Tea: Okumidori Sencha
Reviewer: Alex Zorach
✓ 1453 teas reviewed
✓ 26 of Sencha
✓ 219 of Green Tea
✓ 32 of Wegmans
✓ 65 from Japan
Review of Okumidori Sencha
March 15th, 2013
| Aroma | Flavor | Value | Total |
| 8 of 10 | 5 of 5 | 3 of 5 | 77 of 100 |
| Excellent | Excellent | Reasonable |
A good sencha that infuses very quickly. In my opinion, much better than Wegman's Tomo Sencha, although pricier.
The dry leaf has a very dark green color and fine texture, and is intensely aromatic: highly vegetal and suggestive of sweetness and umami.
Brews a surprisingly clear and pale cup, especially relative to the very dark color of the leaf. Looks almost watery...but this appearance is deceiving! The cup is intensely aromatic and very full-bodied.
Flavor is richly savory (umami) with a slight briskness and a slight tanginess too. Aroma is typical of high-quality sencha: grassy, vegetal, almost seaweedy, but slightly toastier than average. Less sweet than aroma suggests.
I strongly preferred using less leaf and brewing for a longer time. I found this tea did not work particularly well with multiple steepings. It infused very rapidly, so when using more leaf, it was easy to oversteep the first cup, even with a very short steeping. Wegmans said 1 minute and even that seemed way too long.
At $80 a pound, this tea seems expensive given that it didn't resteep well, but this is offset by the fact that surprisingly little leaf is necessary to produce a robust cup, and I did find it very pleasing to drink. ITO En sells a similar-looking tea for a much higher price, but I have yet to try that one so I can't say whether or not it's worth the extra or is basically the same tea.
