New to Tea, starting with Sencha...

[ryguy76]

Hello,

After a recent trip to a Japanese restaurant, I decided to buy some tea ware and get started steeping Sencha at home.

I bought a 300ml Hario Kyusu and stopped by a local tea shop to buy some Sencha.

My routine is as follows...

Using 150ml of water and 5g of tea. Steeping initial for 2 mins @ 175ºF, 2nd steep for 1 min @ 175ºF and 3rd steep for 3 mins @ 185ºF.

I am happy with the flavour but likely have never tried Sencha before so nothing to really compare it to. That said, the leaves from the local tea house are all over the map in sizing, there's some powdery particulate that makes it into each cup and the leaves a not the dark green with the fresh and glistening look that I see online. The tea is a light shade of chartreuse, I'd say. A bit yellow, a bit green and the overall vibrancy brought down by some slight brownishness. It's not the lime green colour I've seen online.

My guess is this is lower quality Sencha despite being from a tea house. The question I have is...

Is there anywhere that I can buy quality Sencha online in Canada that would be fresh by the time it arrives?

[Denmano]

Hello,

After a recent trip to a Japanese restaurant, I decided to buy some tea ware and get started steeping Sencha at home.

I bought a 300ml Hario Kyusu and stopped by a local tea shop to buy some Sencha.

My routine is as follows...

Using 150ml of water and 5g of tea. Steeping initial for 2 mins @ 175ºF, 2nd steep for 1 min @ 175ºF and 3rd steep for 3 mins @ 185ºF.

I am happy with the flavour but likely have never tried Sencha before so nothing to really compare it to. That said, the leaves from the local tea house are all over the map in sizing, there's some powdery particulate that makes it into each cup and the leaves a not the dark green with the fresh and glistening look that I see online. The tea is a light shade of chartreuse, I'd say. A bit yellow, a bit green and the overall vibrancy brought down by some slight brownishness. It's not the lime green colour I've seen online.

My guess is this is lower quality Sencha despite being from a tea house. The question I have is...

Is there anywhere that I can buy quality Sencha online in Canada that would be fresh by the time it arrives?

Welcome to the world of Japanese green tea! I'm just getting back into it and have found there are many good sources of tea online that ship direct from Japan. Those that I've ordered from so far are O-cha.com, Ochandco.com and Yuuki-cha.com. The last two are basically all organic. I've been buying only organic teas but to be honest, I'm re-thinking whether that's necessary. I'm also learning that the selection of organic teas is much lower and to the tastes may be lacking that vegetal, grassy punch that I like from my senchas. Anyway, most of these companies ship in nitrogen-flushed, vacuum-sealed packaging and I don't think you can find fresher teas than by buying direct. By the way, I love the look of your glass tea pot. However, I doubt it will have the heat retention of a ceramic kyusu and also it may restrict the leaf steeping even though the basket is quite large. It is nice to see the color of the tea, though!

[FBee]

Claypots maybe something to consider as well, to help smoothen out some of the unpleasant notes green tea.

[brlarson2]

...
Is there anywhere that I can buy quality Sencha online in Canada that would be fresh by the time it arrives?

Welcome to the world of Japanese green tea! I'm just getting back into it and have found there are many good sources of tea online that ship direct from Japan. Those that I've ordered from so far are O-cha.com, Ochandco.com and Yuuki-cha.com. The last two are basically all organic. I've been buying only organic teas but to be honest, I'm re-thinking whether that's necessary. I'm also learning that the selection of organic teas is much lower and to the tastes may be lacking that vegetal, grassy punch that I like from my senchas. Anyway, most of these companies ship in nitrogen-flushed, vacuum-sealed packaging and I don't think you can find fresher teas than by buying direct. By the way, I love the look of your glass tea pot. However, I doubt it will have the heat retention of a ceramic kyusu and also it may restrict the leaf steeping even though the basket is quite large. It is nice to see the color of the tea, though!

I second O-Cha.com as a provider of excellent teas, especially those from Tsuen tea house.
There are many other good online stores too: Zencha, Maiko Tea, Ippodo, Kaburagien, Hibiki-an, and many others which you should be able to find among the shincha topics.

[Louie Tuboro]

Is it True that Red Tea is better than Green Tea? How?
I found a blog about it. Share to me your thoughts about it.

Check it here: http://bit.ly/BlogBuzz-GreenTea

Thanks!

[Denmano]

I second O-Cha.com as a provider of excellent teas, especially those from Tsuen tea house.
There are many other good online stores too: Zencha, Maiko Tea, Ippodo, Kaburagien, Hibiki-an, and many others which you should be able to find among the shincha topics.
[/quote]

I've been reviewing Kabaragien's website and find it a bit overwhelming. So many wonderful-looking choices and good prices as well. Which teas have you found that you like there?

[Tea&Whisky]

All the other sites mentioned are good, but I like ochaandco.com if you're just starting out. They don't have many different varieties, which can be daunting. I believe they only carry a light-steamed and deep-steamed sencha, both of which are good. I also found their steeping instructions to work quite well with some minor adjustment.

[JRS22]

O-Cha offers this gift set which is an excellent way to try two different Sencha. They also carry moderately priced pots. You might find that you get better results from a smaller clay pot. The o-Cha teas can be steeped at least 3 times, in my experience, which can add up to a vast quantity of tea in a larger pot.

https://www.o-cha.com/green-tea-gift-se ... gory_id=34

[Denmano]

I've been reviewing Kabaragien's website and find it a bit overwhelming. So many wonderful-looking choices and good prices as well. Which teas have you found that you like there?

I try to get a small amount of competition-grade temomi-cha once a year from Kaburagien. The quality of their offerings depends on their success when bidding for prize winning teas. They haven't yet posted offerings from 2018 but they should be available soon. Here is their URL: http://www.kaburagien.co.jp/english/sp_1710/index.php

Bruce

Thanks, Bruce! I didn't purchase any of the tempi-cha yet, but I did order a few of their teas to give them a try. The customer service was outstanding with all my questions and I'm looking forward to getting the package from them soon hopefully!