Photiou wrote:Yutaka Midori - that 'O-Cha classic' was almost worst 'sencha' I have ever bought - actually I bet it was scooped up from tea factory floor
- and I have not ordered anything from them since... but it would be nice to test how those other YMs do compare (are they all steamed to death?).
O-Cha.com's Yutaka Midori is actually the best sencha I have ever bought and the one that I drink the most. I rank Tsuen's Kirameki from O-Cha up there as well, but that one has very limited availability. I'm working on my last bag now, and when that's gone it's back to my all-time fave, O-Cha's Yutaka Midori.
Over the spring and summer I received several different types of sencha as gifts from various Japanese vendors. I also purchased various Japanese teas from vendors that I had previously only purchased teaware from. I had exclusively used O-Cha as my regular source of Japanese tea up to this summer. I wanted to see what other vendors had to offer.
As far as the different sencha's go, O-Cha's top five (Yutaka Midori, Kirameki, Miyabi, Fukamashi Supreme, Hatsumi) soundly defeated all challengers by a wide margin. Some of the others were actually quite good, but in my opinion and based on my taste, the O-Cha selection of sencha is far superior to any I have tried from other sources.
I got the same results with gyokuro; O-Cha's Kame-Giru-Shi and Ume no Uki-hashi are the best two gyokuros I have ever brewed.
Genmai-cha is the only exception to the otherwise consistent results of my "O-Cha takes on all challengers" test. I did find one genmai-cha that I thought was better than what is offered by O-Cha. However, it used a high quality first flush sencha which seems to defeat the purpose of using the rice to add flavor to later harvest, lower grade teas. It also needs to be brewed like top quality sencha using lower water temp, but extra tea to make up for the volume of rice. It was twice the price of O-Cha's version. To be fair, I admit it's the best genmai-cha I have tasted. It was purchased at Zencha.net. Zencha's gyokuro and sencha did not impress me when compared to those purchased from O-Cha.com. Zencha does have a great selection of teaware and sake items though, and I will continue purchasing those items from them.
Being high quality, first flush teas, O-Cha's best senchas can be difficult to brew in comparison to the some of the other lighter, sweeter, and somewhat bland sencha I've had from other sources. I don't consider this to be a negative, as top quality items sometimes require special care.
I have never seen any Yutaka Midori from O-Cha that looks like tea dust, so I'm not sure what you're talking about here. I do know that when brewed with typical kyusu, especially those with sasame (clay) filters, a fair amount of leaf makes it through the filter and into the cup. This does alter the flavor, but in a way that I find desireable. Over time, makers of Japanese teaware have varied the hole size in these filters as the tastes of Japanese consumers changed. The holes became larger when the consumer learned that some leaf in the cup was healthy and also tasted good.
My purchases of Japanese tea from other vendors was not due to any dis-satisfaction with the O-Cha selection. It was merely a test to verify that I was correct in my selection of O-Cha.com as my sole source of Japanese tea. I do have an order of matcha and a 50 gram bag of sencha on the way from Maiko Tea Shop, but so far, with the exception of genmai-cha, O-Cha easily wins all categories. I have not yet found any other vendor that consistently supplies tea at this high level of quality. One Japanese teaware vendor has stated that I am drinking much better tea than most Japanese. I consider this more of a compliment to O-Cha.com that to me, as they do the work in their selection process and I just click the "add to cart" button. I consider O-Cha.com's overall selection, especially theYutaka Midori, to be among the best deals to be found on the internet.
. This has been a case of simply trying the best example of a type of tea first (like trying the best matcha first verses building up to the best). 
Your lust of the asamushi and disdain for the fukamushi is long documented. 
