Gyokuro vs. mid & deep-steamed sencha

[iheartea]

I guess you could say I have been experimenting with all types of teas over the years - black teas with cream and sugar > oolongs > white tea and now the organic Japanese green teas. From a little over a year ago, I have preferred organic Japanese green teas.

I started my green tea "moments" with gyokuro and enjoyed its taste very much. During the last few months of 2009, I had been drinking the green teas I had purchased while in Kyoto - they were not organic but I enjoyed the taste nevertheless. It was important for my green tea "education" to try the different green teas available in Kyoto. Then, I moved on to sencha and had recently been trying the different levels of steaming.

Call me strange, but I prefer a green tea which is clear. I know that if I allow the tea to sit after steeping, the particles will all settle and it will be a lot clearer. It has nothing to do with its taste, but it is not aesthetically pleasing to me to see a cloudy green color in my cup which has been characteristic of the mid & deep-steamed senchas I have been trying the past few weeks. I guess I eat with my eyes first.

The gyokuro which I have tried does not produce a cloudy cup of tea and it helps me appreciate the moment even more. Does this mean that the gyokuros for the most part are only lightly steamed, leaving the leaves more intact? The brew is pretty clear and more to my liking. Maybe I need to stick to gyokuro?

[edkrueger]

Gyokuro is almost entirely light steamed. Even if some people find deep steamed sencha tolerable, or ever preferable, I think most would agree light steamed is the way to go with gyokuro.

[guitar9876]

You needn't only stick to gyokuro if you want asamushi (light steamed) tea. It sounds like you prefer the more traditional, Uji tea which I am also very found of myself! I have been drinking a lot of asamushi from Uji lately. Right now I'm drinking some sencha from Horaido, a tea shop in Kyoto. Produces a very clear cup and the leaves are beautiful. You should check them out! Their prices are really reasonable and their tea is amazing. Horaido is not an online shop though, so you have to ordeir though e-mail by giving your card info in separate e-mails. It was worth it though! Two other noteable vendors to check out are Maiko and Ippodo. All these shops happen to be in Kyoto.
Horaido:http://www.kyoto-teramachi.or.jp/horaido/greentea.htm
Maiko:http://www.maiko.ne.jp/english/
Ippodo:https://shop.ippodo-tea.co.jp/shop/en/

[guitar9876]

Just got an e-mail from Horaido which might be of interest!

Please understand that our teas are not always same.
Modern tea shop prefer vacuum pack and keep in freezer (-8~-20c degrees).
Their way is one grade tea is always same.

But we do traditional way.
We get new tea in May.
We sell New tea with smallest drying in order to keep very fresh aroma, but
taste is too bitter and astringent.
And the life of new tea is one to two months.

Then we pack these teas with small air and keep in mature room (+8~+12c
degrees)
This way is very difficult keep well, but if it was success, tea will be
full of volume and rich.

The demerit of this way is color will be yellow to orange than
vacuum-frozen.
But we think taste is more important than color.
Therefore, our tea is still bitter at July to August.
And getting milder with autumn insect singing.

We can take matured tea with autumn colored leaves.

Tea is full matured with snow fall season.

Very sweet teas in early spring.

We do it every year.

Please understand it.

Sincerely,
Nagahiro Yasumori

[Tead Off]

Thanks for posting this. This helps fill in some of the puzzle about Japanese green teas and also explains why a certain sencha I bought in the spring tastes very different when I bought it again in the fall, same harvest, just sitting in storage for several months.

[Chip]

That is also similar to the way Ippodo handles their sencha, however their goal is quite different. They want their tea to taste virtually the same year round, year after year. Seeking a brand name taste that a buyer can equate to when they buy the product ... however they also do a lot of blending in order to achieve this result.

Interesting ...

[iheartea]

Just got an e-mail from Horaido which might be of interest!


" . . . But we think taste is more important than color.
Therefore, our tea is still bitter at July to August.
And getting milder with autumn insect singing.

We can take matured tea with autumn colored leaves.

Tea is full matured with snow fall season.

Very sweet teas in early spring.

We do it every year.

Please understand it."

Sincerely,
Nagahiro Yasumori

I am enlightened! Thank you for posting Horaido's explanation. Kind of makes me want to go back to Japan to experiment some more. Since my taste preference seems to be influenced by a visually pleasing clear cup of green, I guess there will be more Gyokuro and Asamushi Sencha in my future. Any recommendations anyone?

[Oni]

There are many teashops and many teamasters with individual ideas of how great tea should be, but ultimately we are the judges, we decide what teas we like, Uji, Yame, Shizuoka, Kagoshima, etc., all have diffrent tea making styles, and ideas of preserving and blending and processing tea, even within these regions there are diffrent methods at every teafarm, Marukyu Koyamae brothers decided to go with the latest technology to produce their tea, with computer controlled stone grinders, and most of the teashops store their tea in nitro packs, than there are those that like tradition, like tsuen, horaido, ippodo, I read that at horaido teashop the consumers are mostly old people who drank tea for a lot of years, and they like it traditional style, I tried most of horaido`s teas, and I liked it a lot, so I cannot say that one thing is better than the other I still have limited experience, and as I go deeper into the tea world my taste and preferences seem to change, and I am getting a deeper understanding of tea, we communicate better, (same thing goes with wines, yesterday I got a wine from tokaj region that won 4 world class compettition gold medal, I am afraid I am not worthy enough to open it).