Mitocha Makibi Kancha

I’ve known about kancha for years, but I only managed to get my hands on a sample now.

It is quite rare.

In fact, this isn’t the original one from Aichi prefecture.

The producer learned how to process it, and was able to reproduce this tea in Nara prefecture.

I bought it from Yunomi.life.

Tasting kancha for the first time

The leaves are very big because this is a type of bancha.

Most of them are whole, some are yellow, others are brown, and they are all unrolled.

I like how they look.

What’s interesting is that the aroma is unique.

It’s herbal and sweet.

I would never have guessed that this was a Japanese green tea.

Now all I have to do is infuse 3 grams of tea into 120 ml (4 oz) of boiling water for 5 minutes.

5 minutes is a long time, but it is worth it.

The wet leaf aroma is also sweet and herbal.

Maybe it has some sourness as well? The closest tea that I can think of is Awa bancha.

The liquor has a dark yellow color.

At last, I’m about to taste this tea after so many years.

It is very smooth, with a buttery mouthfeel.

Not bitter nor astringent.

It still has this sweet and herbal quality to it, with some umami taste.

While similar to Awa bancha, it isn’t as dry nor sour.

What an interesting tea.

I made another infusion and noticed that it had a slight sour taste and less sweetness.

A third infusion felt light, but still it was a good tea.

But the tea tasting isn’t over yet.

The wet leaves look so beautiful, that I just had to try one.

Surprisingly, they still have a lot of flavor, it isn’t just bitterness like with most green teas.

I could feel some sweetness, much more than the infused tea.

I didn’t swallow the tea leaf, only chewed it.

The darker leaves taste better, in my opinion.

Oh well, I ended up chewing all of the spent leaves 🙂

A good tea to drink if you want to experience something unusual.

Here’s the link to the product page in Yunomi.