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Yunomi’s Organic Shimane Sencha Ou Midori

Organic Shimane Sencha Ou Midori by Yunomi
Green Tea / Straight
$7.00USD for 20g

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Yunomi has provided me with Organic Shimane Sencha Ou Midori for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

It’s another tea from the Takarabako Tea Farm in Japan! I shared a review not too long ago of another tea from the Takarabako Tea Farm (Shimane Oolong Tea), and this is the second of six reviews I’ve got coming to you for the teas from this Japanese tea farm. Yes, the label says Premium Sencha Ou Midori, but I think the product got a rename between the packaging of samples and the product pages being put onto the Yunomi website. Not the first thing this has happened to me when reviewing a tea, and it probably won’t be the last.

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Sencha Ou Midori came to me in a resealable green bag. It seemed smaller than the other samples, although they’re all 20g. This is because sencha is so dense. With the way the leaves are processed, they’re flattened. It’s not a big airy tea like some others that I’ve had in the past. There’s just little to no room between the leaves. The leaves themselves are a dark green, when I first opened the packaging the first thing I smelled was corn, vegetables, and grassy notes. Sencha Ou Midori is an organic green tea.

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Preparation

Yunomi suggests steeping Sencha Ou Midori in 70°C (158°F) water for 1 minute. My initial steep was for 1 minute.

First Taste

Sencha Ou Midori steeps to a beautiful pale yellow. There’s a slight sweet aroma that comes up from the tea, and when I smell it, it has a vegetal smell to it. The overall aroma that comes up from this tea is quite mild in its fragrance. When I taste this tea, it get a very clean and crisp taste – there’s a slight saltiness to this tea that reminds me of a seaweed that makes for some nice umami flavours in this tea. I did note a mild bitterness in this tea that kind of lingers at the end of each sip. It isn’t a very strong bitterness, but it is still present. I think cutting the steep time down even further would help with the bitterness that I encountered in this tea.

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A Second Cup?

I did a second steep of Sencha Ou Midori and found that the bitterness was more pronounced and not enjoyable. I did not resteep after that.

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My Overall Impression

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I thought that Yunomi’s Organic Shimane Sencha Ou Midori was just okay. The initial steep of this green tea was quite good – I enjoyed the different flavours in this tea and it has an enjoyable umami flavour to it. The bitterness that resulted from resteeping this tea make it an unenjoyable continued tea experience. The initial 60 seconds was a bit much, I think, and resulted in some burnt leaves. I think this sencha does great for an initial steep, but I wouldn’t recommend resteeping the leaves if you’re following the steeping recommendations.

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Grand Tea’s Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh

Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh by Grand Tea
Pu-Erh Tea / Flavoured
$36.00HKD for 25g

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Grand Tea has provided me with Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

I haven’t had the greatest of experiences with pu-erhs, and I’ve never had one that was aged inside of a tangerine, so I was a bit apprehensive about trying this Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh from Grand Tea. If you’re not familiar with how dried citrus peels smell like, you’ll get a good whiff of it from this tea when you open up the package. If I had to describe it, I would say it smells quite subtle compared to a fresh orange or tangerine. You can smell that it was a tangerine, once upon a time, but it’s aromas have become subdued with time.

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Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh is aged pu-erh that was kept inside of a hollowed out tangerine. Each unit of tea comes with some of the peel. The peel is still supple, and you can tear it into smaller pieces to steep with the tea leaves for added flavour.

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Preparation

Grand Tea recommends steeping in 90-100°C (194-212°F) water and to do two rinses with boiling water prior to steeping for 1 minute. The rinsing process is to remove any dirt or debris in the tea. I rinsed twice and steeped according to the instructions.

First Taste

Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh steeps to an incredibly dark amber colour, but in my tea pot it looked quite dark – nearly black – before I poured out a cup. The aroma of the tea is warming and inviting – there’s the soft aroma of the tangerine/citrus, and there’s an almost woody aroma to the tea as well, which I’ll attribute to the pu-erh base. There’s some great earthy notes to this tea, which go great with the woody aroma. It has a bit of musty flavours, something that reminds me a bit of meaty mushrooms (think portobello), which all get wrapped up with a warm citrus flavour. There’s no sweetness here, it’s a completely savoury tea and it’s quite enjoyable (yes, I’m saying that about a pu-erh tea).

