Megami Sencha Itoen

Today, I'm trying Megami Sencha from Itoen.


I believe it is a deep-steamed fukamushi because in the site's description, they say, "You'll immediately note the jade green intensity that comes from extra steaming." Well, the first steep(176°f - 1m) isn't so intense in color:


A light lime-green. The taste, however, is bold, lucious, and delicious. Flavor mostly of spinach, asparagus (name your vegetable), slightly grassy, carries a wonderful lip-smacking tartness, and definitely some lime.

Now, it's been a long time since I've had a deeply steamed sencha, fukamushi style. With this in mind, Megami is hitting the spot perfectly. One factor that may be influencing my opinion is that I'm using a small gongfu cup(right) instead of the usual(left):


The next steeps are the same lime-green color, but cloudier.


What is really appealing to me from this tea is the tart lime flavor. It's my favorite flavor in a sencha (right next to grass), and is typically found in abundance in karigane (gyokuro stem) tea. I always feel lucky when I get a stem-less tea with this flavor.


The bottom line is, I love this tea. It's full of flavor, slightly creamy, quite vegetal, and well-balanced with a tart lime flavor. My first impression of Itoen was that they're too commercial to have great sencha, but hey, I was wrong. However, their packaging was a simple padded envelope, which didn't protect the tea as much as one would hope. Luckily, 2/3 of the teas I ordered were deep-steamed, and already broken up. Deep-steamed senchas taste best when broken up, but the breaking of the leaf is just an effect of the deep-steaming.

At $16.50/3oz, Megami Sencha is a tea worth your time and money. I have two other Itoen senchas I'm looking forward to trying: Chiran Kanayamidori, and Makinohara. If they turn out as well, then I'll give Itoen the seal of approval.

2003 Dayi Yiwu Sheng Pu-erh

I got this tea in a 2oz sampler from Puerhshop. On inspection, the leaf is quite dark. But on a 2003? Obviously a sign of wet storage. The smell is deep and barky, similar to a semi-aged sheng, but also carries a sharpness.


Aroma in the cup is not strong, but subdued, milky, and sharp. Taste begins with a smoke, followed by a lightly sweet vicosity, some milkiness, and a bit of wood. There is also a sour flavor which probably is responsible for all the sharp notes.


I've actually tried this tea twice before. The first time, I had been drinking a lot of young sheng. Then, I thought it was a lucky find, having been wet-stored to get it more quickly to a stage where one can enjoy it more. The second time I tried it, I had been drinking mostly well-aged sheng. When I tried it the second time, I didn't like it much at all. The sour flavor starkly contrasted with the aged sheng I had been drinking, and left me feeling like this tea had been overly wet-stored.

During todays tasting, I picked up on more flavors of the tea. I hadn't noticed the smoke or the milkiness before. I had noticed the viscosity, but didn't get a good grasp of it at the time. For this tasting, the tea took on a different character. My general thoughts are that it is too much on the side of a wet-stored tea. The sharp, sour flavor only becomes more and more pronounced as the session goes on, and one develops a strong aversion towards it. What also happens as the session goes on is that the tea becomes deep red-brown in color:


Unfortunately, I got sick of the snotty sour flavor and gave up on the tea early. Most probably, a good few years will get rid of a lot of that flavor, and that is probably what will happen with the few chunks left of the sample. It seems like it should be a good tea, but the snotty flavor is just too much. Perhaps a few more years will unlock some potential in it.

Sea Dyke Brand Wu-i Yen Cha

Part III of this yancha run-though. Jim of puerhshop included this fairly tasty yancha with one of my orders. Too bad it isn't offered on his website...
Sea Dyke Brand Wu-I Yen Cha (alternative spelling of wuyi yancha).

Dry leaf carries an enticing aroma of sweet roasted chocolate.


I filled my gaiwan just under halfway with leaf. After a rinse, the first few steeps came out rather potent so less leaf might be a good idea. I rather enjoyed the strong flavor, and nothing unpleasant became pronounced.


A heavy roast aroma comes out in the cup, along with chocolate and bark. During the first few potent steeps, the roast was very prominent in the flavor, but accompanying it was strong cocoa and sweet bark as well. Around the third steep, the prominence of the roast dropped off and the tea blended all the flavors together very nicely. This lasted for a while, and for the 6th steep I sat it for 45s.


I found this yancha to be quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, my palate is not the slightest bit developed in this area. The tea has a heavy roast and cocoa flavor, which last for a good 8 steeps. I expect the price to be cheap, and if that is the case, I would be interested in buying more. However, I currently have three yanchas on the way from houde, and I presume that after expanding my palate with those, this Sea Dyke Brand Wu-I Yen Cha will be a tea for the shelves.