Green Tea Forum

Oni · Black Belt Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Posts: 130

Most of the sites, japanese of course, say that sencha should be brewed with 70 - 80 C, with around 200cc of water, and one and a half or 2 table spoons of tea around 7-8 grams, 1 minute, and a lot of sites say this like horaido, marukyu-komaen, bassaro, hibiki, maiko, ujicha. I`ve been following it by the book, and with high quality tea it worked like a charm, but when I tried to do the math and tried to brew in larger quantity like 300cc with with two large tablespoons of leaf, it turned out wrong, math does not apply for sencha I guess. By the way on o-cha site brewing is diffrent, one teaspoon to 8 ounces, I`ve tried one tablespoon to 300cc, it was too weak, than one and a half for 300cc - it was good, after that two tablespoon for 300cc - bad too much tea, but with one and a half of level tablespoon for 200cc it was the best, following same omount for 300cc.

Ryan · Sensei Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 449

I simply do not agree with many of the Japanese site's recommendations.

For one simple reason: it produces an inferior tasting cup of tea. However, it really does depend on the tea itself.

There are two Hibiki-An tea's that I steep basically to the parameters they recommend. But those tea's give me more of an asamushi (lightly steamed) impression. O-cha's tea's are all (I think) fukamushi (deep steamed) and chumushi (medium steamed).

Thus, for Kevin's leaf, I find such parameters will create a cup of tea that tastes incomplete. No matter how much leaf you use, if you don't steep it long enough, the final cup gives the impression that something is missing - incomplete tasting.

I've experimented, and this has proven true to my palate.

So--from my experience--I have found that it is not true that the tons of leaf, much shorter steep time, that many Japanese vendors espouse will always create the superior tasting cup.

Of course, everyone's palate is different. If it is ideal for you, Id' say, keep brewing it that way.

Oni · Black Belt Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Posts: 130

I will order kirameki and myabi and midori from o-cha soon, I`m working my way through all the vendors, and so far the more teas and vendor I try the more I feel that I know so little about tea and I`m still a learner, for me it is an expencive way of experimenting, I hope I will find some tea`s that I will order always along the way and I will know how to brew them to my taste.

Oni · Black Belt Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Posts: 130

And consider that o-cha has nitrogen packagin, hibiki does not the tea I have ordered from them close to may was good but the same premium sencha I have ordered two weeks ago was lame, almost no smell, they don`t have vacuum packaging nor nitrogen, thus the tea wasn`t as fresh as one would expect from that price range. I think that I will choose sites that have nitro packaging from now on.

Ryan · Sensei Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 449

Chip · Posted: Apr 20, 2008 5:07 am Post subject:

Ryan · Sensei Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 449

Chip · Posted: Apr 20, 2008 6:08 am Post subject:

I believe that if you nitro flush your organic tea, the nitro would have to be "organically produced"...or maybe regardess, it does not qualify as a packaging preservative since it is after all inorganic.

It would be interesting to find out.

I would think it would be like producing orgaic juice, and then in the bottling, a non organic preservative is added.

But what do I know...I lack the "maniac" designation. blahblah

Oni · Black Belt Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Posts: 130

I haven`t seen nitrogen on the packaging, and on the site where does it say that they are using this conservation method

Oni · Black Belt Joined: 15 Mar 2008 Posts: 130

I`ve read almost all of the site and nowhere does it say that they are using either vacuum nor nitro packaging, please show where do they mention this?

Ryan · Sensei Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 449

For the sake of clarity, I have just e-mailed hibiki-an about whether they nitro flush their teas. I received a quick response.

They do nitrogen flush all of their teas.

Ryan · Sensei Joined: 19 Jul 2005 Posts: 449

In regards to organic sencha, Chip... They teleport the leaves so that it comes in contact with no nitrogen, and no packaging that is inorganic.

olivierco · Brown Belt Joined: 01 May 2007 Posts: 58 Location: France

There isn't any such thing as organic nitrogen anyway.