Various newbie questions about Japanese greens!

[Amaikokonut]

So I've been in this newbie phase of trying every tea under the sun for the past few months, and I'm considering settling down a bit and narrowing down my tea exploration to one "category" at a time so I can focus a little more, find what I like, and actually try out some of the good stuff instead of always spending my tea budget on variety over quality.

I'm considering starting with Japanese greens, partly because I am completely infatuated with my little shincha teapot I ordered from Den's, and partly because my tea-friend is quite interested as well, and it's always quite nice to share the experience. But I have a few questions before I go throwing teamoney around.

My first question is regarding astringency. I'm not really a fan. I always thought it was a sign of poor brewing or poor quality, and generally spend a lot of time and practice trying to brew (admittedly cheap) senchas with as little astringency as possible. Then in reading through some descriptions on various sites, I notice astringency is often listed as a characteristic of the tea, leading me to wonder if some people just really like that tight/dry mouth feeling and if I'm spending all this time trying to brew the tea into something it's not really meant to be. Can anyone confirm/deny this? Is it just characteristic of the lower end of the price/quality scale or is sencha just not for me? Are there less astringent varieties I should try?

Secondly, I have never tried any sort of gyokuro, and I'm not sure where to start. Might some of you more experienced sort make a few recommendations? Ideally I'd like to try small/sample sizes first, but that seems to be hard to come by. I would like something mid to higher quality at the same time; I'd like to avoid the same predicament I am in with sencha right now wherein I don't know if I just don't like it as a whole or if it's just the low grade of the tea.

I did try the Den's sampler, and found I really loved the toasty flavors of both the genmaicha and the houjicha. I also received a sample of pineapple sencha that I found extremely pleasant, much more so than I expected as I haven't generally been a huge fan of flavored greens.

I guess I'm just looking for recommendations on how to branch out and explore the world of Japanese greens based on what I already know I like. Any and all advice and opinions would be greatly appreciated

Thanks all!

[Chip]

Yes, astringency is a part of a well balanced sencha. How much will depend on the sencha. There are several flavors/sensations interacting in a well balanced sencha and these vary from sencha to sencha. A good one will have balance. A bad one will usually lack balance and be dominated by a less desirable flavor/sensation ... and there are LOTS of these out there.

The flavors/sensations may be sweet, veggie, bitter, grassy, floral, astringent, etc (some f this is aroma which you will often perceive as taste. Too much bitter or astringency can be a bad thing obviously. But none can leave the tea tasting/feeling flat.

Generally low grade sencha will taste like low grade sencha. But a good sencha does not have to be expensive to be good, and an expensive sencha might not meet your tastes or expectations.

Gyokuro, I might recommend conquering sencha first. However if you definitely want to try this now, I will answer in another post.

If you like Den's, their Yame is pretty good fukamushi. So is the Maki.

Other vendors I use regularly are O-Cha, Zencha, Maiko, Rishi ... beyond those 5, there is another tier of vendors I use less regularly but like as well.

[mbishop]

If you like Den's, their Yame is pretty good fukamushi.

+1. The Yame is delicious, and very mellow.

[debunix]

It is possible to enjoy very nice japanese green teas without astringency. I'm a bitterphobe myself, and generally try to avoid it. I often brew my senchas a little cooler and shorter than average, and really shorten that 2nd infusion, where it seems like a lot of tea flavor elements are already leaking from the leaves as they sit damp after the first infusion, and a flash brewing with more water is often all you need, and avoids the bitterness of a longer 30 second infusion. A typical sequence for me might be 30", less than 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute.

And that way I get to enjoy the sweet and vegetal flavors I want, and skip most of the astringency.

I also like my teas sweeter than not, as sweet as I can get them without added sweetener, and find that the lighter steamed senchas are more satisfying to me than the deeper ones that release more umami faster, and sometimes 'drown out' the flavors I want to highlight.

My favorite of the half dozen Den's teas that I tried was the Shin-ryoku sencha.

Thinking about how to branch out from that, I ran into some serious analysis paralysis, because I'd figured that a lot of highly rated teas were going to be highly rated precisely because they emphasized certain properties--rich umami and strong astringency--that can overwhelm the sweeter, floral elements I like best. So finally wrote to the merchant I was considering directly, describing my concerns, and he pointed me to several of his offerings that were quite wonderful fits to my tastes.

[JRS22]

I'm going to go back and read about all the teas that debunix likes, because I have the same taste in tea.

I just wanted to add a comment about astringency. When I first began to drink tea I spent a bit of time at the tea tasting room at Harney's. I thought that astringency was a big deal for me. When I tasted a fine indian assam black my mouth literally puckered up inside, whereas an inexpensive chinese black that was used in blends was very mild.

On the other hand I haven't found astringency to be an issue with greens. In my limited experience the degree of astringency does not rise to the point of unpleasantness for me. YMMV

[Tead Off]

The best way to avoid astringency is to buy high quality tea and brew it with low temp. How long to brew a tea is by trial and error according to your taste. I typically brew sencha at about 60-65c. Gyokuro at 50-55c. You can achieve deep flavor and little astringency this way. You have to experiment as there is no fixed way, just some guidelines, and, your own taste buds to inform you.

