Official Shincha 2015 Ordering and Review Topic

[Tead Off]

jpo,

I just brewed 3g in a 70ml shiboridashi. See attached pic. 65c. 45sec, 65c.15 sec 2nd/3rd, 30 sec 4th same temp. The 2nd brew bordered on too long. A quick in and out would have done it.

Just thinking that Fukujuen sells different grades of Shincha. The one I am using is ¥2100 or 2200 for 50g at their Kyoto store. Top of the line. Where did you get yours? I don't remember seeing an '88'.

TBH, I am not a great fan of Shincha. I prefer Sencha after it has sat and gone through whatever it goes through to achieve a much more satisfying taste to me than Shincha. I only bought what I bought because I was in Japan and it was a good opportunity to get some high end tea and learn more about Shincha. I prefer to wait for the season's offerings of Sencha.

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[entropyembrace]

I'm a bit late to shincha but I went for some teas o-cha described as having lots of umami Oku Midori and Ureshino Tamaryokucha.

I also added in 50g of the famous Uji Gyokuro "Kamejirushi"

[GeorgeGR]

Any one have any suggestions as to which two Shincha teas I should get from O-cha?

I'm currently leaning towards Miyabi and Ureshino Tamaryokucha

[z_lamp]

Think I've finally got the Sae Midori brewing well through a happy accident. Added a bit of 87C water to the stuff in my cooler since I had cooled 20g too little by mistake, ended up with much better tea. Afterward I settled on 82C. All the parameters together are: 7g leaf, 112g water, 82C, 45s/30s/1m30s.

[jpo1933]

jpo,

I just brewed 3g in a 70ml shiboridashi. See attached pic. 65c. 45sec, 65c.15 sec 2nd/3rd, 30 sec 4th same temp. The 2nd brew bordered on too long. A quick in and out would have done it.

Just thinking that Fukujuen sells different grades of Shincha. The one I am using is ¥2100 or 2200 for 50g at their Kyoto store. Top of the line. Where did you get yours? I don't remember seeing an '88'.

TBH, I am not a great fan of Shincha. I prefer Sencha after it has sat and gone through whatever it goes through to achieve a much more satisfying taste to me than Shincha. I only bought what I bought because I was in Japan and it was a good opportunity to get some high end tea and learn more about Shincha. I prefer to wait for the season's offerings of Sencha.

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this, needed to finish up with finals before I started messing around with different brewing parameters
I had almost forgot I had a shiboridashi until you posted your hokujo one... didn't attempt to brew anything in my though since the last time I attempted to make sencha in it, I ended up just having to clean up a mess Those incised lines in the hokujo I guess really work at keeping leaf in!
Anyway, I tried about 3.5 grams with about 100 ml of water and your brewing times. The verdict! Much better! I guess I was just using too little leaf. Plus the binchotan charcoal I recently bought helped a bit too.
Still, I feel like i'm not getting as much out of the leaves as I could on the second brew... I brewed it for about 35 seconds(at 168) or so, but most of the sweetness from the first brew wasn't even noticeable the second time around. Should i up the brew time then, maybe? I'll play around with it a bit more today since I finally have a live again
And grade wise, I'm not entirely sure. Actually on fukujuen's jpn website, all the sencha they had available was the hachi ju hachi. Sounds like you were able to get a slightly earlier harvest maybe. Price was similar to yours tho. 2000 yen for 50 grams.

[Tead Off]

jpo,

Don't know why your 2nd brew is not giving you what you want. Usually, the more time you give the 2nd brew, the more bitter it becomes. I find the Fukujuen doesn't require much time to get what I want. But, in reality, what I want is a good tasting sencha, which shincha doesn't seem to fulfill for me. High grade sencha and gyokuro can border on sublime. None of the shincha i've had come close to that, although some I liked better than others.

[Balthazar]

Has anyone tried any of Thes du Japon's shinchas? I'd like to make an order, but am completely overwhelmed by the selection.. I might just end up making a random order of 2-3 teas

I'm looking at something around in the ballpark of $20-25 per 100g (which isnt going to get me the best stuff, I know, but I've had good teas for around that price from there before)

[shinobicha]

Sort the shinchas by region Shizuoka/Honyama and order teas from the Tsukiji estate. I have tried the Yokosuka from there and it is excellent. But you will not go wrong with that producer. That being said I've never had a dud from Thes du Japon. I also recommend the sencha from Okawa-Oma (both of these were 2014 versions, and the Okawa was not from that estate).

Currently have the tamaryokucha saemidori open, which has a nice roasted quality. If you have never tried kamairicha, they have a good selection of those if you want something very different.

[Alex]

I'm a bit late to shincha but I went for some teas o-cha described as having lots of umami Oku Midori and Ureshino Tamaryokucha.

I also added in 50g of the famous Uji Gyokuro "Kamejirushi"

That tamaryokucha is a bit of a gem for the price. Really good stuff

[Balthazar]

Sort the shinchas by region Shizuoka/Honyama and order teas from the Tsukiji estate. I have tried the Yokosuka from there and it is excellent. But you will not go wrong with that producer. That being said I've never had a dud from Thes du Japon. I also recommend the sencha from Okawa-Oma (both of these were 2014 versions, and the Okawa was not from that estate).

Currently have the tamaryokucha saemidori open, which has a nice roasted quality. If you have never tried kamairicha, they have a good selection of those if you want something very different.

Thanks! I ended up with two choices, and threw in the tamaryokucha you mentioned and a smoked black tea for good measure

[shinobicha]

Which two did you choose besides the black tea and the tamaryokucha? Hope you like them!

[Balthazar]

The "Sencha from Hon.yama, Yokosawa" and "Sencha from Honyama Takayama, pesticide-free, Yamakai". Looking forward to brewing them.

[shinobicha]

Great! I'm sure you'll like the Yokosawa; I'd like to try the Yamakai and I probably will at some point.

[KaiRong]

Yesterday afternoon my order of Marukyu-Koyamaen shincha gin also arrived, thanks to a local teashop. As I did not have the chance to prepare it at my work place properly (water is too hard here), I waited for this morning to have the first flush of precious greenness of the season. This year's gin shincha is very strong, I feel stronger than even last year's shincha, with an additional wetness feeling after drinking it (probably due to the heavy rains before harvesting). I also did a mistake by drinking it on an empty stomach, before breakfast, so I got K.O.-d a little bit, feeling quite nauseous, an effect only sheng puerh could achieve on me so far. I will be more cautious next time.

I used 8 grams of tea in a tokoname kyusu with 200 ml water, heated to 55 Celsius degrees, increasing temperature by 10 degrees for each additional brewing. Brewing time varied from 90 seconds to 150 seconds. First flush was strong and filled with umami, second flush was strong with less umami but more wetness, and from the third time on it became sweeter and lighter with a wet taste.

Are there any other methods of brewing this particular Marukyu-Koyamaen shincha? I still have 92 grams of pure freshness, so I can experiment

[bryan_drinks_tea]

I got the Sencha from Hon.yama, Tamakawa, made outta the Yamakai type.
Ordered it from Thes du Japon, which has always been an excellent source. I'm looking forward to ordering asamushi from O-cha too.