Today I’ll be continuing with last week’s sub-theme: freshness. Rishi was generous enough to supply me with a new tin of their Organic Kagoshima Sencha, which presented me with the opportunity to compare it with a tin I opened nearly a year ago. There won’t be any surprises here–the old stuff tastes pretty lousy. The new, however, is as delightful as I remember.
I brewed up 4.5 grams in 300 mL at 176°F for one and a half minutes, adding a couple degrees for a second and third steep at 30 seconds and 1 minute, respectively. Inserting my nose into the heated kyusu after dropping in a pile of leaves was like eating shortbread cookies by the sea. The first infusion was clean and juicy, with a grape-melon fruitiness; the symbiosis of sweet and nutty reminded me of Dragon Well. A second steep was greener and more nectary, with the tenderness of baby vegetables–maybe spinach if I had to pick one. The third infusion could have gone longer.
The old sencha (on the right in the image below) was notably different in appearance, smell, and taste. A yellowed army green color, it contrasted pretty obviously with the vibrant shade of the fresher leaves. Opening up the tin revealed an odor of decaying grass, worlds away from the fresh, green, new potato chip smell that wafted up out of the new tin. The taste–well, I guess you could say it was consumable, but just barely. The liquor was yellowish, flatter, and really not very good at all. Moral of the story: old sencha is crap.
Anyway, pointless comparisons aside, in my limited experience Rishi is one of the few vendors selling Japanese greens that can stand toe to toe with the shops that specialize in it.