Some teas are difficult to get what you want out of them. If you can't like a tea after several attempts, maybe it's better to move on to another. No two people taste things the same way. BTW, Gyokuro is my favorite Japanese tea and it is generally less astringent than most Senchas.

[Amaikokonut]

Thanks for the feedback guys I appreciate the recommendations. I think I'm going to try a few different sorts of sencha and just explore that for a while.

It is possible to enjoy very nice japanese green teas without astringency. I'm a bitterphobe myself, and generally try to avoid it.

Thank you! It's good to know that I'm not the only one who prefers to avoid the astringency, and even better to know that sencha isn't a lost cause for me, heh.

Gyokuro, I might recommend conquering sencha first.

Fair point. Here I was thinking I was narrowing my selections down by sticking to Japanese greens in general, but wow, the more I read into it the more I'm convinced I could spend half a lifetime just exploring sencha. Still, I wouldn't mind collecting recommendations for when I do feel safe stepping out.

[britt]

I agree with those who mentioned lighter-steamed senchas and lower brewing temperatures as a way to reduce astringency.

[Chip]

... the key is balance, based on personal tastes perhaps.

I used to avoid bitter and astringency at all cost, now I simply control it as needed based on a particular tea. A sencha completely devoid of these two elements is actually pretty boring to me ... and I am not a fan of bitter.

If everything was just sweet, life would be boring.

[Tead Off]

... the key is balance, based on personal tastes perhaps.

I used to avoid bitter and astringency at all cost, now I simply control it as needed based on a particular tea. A sencha completely devoid of these two elements is actually pretty boring to me ... and I am not a fan of bitter.

If everything was just sweet, life would be boring.

According to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), the different flavors, ie., sweet, bitter, sour, etc., affect different organs and their respective channels in the body. Often, the body craves what it needs and gravitates to foods that provide a certain taste.

In my experience, all senchas and green teas will be bitter or astringent if one brews them for this quality. So each person can adjust their brewing to what they wish to achieve out of a tea. I also think that some senchas are naturally sweeter than others, but, sweetness is not exactly an adjective I would use for sencha.

[Amaikokonut]

I can understand a need for balance. And really, I can find a bit of astringency pleasant during drinking, but too much tends to leave me with a sore throat. I may just be oversensitive to that sort of thing; I can't enjoy sodas/carbonated beverages either because the bubbles burn me, and orange juice/lemonade tends to have a similar effect. I might just be an odd case

[debunix]

The trick is finding where the balance lies for each of us, because preferences for sweet vs bitter are so dependent on factors like the distribution of taste buds on our tongues (genetics), what kind of foods we grew up eating (cultural and family background), and what we eat and drink now (the only part we have much control over ourselves).

[iannon]

I also like my teas sweeter than not, as sweet as I can get them without added sweetener, and find that the lighter steamed senchas are more satisfying to me than the deeper ones that release more umami faster, and sometimes 'drown out' the flavors I want to highlight.

+1
I tend to like the lighter steamed teas myself more so than the deeper. I also am not a huge fan of high astringency either. The balance is the key to keep repeating the words of others here.
Thats not to say you cant get what you are looking for out of a deep steamed tea either though! something like YM or Sae maybe? but again..thats with my taste buds..
Gyo is a whole 'nother world in its own right. My current fav is Maiko's Yamashita Jirushi

[debunix]

I think it's important here to remember that there are two themes that have been floating through this thread:
astringency, associated with most green teas, but which is very variable in the final tea liquor depending on brewing conditions;
and umami, or depth of flavor, which is more rapidly expressed in deep-steamed teas, and increased in the leaf by the shading during growth of gyokuro.

Someone can prefer deeper umami and more astringency, lighter umami and more astringency, more umami and more astringency--basically any combination of the two.

I like more umami in my oolongs and puerhs and less in my senchas.

[Tead Off]

I think it's important here to remember that there are two themes that have been floating through this thread:
astringency, associated with most green teas, but which is very variable in the final tea liquor depending on brewing conditions;
and umami, or depth of flavor, which is more rapidly expressed in deep-steamed teas, and increased in the leaf by the shading during growth of gyokuro.

Someone can prefer deeper umami and more astringency, lighter umami and more astringency, more umami and more astringency--basically any combination of the two.

I like more umami in my oolongs and puerhs and less in my senchas.

Maybe it's the terminology, but, what are you calling umami in oolong and puerh?

From Wikipedia: "Umami, also referred to as savoriness, has been proposed as one of the basic tastes sensed by specialized receptor cells present on the human and animal tongue. Umami (旨味?) is a loanword from Japanese meaning "good flavor" or "good taste" (noun).[1] In English, however, "brothy", "meaty", or "savory" have been proposed as alternative translations.[2][3] Inasmuch as it describes the flavor common to savory products such as meat, cheese, and mushrooms, umami is similar to Brillat-Savarin's concept of osmazome, an early attempt to describe the main flavoring component of meat as extracted in the process of making stock."

From the description above, I'm wondering if we can use the word to describe oolongs and puerh. I taste no savoriness in those teas as I do with steamed, Japanese teas. I do taste all kinds of other flavors, though.