Tea™ madness continues with this Japanese Green Tea. The word Sencha translates to “simmered tea”, an obvious reference to the process of steeping dried tea leaves in hot water. The stands in opposition to some other treatments, such as Matcha, in which the tea is milled into a fine powder (and it is simply mixed in with the hot water, meaning that you actually drink the leaf itself). There are other Japanese green teas, such as Gyokuro and Bancha, but Sencha is the most popular tea in Japan. I picked this particular variety because I wanted to try a green tea and the name reminded me of Star Blazers. I’ve had green tea before, but most often I’ve had a chai green tea, which is actually quite a nice treatment. But I wanted to choose something straight green, just to get a better feel for this, so here we are:
Japanese Sencha Special Grade Yamato Green Tea – A very light green, almost yellowish color in the cup. Lots of sediment appears to have escaped the confines of my infuser here(these leaves definitely seem more fragile like that), but it quickly settled to the bottom of the cup so no real harm there. Smell is full of leafy, grassy, and vegetal aromas. Taste is somewhat more subdued, but those grassy, vegetal notes are coming through. Mouthfeel comes across as light and clean, with a smooth finish. Overall, this is nice and I’m definitely looking forward to more of it, but those vegetal flavors may take some getting used to.
Tea Nerd Details: 1 tsp for an 8 ounce cup, infused at 175° for 2 minutes.
Beer Nerd Musings: Oddly enough, I’ve actually had a beer made with green tea (I’m guessing it was the matcha variety, actually), and it was shockingly harmonious and absolutely delicious. Fantôme Magic Ghost is well worth seeking out, as that funky, farmhouse Brett yeast matches surprisingly well with the earthy green tea notes. It also looks like Ecto Cooler, which is weird and awesome at the same time. There have been other beers made with green tea, but they seem to be more limited affairs and not quite as well regarded as Fantôme’s wacky foray into brewing with tea (I have not had either of the linked beers).
So now that I’ve conquered the world of Green Tea (one example is enough, right?), we will move on to some White Tea on Thursday. Stay tuned.