Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Simple Loose Leaf
Tea Description:
This high grade Japanese Sencha Green Tea boasts beautifully dark, wafery leaves and a strong, sweet grassy flavor. The brewed leaves provide a slight vegetal, seaweed flavor with a perfect balance of nutty, rice notes. Best served hot, in the traditional fashion.
Learn more about this tea here.
Learn more about Simple Loose Leaf’s Selection Club subscription program here.
Use this code: SISTERSELECTION25 to get a 25% discount when you sign up for the selection club. This discount is not applicable on the retail selection of teas, and is only good for the selection club subscription.
Taster’s Review:
When I opened this sample packet from my May Selection Club box from Simple Loose Leaf and took a sniff, I was pretty sure that the aroma would be vegetative. This is a Japanese Sencha and I’ve experienced many different Sencha teas from Japan. And while there are many different Sencha teas out there and they all have their own unique qualities to them, the fragrance has been, for the most part, “vegetal”.
And so it is with this Japanese Sencha Saga Green Tea from Simple Loose Leaf. But, I noticed something else in the aroma too … a sweet flowery note, gently floral. The scent evokes imagery of sitting on a lawn that has just been mowed, and in close vicinity to the lawn is a beautiful flower bed filled with fragrant flowers. The breeze floats through those flowers, picking up their bouquet, and the air is now gently perfumed with the scent of the flowers with the dominant smell of the grassy vegetation.
I love it when I come across a tea that is familiar – a Japanese Sencha, like this – and I find something unexpected about it like that!
This green tea is sweet. The vegetal notes are sweet – not savory, not bitter, not even bittersweet. Just sweet. Beautifully, deliciously sweet. The texture is soft. I often describe a Sencha tea’s texture as “brothy” but this is not quite that thick, it’s more of a soft, smooth texture … I imagine that the texture here is what it would be like if one were to drink liquefied silk.
Although I’m sure that this tastes better! I’d much rather taste the brewed liquid of the leaves from Camellia Sinensis than the liquefied fibers from a worm’s backside, wouldn’t you?
The flavor is strongly vegetal, somewhere between the flavor of grass and kelp, but, without the savory notes grass or kelp. As I said, this is pure sweetness! It really is one of the sweetest Sencha teas I’ve yet to taste.
I taste layers of flavor beneath the top note of vegetation, hints of flower and whispers of fruit. Almost an apple-y sweetness without the apple-y tart. Creaminess that I wouldn’t call ‘buttery’ – it’s more like a subtle vanilla tone.
I’ve tasted many Sencha teas, and I’ve enjoyed many that I’ve tried (I can’t think of any in the recent months that I’ve tried that I’ve not enjoyed) … but some are definitely better than others. This one is one of the better ones!
Guricha Ureshino Green Tea from Chado Tea House
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Green
Where to Buy: Chado Tea House
Tea Description:
Asamushi Guricha from Ureshino, Saga prefecture. Ureshino city has been the biggest Guricha producing center. Located south in Kyushu island. Their geographical location seemed influenced the tea making method. It has sense of Chinese tea feeling as well, though, the base is Japanese tea. Traditional Asamushi, lightly steamed Guricha tea. mild and sweet. Good everyday tea for Guricha lover. Click the image to see the tea leaves and color.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This Guricha Ureshino Green Tea from Chado Tea House is really lovely – it’s so mellow and pleasantly sweet. I drank this tea after dinner, and found that the first couple of sips were pretty difficult to taste but once my palate had been “washed” by the tea, the flavors really started coming through very well. 
The flavor is light, there is a certain crisp, clean taste to it that makes it a nice choice after dinner. It is vegetative with flavors that are somewhere between kelp and mild green veggies, with hints of grassy undertones. I could taste a vague “saltiness” to the taste as well … which is why the “kelp” immediately came to mind. As someone who typically doesn’t care for seaweed, one might think that my description “kelp” might indicate that I don’t like the flavors coming through but that isn’t true. While I don’t care for the strong flavor of seaweed (like the sheets you might buy in an Asian market) I find that seaweed notes in a tea to be rather intriguing. And I do like the hint of salt here, it adds a nice contrast.
But as I mentioned before, overall, the flavor is light, nothing really smacks me over the head here … it’s very lush and mellow and easy to drink. The sweetness is really delightful – and I think that’s why I’m finding it especially enjoyable after a meal … the sweetness is knocking out that sweet craving that I often have after a meal. I don’t have room for (nor the desire to eat) dessert, so this tea is making a nice alternative to something sweet. No, it’s not a “dessert alternative” … but it does offer a little sweet something for those times when I don’t want something too sweet or dessert-y … but my palate wants something a little bit on the sweet side.
A very refreshing tea – light, sweet, and enjoyable! Then again, Chado Tea House never fails to impress me with their quality. They’re a great company, and this is a great tea!