A Warning: Den's Shincha Houryoku

[Oni]

There are two things that bug me in a tea vendor, if the prices are too high regardless the quality and you can find similar or better quality tea for a lower price, or if the quality is bad regardless the price the vendor is on my "never order again" list.
Destea does not sell to Europe, but even if it were the prices are too high and the quality is too low as you mention, and it is not based in japan, I like teashops that sell japanese tea to store their tea in japan in the right conditions and ship it from there. There is o-cha selling stellar fukamushi for good price, try them instead. There is a hungarian saying> " Don`t leave the path you know for an unknown".

[scruffmcgruff]

There is a hungarian saying> " Don`t leave the path you know for an unknown".

Just because there is a saying doesn't make it correct. If you never tried anything new, how would you know how good o-cha's fukamushi is?

[Oni]

You are right, after someone gets dissapointed with a teashop, they`ll search for something better, and those better ones just keep you coming back to them, sofar my 3 best are o-cha, horaido, maiko; as price vs quality goes.

[iannon]

This is a Shizuoka area shincha I got recently.Organic as well.. I dont have a pic of the dry leaves but heres what it looks like after one infusion.. what say you all?

[Ed]

Those look like decent asamushi leaves to me. If the aroma and flavor were good then I'd be happy with that purchase...

[Chip]

Chip. Mine does not have hardly any needles. Its almost entirely particles less than a mm in any direction.

Since I have some open, I will give it a try later. I cannot explain the difference in what I received and what you received.

I don't mess around with Japanese tea vendors if they do not deliver the goods. Den's has been very good on the mid to higher end teas. I currently rank them 3rd on my fave list behind O-Cha and Zencha.

[Chip]

OK, just finishing up 3 steeps of Houryoku. The wet leaf looks pretty similar to Iannon's photo actually. Lots of larger leaf mixed in with smaller bits.

The flavor is nicely sweet for the first steep with a hint of bitter in the background, gives this a snap. I am using ratio of .66, brewing for 30 seconds at 158* in a preheated kyusu. Clearly milder than a shincha asamushi as I would expect, a lot of high points are toned down, but it is nicely balanced.

Good special edition fuka. Sorry you are having problems with yours, EdK, let me know if you would like to try this.

[edkrueger]

Its probably just that I just don't like Fukmushicha. Its really like you say, but the leaves in the picture seem a little bigger. I'm comparing it to Den's Hashiri and Ippodo's Shincha... that is probally not fair.

[Chip]

Yeah, asamushi this is not ...