What is this tea?

Made from leaves that have not been oxidized.


Aug 17th, '13, 12:02
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What is this tea?

by jextxadore » Aug 17th, '13, 12:02

Hi all,

Found a tea in Jusco (department store with a supermarket) tonight. HKD60 for 100g (~USD8). It's clearly a green tea…I think.

It's labelled 八女茶 (Yamecha) in large, but on the side says 福みどり, which Google translates as "Fuzhou green". Fuzhou's in Fujian so…is this a Chinese-grown tea or…:?:

Smell: Like matcha but also a bit like a hayfield in summer on a farm by the sea.

Taste: Reminds me of matcha (the kind you taste in ice cream — I don't think I've ever drunk real matcha before) only not so sweet. Rather grassy and leaves my mouth a bit dry…tiny hint of bitterness, but neither in a medicinal nor astringent (which would give me a bit of sour as well) way.

I'm brewing with about 3g to 200ml, ~80ºC at a guess (I boiled water then opened the lid and waited for 5 minutes in an ACd room at 25ºC), for about 1.5 minutes. As expected (and I really wasn't expecting much, given the price), it's lost ~70% of its flavour this second infusion.

But my question is: What is this tea?

Oh, and on the nutrition label it says "Yame-cha Tea Fuku Midori green tea".

Image

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Aug 17th, '13, 12:24
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Re: What is this tea?

by Chip » Aug 17th, '13, 12:24

... my guess is Fuku Midori sencha from Yame on the island of Kyushu Japan.

Any photos of the tea and brew?

Aug 17th, '13, 13:16
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Re: What is this tea?

by jextxadore » Aug 17th, '13, 13:16

Image

I didn't get any photos of the liquor before I finished it :P but from googling images of sencha, it's kind of that colour…reminiscent of the green of grass just before it turns to hay?

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Aug 17th, '13, 17:43
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Re: What is this tea?

by Chip » Aug 17th, '13, 17:43

Does the label say fuku or fuka?

Midori is Japanese for green.

Aug 17th, '13, 22:48
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Re: What is this tea?

by jextxadore » Aug 17th, '13, 22:48

The label says fuku.

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Aug 17th, '13, 23:02
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Re: What is this tea?

by Chip » Aug 17th, '13, 23:02

Hm, fuka I could understand. In fact there is a tea called Fuka Midori from Den's which I would transalate as "deep green."

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Aug 17th, '13, 23:05
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Re: What is this tea?

by bambooforest » Aug 17th, '13, 23:05

I think FukuMidori may be a cultivar.

http://www.thes-du-japon.com/index.php? ... cts_id=187

This link above has a tea that's said to be
Fukumidori
cultivar.

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Aug 17th, '13, 23:12
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Re: What is this tea?

by Chip » Aug 17th, '13, 23:12

That would make sense.

Aug 18th, '13, 01:24
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Re: What is this tea?

by jextxadore » Aug 18th, '13, 01:24

So conclusion is that it's a cheap sencha. Sorted!

…that tin of powder I bought the other day was also sencha, I have since found (konacha). Matcha seems to be impossible to find in HK…(this was ~USD10 for 30g).

Anyway, thanks for the help guys.

Now for the bitter lessons of learning how to brew this properly. :lol:

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Aug 19th, '13, 14:07
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Re: What is this tea?

by Drax » Aug 19th, '13, 14:07

By the way, 'fuzhou' was an odd translation of 福 (potentially Chinese, but then it's just 'fu'). In Japanese, it would be 'fuku.'

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