Sugimoto Tea Sencha Shizu-7132

After learning about the Shizu-7132 cultivar I’ve been wanting to taste it.

Would it really have a cherry blossom aroma? How sweet would it be?

The good news is that I was able to obtain it thanks to Sugimoto Tea.

But the bad news is that it was a limited edition tea and now it’s out of stock.

This tea is produced in Kawane, Shizuoka prefecture. It is from the first harvest of this year.

The tea fields have an average elevation of 770 feet and they are close to the Ooi river.

Tasting a floral sencha

I’m finally going to drink this rare sencha 🙂

Let’s smell the tea leaves first.

It feels lightly sweet. Definitely not a vegetal aroma.

The appearance of the tea leaves is close to spectacular.

If the leaves would be longer and more uniform, they would look like a temomi sencha.

Great color, luster and shape.

Since it is an asamushi sencha (light steamed sencha), I could opt for a longer infusion time. But I decided to keep it at one minute for the sake of consistency.

The volume of water for this infusion will be 60 ml (2 oz), with a temperature of 80ºC (176ºF).

After the infusion, I feel a floral aroma. It has a light sweetness as well.

It doesn’t feel marine at all, it’s quite different from a sencha made with Yabukita.

The liquor has a clear yellow-green color.

I’m surprised by how mild if feels. Its umami taste isn’t so pronounced.

Besides the floral flavor, it has a sweet aftertaste.

Its not bitter nor astringent.

Now I’ll try a 40 second infusion with the same parameters.

This second infusion is very similar to the first one. Tastes good.

Let’s try with an infusion of 20 seconds.

Now the flavor is much lighter, but still a good cup of tea. It’s still not bitter nor astringent.

I made the last infusion with boiling water and for 10 seconds. Just in case there was still some flavor left.

Well, the taste is very watered down in this fourth steeping. But I guess it’s not that bad.

One thing that I noticed is that when the wet leaves cooled down, the cherry blossom aroma became more apparent.

Or was it because I had been drinking it and the aroma remained in my mouth?

I thought that I was going to love this tea, but I guess that it’s too different for my taste. Perhaps I’m getting old?

The deep umami taste and marine aroma that I crave in a sencha isn’t present, so I feel like if something was lacking.

Another thing is that I’m not into floral green teas. I can’t stand jasmine tea, for example.

Nevertheless, this is a high quality tea for sure. Very much worth exploring.