How To Brew Sencha Green Tea

Today I'm going to be brewing our beautiful, organic Sencha Yabukita Japanese Green Tea. Feel free to follow along with your own brew or just watch to gain a sense of what makes this tea so special. First, this tea smells amazing. When I take time to brew tea, I like to enjoy every aspect of the experience, starting with noticing the aromatics of the tea. Our Sencha Yabukita has notes of juicy green apple, custard, and guava. Sure, it can smell just like green tea, but it's fun to pick out evocative scents, and I like that the practice can lead to a deeper enjoyment of the care and craftsmanship of the tea. While the water is heating, let's take a closer look at our tea leaves. There are a vast number of styles of Sencha in Japan, with so many different flavor profiles to appreciate and choose from. Different regions will have different styles of Sencha, because they are deep or lightly steamed, feature different cultivars, or grown in the shade right before harvest, a style called Kabusecha. But in general, you'll know a Sencha is of exceptional quality when there is a fine roll in the delicate needles, each tea leaf is uniform, and the tea is a deep green or jade in color. First, I'm going to heat our Kyusu in our teacups with warm water. Pre-rinsing your utensils will help maintain an even temperature in the ceramics while the tea brews for an optimal infusion. We're going to use five to six grams of tea, which is about this much. When I add the tea to the Kyusu, I like to smell it again, because as the tea leaves warm, the aromatics change and you can enjoy a new depth to the tea. The teapot we're using today is our Tokoname Kyusu. Tokoname is a famous city renowned for Japanese teaware and is home to one of the six oldest pottery schools in Japan. The area has iron-rich clay and historic kilns where artists have produced ceramics since the 12th century. Today, we partner with Tokoname artists to share their beautiful wares with you. We'll add about 180 milliliters or about six ounces of 170 degrees Fahrenheit water to our Kyusu and then set the timer for one minute. Water temperature and time given here are my personal preferences, but you can experiment with temperature from about 160 degrees Fahrenheit to 175 degrees Fahrenheit and even brew as short as 30 seconds up to two minutes to find what variables result in your favorite tasting tea. I'm also going to do a brew in a glass teapot so you can watch the leaves unfold. It's so fun to experiment with different brewing equipment and techniques. The key is to experiment and find one, how the particular sensha best showcases its flavors, and two, what brewing perimeters you like. Generally, hotter water will draw out more savory grassy tones, while cooler water will showcase sweeter notes. While the tea is steeping, I wanted to briefly chat about why this tea is so important to Mizubatiko. If you're thinking of Japanese green tea, you're most likely thinking of sensha and the yabukita cultivar because yabukita is considered the quintessential flavor of Japanese green tea. Yabukita cultivar is famous for its well-balanced flavor with little to no astringency, a nice sweetness, perfect umami, and a long finish. Basically, this essential flavor is considered the foundation of tasting and enjoying other Japanese teas, so if you're looking for a place to start with Japanese loose leaf tea, our sensha yabukita is perfect. It's been one minute, so the tea is ready. I'll slowly pour the tea into a yuzumashi, or cooling bowl. If I'm sharing my tea, it's especially important that I pour the entire pot first into one vessel so the flavors integrate through the entire brew. Otherwise, if I pour one cup first, all the stronger umami flavor will be concentrated in the second cup. Pouring the entire brew first into a serving vessel or yuzumashi ensures an even flavor for everyone when I go to pour each person's cup. Before I take my first sip, I like to appreciate the liquor of the tea, which can vary anywhere from a golden yellow to a gentle opalescent green, or sometimes even a super bright naturally neon green. If you catch the light just right, you might be able to see little sparkles, or what looks like mini snowflakes or stars on the surface of your tea. These are called moji, which are actually tiny downy tea leaf hairs. Moji are an indicator of exceptional quality because they only appear if the tea is produced from young fresh buds of the spring harvest. Technically, moji is translated to the dust floating on the surface of the brew, but we definitely prefer to refer to it as sensha stars. Look for them next time you drink mizuba tea. Our sensha yabukita is just so satisfying. It's truly perfectly balanced between sweet and savory. There's little to no astringency, and there's just a pleasant refreshing quality to drinking this tea. Thanks so much for joining us for tea brewing today. We love making these videos, so if you have any suggestions or comments about what you would like to see next, let us know! Or if you have questions, feel free to reach out as well. Cheers!