Thank you mighty leaf for this sample! This tea had a very pleasant flavor but was nearly aromaless, although what aroma it did have was nice.

Dry leaf initially doesn't smell great, but when I breathe in more deeply, there's a very pleasant smell that suggests sweetness. The leaf looks fairly large and also rather broken, it looks a little more like bancha or lower grades of sencha than higher-end stuff.

The cup is surprisingly weak and aromaless. I normally steep sencha only 1 minute for the first steep, but there was little flavor and almost no aroma; instead I did a 3-5 minute single steep to try to bring out more flavor. It created a flavorful cup that still had a weak aroma, and then I only got a single good steep, the second cup still had flavor but zero aroma left.

Flavor is crisp and clean, a pleasant bitterness balanced by light sweet and savory flavors. There are no off aromas, thankfully, but the aroma is so faint I can barely describe it, it's like a faint hint of clean straw or fresh cut grass, a hint of cinnamon. Drinking the whole cup, there are some vegetal notes, especially like celery. It's a clean and pleasant aroma, just barely present at all.

I thought this tea was very expensive, a quarter pound is just under $15. Harney & Sons sells an organic sencha that is slightly more expensive, but I think much better. I think the true tragedy though is that I would prefer a much cheaper, lower-end sencha, like one I recently tried from Yamamotoyama, or the cheapest Japanese green teas sold in Wegman's bulk tea bins.

I remain steadily impressed with Mighty Leaf's black teas, but disappointed with their green ones, although stay tuned for my review of their karigane (kukicha) which I did like better than this one.

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