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A Second Cup?

I resteeped Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh a few times (four steeps in total), and found that the citrus/tangerine flavours were fading by the second resteep and almost completely gone by the third resteep. It still had a great warming quality to it, and it still had the rich earthy notes in the flavour.

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My Overall Impression

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I liked Grand Tea’s Chenpi Loose Black Pu-erh. I’m still not a convert when it comes to pu-erhs, but I genuinely liked this one a lot better than the last time I tried (which was a raw pu-erh). I think the tangerine peel made a difference for me, the flavour just balanced out the earthiness of the pu-erh and led to a very well balanced cup of tea. I enjoyed the richness in this tea, it tastes quite good. I think it’d go really well with a heavy, savoury meal. There’s also this lovely warming quality about this tea that I quite enjoyed, it’s a characteristic that I find often with tea blends that have ginger or cardamom, but it was in this one as well and it was nice on the palate.

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Pique Tea’s Mint Sencha

Mint Sencha by Pique Tea
Green Tea / Flavoured
$7.99USD for 14 packets per carton (0.3oz / 8.4g)

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Pique Tea has provided me with Mint Sencha for the purposes of providing an honest review.

First Impressions

When Pique Tea asked me if I wanted to try their tea, I was intrigued. It’s not my first time having an ‘instant’ tea, but I’ve really grown to like sencha so the idea of an instant sencha powder did make me a little bit apprehensive. They sent me a package of their Mint Sencha, and inside the cardboard carton was 14 foil packets.

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It’s a lot of packaging, but luckily the cardboard carton is fully recyclable. You can find more information about the process of how Pique Tea creates this crystallized tea on their website. When I opened the packet, I found that the tea reminded me a lot of golden sugar – just smaller granules. I tried to sniff the tea, but didn’t really smell anything. I didn’t get my nose too close because I wanted to drink this tea, not inhale it. Mint Sencha is made of organic green tea and organic spearmint.

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Preparation

Pique Tea recommends mixing 1 packet per 8oz of water, and recommended 175°F (79°C) water for this green tea. Fun tip, when I was on the Pique Tea website I learned that their crystallized green teas can be fully dissolved in cold water (but their black teas cannot), this is due to some of the properties of black tea.

First Taste

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After adding hot water to the tea crystals, I found that it fully dissolved without any mixing on my part. The tea itself is fairly yellow. It has a very strong minty aroma to it. There’s a strong grassy and vegetal taste to this tea, which I contribute to the sencha part of this tea, with the light freshness of spearmint. I found it quite tasty. The colour isn’t quite what I was expecting, it’s a lot brighter than I usually expect my sencha to be, but I suspect that’s partially because of the spearmint as well. Because it had a strong mint fragrance, I expect it to be more minty in flavour. Thankfully, I’m not likening it to toothpaste, because actual amount of mint in the flavour isn’t overwhelming (thank goodness).

I iced a second cup of this tea and found it to be tastier iced than hot because of the refreshing qualities of the mint.

A Second Cup?

No second steeps for this tea as it fully dissolved and there was nothing to resteep!

My Overall Impression

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I liked Pique Tea’s Mint Sencha. I thought that overall this tea was quite tasty, with some good sencha flavours with the added mint. I was happy that the mint wasn’t as overwhelming as I expected it to be. I found Mint Sencha to be better iced than hot (and thankfully it fully dissolves in cold water). With the way the packets work, you only get 14 servings per package (making each serving $0.57). This is cheaper than buying a to-go cup of tea at a coffee shop for sure, but it is more expensive than buying loose leaf tea by itself. That said, this is a product of convenience. I think tea bag drinkers will love this, because it means that they don’t have to be schlepping wet tea bags around (or worry about oversteeping their tea). For the convenience factor, I think it would be worth the cost per serving. I generally steep tea at home, so I’ll be using the remainder of the packets when I’m on-the-go or when I’m at work (as I don’t have the luxury of a desk job).

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