead of them. Takes some skill to answer a question without answering it at all.

This was my thought EXACTLY. I thought what a politician.

Probably a combination of JapEnglish issues (or what is the native language of Brazil....Portugese?) and a front line minimum-wage "drone" employee answering basic incoming emails.

best,

................john

Well my Yamamotoyama tea was supposed to arrive today....except for the fact that UPS hates me .

I only got one notice, which I promptly signed and wrote a polite note asking the package to be left outside. Well it turns out the first note was really the second note. So today while I was at home (yup, didn't hear any bell and I wasn't listening to music) they made the last delivery attempt and returned the product to sender. I called and they said there is nothing they can do, there is no way they can control what their delivery people do. What bothers me even more is that I took enough initiative to hand write a note, but they didn't even hold the package at their facility. Within one hour of the attempt they already put the package in some magical bin from whence the package shall never return.

This really frustrated me because I was expecting the tea tonight and also because it will take me forever to get the tea back. Waiting for it to return to California, waiting for the customer service people to deal with it, then probably getting charged extra for shipping....

I really wish more companies would use USPS rather than ups because they don't have all these ridiculous policies. You can beg and plead for ups to leave a package but they just won't do it. You never know what time they will deliver the package. If you want to pick up a package you have to drive for miles and jump through hoops too.

yeah I don´t like courier services either...always have better experiences using regular postal services even when ordering internationally.

Hey Beachape,

After following this thread for a while, I noticed my corner store sells the cheap Yamamotoyama Sencha for about $4.00 / 7 oz. I decided to try it out after getting impatient for my Dens order to arrive. I can't say its great, but as a daily drinker (or a between orders drinker ) it does the job. The flavour is pleasant, slightly sweet, overall fairly ordinairy and notably lacking in umami. Chances are I won't drink it often so most likely make a few big batches of Iced Tea with it. I'm very curious to know how much of it is actually of Brazilian origin, but I guess it pretty hard to find out. Anyway let us know how your order turns out once it gets re-shipped.

Cheers

Thanks for the review and picture. The tea pictured is from their family line, which basically means least expensive. I've seen that in stores before but only tried the genmaicha version. I ordered the next level up premium sencha and fukamushi senchas. Hopefully they might be a little better, but this is an experiment and I won't be too bummed if I can only make iced tea with them.

I am willing to bet that the tea you have and the tea I ordered are 100 percent brazillian. Maybe some of the higher priced stuff has some Japanese tea, but I doubt that.

I bought the Yamamotoyama deep steamed green tea at Mitsuwa supermarket in New Jersey. Expiration date is on the bag. It tasted quite good, like the Megami sencha from Ito En. Since there are many ethnic Japanese in Brazil, I guess most of the tea grown there is for local use.

Finally got my yamamotoyama this week. I popped open the "Premium Sencha" bag first.

The leaf is pretty broken up and the leaf color is not shiny. Taste is surprisingly not bad. Has a lot of umami to it. Certainly lacks "freshness" but makes a decent ice tea and hot tea. I would compare it most to bancha's that i've tried.

I haven't tried the other bags yet, but am considering opening them all up at once... I have a feeling that they will all taste the same.

For $5.70/100g certainly worth it. However having tried better sencha, you will certainly miss the freshness of higher end stuff. The color is also a little less than appealing, (more brownish than golden/green). Nonetheless a good experiment. I will report back once I've tried the other varieties.

I bought a bag of their fukamushicha. I like it all right, although it's not as good as a mystery bag bought before, but it does have a distinct unusual note to it. My friends, in informal taste testing, preferred Hime brand bancha. Then again, my friends seem to prefer Hime brand bancha to everything.

I also tried the Breakfast sencha. It tastes good but has a few stems. I recommend it for those who like twig tea blends.

This is an old topic but I did contact Yamamotoyama and asked them which of their green tea products were grown in Japan, Brazil, and which ones were a blend. This is the reply I received:


Thank you for your interest in Yamamotoyama Green Tea products.

Majority of our Sencha green tea products are blend of teas grown in Brazil, Japan and China (sometimes).
Currently, our regular organic green tea products are very likely made with 100% Brazilian green teas.


Sincerely,

Yamamotoyama of America
Customer Service