Gyokuro is on my short lists of favorite teas. I recently read a book called 'Tea of the Sages' which included the origin story of gyokuro. I'll summarize it here:
Steeped teas whether sencha or bancha have been in production in Japan from the mid 1600s. Steeped tea only became a mainsteam hit in Japan after 1738 when a man named Nagatani Soen of the Yamamotoyama tea shop perfected the production techniques of tea leaves for sencha. Nagatani's descendants continued to innovate and create higher qualities of tea in the market eventually adopting the shading technique used for the production of tencha (for matcha). Shading the tea plant helped with irregular/out of season frost problems as well as increased the caffeine content and reduced tannins in the finished tea.
The man credited with the invention and naming of Gyokuro (Jade Dew) is Yamamoto Tokujin. The name comes from the color of the steamed green tea leaves once they have been put through the rolling process. Gyokuro has been available to the public since 1835.
After the invention of gyokuro, sencha's popularity soared. For the first time ever interest for sencha surpassed matcha/chanoyu albeit only briefly.
The complexities in the manufacturing process of gyokuro could only be supported by a high sales price which only connoisseurs could/would afford. Gyokuro became the standard tea for 'sencha gatherings' and only on the rare occasion would lower quality teas be used (sencha or bancha)
To this day Yamamotoyama is still in business.
https://www.yamamotoyama.co.jp/index.html
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My question to you all is: Have any of you tried Yamamotoyama's gyokuros? If so, what was your experience like? The prices don't seem so high for so illustrious of a company.
I did a search through this forum and seen that yamamotoyamas hojicha's and sencha's seem to be decently popular around the world.
Re: Gyokuro
So I finally had a chance to try Yamamotoyama's top gyokuro. It's called 'Tenkaichi' or 'The best on Earth'. It doesn't seem that Yamamotoyama's shop in Japan ships overseas, so we had it sent to my wife's fathers house in Osaka, and then he sent it to us in Canada.
In my OP I mentioned that yamamotoyama seems to be rather popular for their sencha and houjicha -- eventually I saw that their representation in North America seems to be nothing special, supermarket level stuff. A far cry from the reputation they hold in Japan. I guess the same is with everything, sake being a good example: Gekkeikan in NA is very different from the wonderful bottles produced in Osaka. I digress.
Tenkaichi is a special tea, it's among the most umami rich gyokuro's I've had. The umami is so high that after a few cups the roof of my mouth felt like I've had salt on it, the kind of irritating, sensitive burn that salty foods give. The aroma is rather simple, it smells like salty sea air. A food I've had which might be similar is Umi-budo or 'Sea Grapes' from Okinawa. While green tea generally gives off a cooling sensation, I would say this is a rather 'warming' tea, despite brewing it at only 50c.
Would it be the best Gyokuro? Well I don't know, that's hard to say. I've had plenty of great ones in my life -- this isn't very interesting in the aromatic aspect, nor is it interesting in the flavor complexity aspect. The umami is really powerful and the flavor has a lot of impact, so if someone values umami above all else, it might be the best, or in the handful of the best.
A 100g bag of Tenkaichi is $130 CAD, and that isn't including whatever shipping came to. It's not cheap. I guess when I said 'the price doesn't seem so high for such an illustrious company' I didn't see Tenkaichi at that time.
In my OP I mentioned that yamamotoyama seems to be rather popular for their sencha and houjicha -- eventually I saw that their representation in North America seems to be nothing special, supermarket level stuff. A far cry from the reputation they hold in Japan. I guess the same is with everything, sake being a good example: Gekkeikan in NA is very different from the wonderful bottles produced in Osaka. I digress.
Tenkaichi is a special tea, it's among the most umami rich gyokuro's I've had. The umami is so high that after a few cups the roof of my mouth felt like I've had salt on it, the kind of irritating, sensitive burn that salty foods give. The aroma is rather simple, it smells like salty sea air. A food I've had which might be similar is Umi-budo or 'Sea Grapes' from Okinawa. While green tea generally gives off a cooling sensation, I would say this is a rather 'warming' tea, despite brewing it at only 50c.
Would it be the best Gyokuro? Well I don't know, that's hard to say. I've had plenty of great ones in my life -- this isn't very interesting in the aromatic aspect, nor is it interesting in the flavor complexity aspect. The umami is really powerful and the flavor has a lot of impact, so if someone values umami above all else, it might be the best, or in the handful of the best.
A 100g bag of Tenkaichi is $130 CAD, and that isn't including whatever shipping came to. It's not cheap. I guess when I said 'the price doesn't seem so high for such an illustrious company' I didn't see Tenkaichi at that time.