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Tasting note
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Reviews
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Quality
Origin: Japan, Shizuoka
Tea colour: green tea
Dry leaves:
Aspect: beautiful shiny leaves folded into needles.
Colour: vivid green.
Scents: planty, sweet vanilla, fruity.
Brewed leaves:
Scents: a mild attack of cooked vegetable and marine notes (cooked fish flesh) with a floral hint (white flower).
Liquor:
Colour: vivid green.
Texture: a smooth texture with a very delicate astringency that coats the mouth.
Flavour: light umami.
Aromas: a pronounced marine attack (fish flesh) that fills the mouth, combined with vegetal notes (cooked vegetable) and a buttery hint (fresh butter).
Aromatic profil and lenght in the mouth: the profile becomes fresh and lively, with raw vegetal, stem, raw vegetable, sage, iodine, menthol (green mint) and white floral notes.
Our verdict:
This tea is wonderfully harmonious. The marine, planty, iodine and floral notes are lifted by its extremely smooth texture. Visually, the slender, shiny needle-like leaves reflect the tea’s high quality.In Japan, there are 43 official cultivars for the production of green tea. The main one, Yabukita, is grown on nine tenths of Japanese plantations. ln 1954 - a very important date in the history of Japanese tea - Hikosaburo Sugiyama developed a Yabukita hybrid tea bush at Shizuoka. This very hardy cultivar of excellent quality adapted well to the different climates of the Japanese islands and was soon being planted throughout Japan. It did so well that, today, 90 per cent of Japanese tea plantations are planted with bushes grown from cuttings and 85 per cent of these are Yabukita. This does not mean that Japanese tea cultivation is exactly problem-free. ln the first place, all the Japanese plantations are potentially exposed to pest infestation or disease, and in the second, at the end of its vegetative growth cycle, the Yabukita tea bush tends to suffer a drop in quality. The farmers need to be vety vigilant with regard to the dates of the pluck and start the harvest without delay when the time is right.The harvests take place four times a year, the first harvest of the year being the most highly prized. Yabukita is easily recognisable with its long straight leaf and intense green colour, as well as the way it grows: very upright, reaching for the sky.
Throughout the year, our experts travel in the tea plantations looking for the best pluckings and new, rare, delicious teas.
The fact that we travel so extensively, that we taste and buy on location has many advantages and allows us to find rare crops by looking outside the traditional supplier circuit, to taste and to share with you the harvests of small plantations, which are often hidden away.
Visiting tea estates regularly and thereby establishing long-lasting relations with our suppliers allows us to guarantee regular quality control of the teas we buy, and to continue our mission: to bring you the best quality teas and to share our travels and experience with you, while concerning ourselves with environmental issues, working conditions on the estates and the fair trade practices to which we adhere.
