Cleaning up your tea cabinet can lead to interesting discoveries. While cleaning out mine, I found a sample I didn’t know I still had. Tee Kontor Kiel sent me a box full of samples around a year ago (I guess?) and I saw I hadn’t drunk all of them. That’s why I picked the Organic Sencha Kirishima Yabukita for today’s session.
Organic Sencha Kirishima Yabukita
Like I said already, I forgot I still had this sample so it’s a 2020 Japanese sencha. I ordered some other sencha teas two weeks ago, so I was really excited to see I still had this sample. The Organic Sencha Kirishima Yabukita is made using non-shaded Yabukita bushes.
The tea garden is fully organic and is located in the Kirishima mountains at an altitude of around 200-300m. This garden is often surrounded by fog and ‘Kirishima’ literally means fog-island. Kirishima is located in the Kagoshima prefecture.
Organic Sencha Kirishima Yabukita
- 70°C water
- 4g for a 130ml Tokoname kyusu
The leaves have a dark green colour. I mostly see medium-sized leaves and smaller ones as well. It’s a mix but there are more big leaves than smaller ones. The aroma is not that refreshing as it’s deeper. I’m getting dark sugar and some fruity top notes. It doesn’t have the freshness I usually get when smelling Japanese sencha.
Infusion 1 (25 sec): the colour of this one is a lighter green and the liquor is really clear. It feels delicate and soft and it has a fruity flavour profile with a sweet twist at the end. It’s a pleasant and gentle infusion.
Infusion 2 (27 sec): the colour is a darker green but it’s still clear. Right from the start, I feel this one has more umami. Once the umami fades, the finish and aftertaste become really fruity and sweet. The finish has strawberry notes to it and the aftertaste goes a step further and offers something similar to strawberry sorbet. The aftertaste of this infusion stays around for a very long time.
Infusion 3 (30 sec): the liquor still looks pure and clean. Umami has disappeared and it’s slightly fruity from the start onwards and it slowly dies out towards the finish.
Infusion 4 (50 sec): I did a longer infusion to see if I got everything out of the leaves. It’s very gentle with a fruity twist. This will be the final infusion because I feel the flavours are fading a bit. However, the aftertaste is still fruity and even a bit sweet.
Conclusion
This is a great but gentle tea and I feel bad for not trying it sooner. I did not buy this one myself, but I think it’s really good value for money because it’s only €15.90 for 100g. It’s not top of the line, but it has a good price-performance ratio.
I enjoyed this tea a lot. It was fruity with a sweet twist and even some umami at the start of the second infusion. The subtle fruitiness was really enjoyable and reminded me of fresh strawberries in summer. It wasn’t that intense but the soft and gentle flavours were good.
If you want to try the Organic Sencha Kirishima Yabukita, you can buy it over here.
