Sakura Sencha

Whenever I talk to someone about tea, there's a good chance I'll say how I only drink "real" tea and how there's a difference between tea and tisanes ("herbal tea" that contains no camellia sinensis). And even though Jasmine green tea was the stepping stone into my current tea obsession, I can't remember the last time I actually drank a flavored/infused tea. This week at Wegman's though I saw that they had some Sakura Sencha in their loose leaf section and I can't recall ever seeing it there before. And since I just ran out of my green tea stock, I thought it a good idea to give this a try.

Like Tea Dust in the Wind

This is my tea station at work... more specifically it's the right side of this table in my office where I put all my tea stuff. When I can maintain the rhythm and routine, I will drink tea every morning via a convenient method of using my tea infuser/tumbler and this Zojirushi water heater. It still kinda impresses me how I can do it so easily within an office, which seems to add to the zen-like experience of tea drinking over all... maybe.

Anyway, the mesh screen on my tea infuser is starting to develop larger holes in it from regular use. In addition to that, it's not a superfine screen to begin with. It would normally be a problem for most people, except I happen to almost exclusively drink sencha. Specifically, most of the sencha I use is fairly brittle and either ends up getting broken into smaller pieces, or just turned out that way via it's processing to begin with. There's also usually a good amount of what I like to call "shake" (also referred to as fannings or dust).

Anyone got a bowl?

I usually buy good quality tea in the first place, so it's not like this shake is bullshit grade stuff you would find in a Lipton-esque tea bag (although it closely resembles what you would find if you emptied one), but if I don't separate it, then it gets through the screen of my infuser. Drinking tea fragments in your brewed tea isn't a bad thing either and it's something that happens 90% of the time anyway, especially if brewing via a traditional method (kyusu, etc).

So several months ago I started to try and remove as much as the shake as I can before hand, which is actually pretty easy. I just put the tea into the lid of the infuser and use it like a flour sifter, moving it back and forth until no more small particles make their way through. A lot of the time its a bit depressing too, seeing just how much shake there is in some of the more expensive teas I buy and knowing that it's "going to waste". Seriously, I'll buy a 3oz can of shincha for like $50 and probably end up sifting out 30-40% of it out onto the table. Sometimes I don't know if it's my fault for acquiring a new found sense of OCD or if the tea producers are just not being as careful during the processing of the leaves as they should be.

Doctor Strangebrew or: How I Learned To Stop Complaining and Love Tea [part 2]

 Again, all I have to say is thank god for Wegman's... if it weren't for their insane mission to stock as many amazing food products as they do, I wouldn't have become the avid tea drinker that I am. They're planning on opening new stores in Maryland and a bunch of people were complaining about how "un-green" they are and that they're trying to muscle out competition, but all those people need to shut up. To my knowledge, they were one of the first chain stores to not only carry Ito En products, but to sell them cheaper than anywhere else ($1.50 per 16.9oz bottle... suck on that Whole Foods!)

Upcoming Videos

The first big video series I have planned is going to be a Japanese RTD (ready to drink) shoot out. I will be reviewing and comparing various brands including Ito En, Suntory, Asahi and Kirin. There will be several videos in this series and I hope you find them interesting, so please stay tuned as I continue to plan everything out!