Here my tasting notes from a session with the ThesDuJapon Yume Wakabe cultivar Sencha from the Tokyo area. This time I wanted to experiment and try to brew it in my (normally Zairai dedicated) Shigaraki rough clay kyusu!

The fresh green leaves in waiting in Kyusu for the first infusion…

The Tea Ware

This beautiful teapot by Banko artist Tachi Masaki is probably one of the most interesting taste altering clays I own! Only pouring a bit of warm water into it gives a very pleasing sweet mineral smell, definetly deferent to all other teapots I own!Sometimes if I am drying my Tetsubin with a last full boil, I pour the boiling water in this kyusu and let it sit there for some minutes to drink it cold later! The combination of Tetsubin and this clay creates such a rich and sweet complex water that good tea just must be amazing in it!

Pouring cooled water from pitcher into Kyusu…

The Tea

After talking so much about the Shigaraki Kyusu I want to come back to the tea! As usual the second infusion was the strongest and was the only with a bit of upfront bitterness, but somehow every infusion had a strong Hui Gan. This returning sweetness is also a reason this tea is somehow less Japanese for me! Additionally I got a strong sticky sweetness in the back of throat similar to some nice dancong Oolongs I had recently! I am quite sure that the combination of tea, Tetsubin and clay amplified this effect. Remarkably this Sencha contains quite a huge amount of green stems still attached to some leaf, which could be the reason for its unusual profile, tasting more like an Oolong!

The water acts as magnification glass… this Sencha has lots of stems…

Summary

A highly fragrant Sencha with a floral smell, hints of freshly cut grass, flowers and a creaminess! At the same time there is an interesting fruitiness in it, difficult to pin down! The whole sensation is amplified by the sticky sweetness and balanced by a hint of astringency. Apparently the fragrance is soo strong due to a very long wilting process! This is very uncommon with Sencha and rather applied making Oolong, where sun wilting is used to reduce water content, which is a precondition for oxidation.