How to Brew Gyokuro Green Tea

Hey teaheads. This is Don from Mei Leaf. In this video, how to brew Gyokuro green tea. In this video I'm going to be giving you an instructional, step-by-step, on how to get the best out of this unique Japanese green. This video is going to go under the Tea Master Classes playlist. If at any point in time you enjoy this video give it the thumbs-up. The more thumbs in the air the more tea videos are going to come your way. If you haven't subscribed to our YouTube channel go click that button. I have done another video giving you much more depth about how Japanese green tea is made, and Gyokuro is obviously one of the stars of that video. I'll put a link in the description below so you can check that out. But what I want to do today is to try to give you my opinion on how to get the most out of this incredible green tea. For those of you who don't know, Gyokuro is one of the most revered Japanese green teas. It's a shade-grown green tea, so they usually cover the Gyokuro for at least two weeks before it's harvested. The combination of the shading and the organic fertilizers that they put in the soil means that the tea is very rich in theanine. Now theanine is one of the mood-enhancing compounds within the tea leaf, so very, very rich in this theanine, which stimulates alpha brainwave activity and contributes to a happier, more settled mood. But the other thing about theanine is its flavor. Theanine is a rich umami flavor, so you get this intense, savory brothiness with Gyokuro tea, and for many it's quite a shock and quite a surprise. But I think that we should try to celebrate that this experience. So let's begin. Let me quickly scope this tea. This is our 2017 Gyokuro season. This is May 2017. Cultivar, this is Okumidori. Okumidori is one of my favorite cultivars for Gyokuro. The origin, this is Fuji Eda, in Shizuoka province in Japan. Picking and processing. This is a bud and one or two leaves, and as I said, it's shade-grown before harvest. This particular tea was shaded for three weeks at up to 90 percent. So they block out 90 percent of the sun, the plant freaks out, it starts to produce more chlorophyll, and it protects the theanine levels in the leaf. It's hand-picked. Most Japanese green teas are machine-picked, but this is hand-picked, so this is top-drawer, really, really high-quality Gyokuro. Finally, elevation. This is about 150 meters. Japanese green teas tend not to be very high-altitude teas. So that's your scope. Now we're going to figure out how to get the most out of this experience. Really, as I said, this is all about maximizing that umami hit. Really, really getting a powerful umami flavor, and for many people it is quite a surprise when you first taste it. So what we're going to do is we're going to make sure we've got a hot kettle here. You have a couple of choices in how you brew your first infusion. What I have here is 6 grams of Gyokuro, and I recommend that you use 6 grams to about 100 ml of water. The first option is that you brew it by pouring hot water into your Shiboridashi, or into a wide-based Kyusu. Generally, you want it to be as small as possible, and as wide-based as possible. So you're pouring hot water in just to heat the teaware up, because you want to bring it to temperature. You don't want your first infusion for all of the heat to be absorbed by the teaware. So heating it up with hot water, and then pouring the hot water away, putting the Gyokuro in. No rinsing for Japanese green tea, so you put it in, and then you put 50 degree Celsius, that's about 120 Fahrenheit, water 100 ml over it, put the lid on, and leave it for two minutes before pouring out. That's the standard way to brew your Gyokuro tea, your first infusion of Gyokuro tea. But if you want the most intense umami hit, if you really want the power hit of Gyokuro, then I recommend that you brew for an extremely long time at room temperature water. So what I'm going to do, first of all, I am going to heat the teaware up, because it's a cold teaware. I just want to bring it to some temperature here. I've got 60 degree water here, so it's going to bring the teaware up to something like 30 or 40 degrees. Then I'm just pouring it out. I've got nice warm teaware here. This allows me to get my nose in as I hit these leaves into this Kyusu. So we're going to put these beautiful, dark, glossy, forest-green, thin-needle-rolled tea leaves. Really, you want to try to look for... I mean, all Japanese green tea is more broken than Chinese green tea, but try to get as whole leaf as possible. Let's have a sniff. Ah! Starchy. It's got a starchy, kind of potatoey note to it. It's also got the vines of tomatoes, so it's slightly herby, but definitely got that savory smell to it. So vine, tomatoes, potatoes. Everything you're going to hear in this tasting session is going to be more on the savory end of the spectrum. Really, really nice. As I said, you can put 50 degree water in here, and leave it for two minutes, but I like to maximize my umami hit. So what I'm going to do, I've got 100 ml of room-temperature water here, and I'm just going to pour this over the leaves. So it's going to be a very rich, flavorful brew if we leave this for a long enough time. Essentially, we're cold-brewing the leaf, but very, very strong. I like to leave this for about 14 minutes, so a long time. We're going to wait, and we'll come back in 14 minutes. Here we are, coming up to 14 minutes, pretty much now. So get ready for this. This is a totally different experience to other types of tea, honestly. Gyokuro is something completely unique. That's why I really recommend that you follow these parameters, at least to start off with, before you experiment yourself. So here we go. We're going to pour this off. It's been 14 minutes, 100 ml water. Let's take a look at this liquor. Immediately, the thickness and viscosity of this liquor is quite incredible. It really is almost jelly-like. I'm going to bring this and get every last drop. This is all about concentrated flavor, so get every last drop out of there. There is nothing that replaces the first infusion of a Gyokuro. It is something to savor. Here you go. Take a look at this. It's called Jade Dew. This is one of the translations of Gyokuro or one of the names in English, and you can see why. It's cloudy. It's got a really bright yellow-green color, but the thickness and viscosity, I don't know if it's coming across to you, but it looks really, really, really, really thick. Beautiful color. Luminous color. All Japanese green teas have this luminous quality, but Gyokuro has this incredible, elegant, yellow, jade, citrine kind of color. Beautiful. Right. Often I just dive into tea, but there's a certain reverence that you need to give, because this is all about really experiencing this first hit of umami flavor. Cheers everybody. Ooh! Powerful. I'm going to talk about texture first. Really thick. When we talk about texture of tea being thick this is on a whole other level. Super thick. Viscous. Really jelly-like. The sides of my mouth get hit with this rush of savory, brothy umami. If you don't know what umami is it's not just salty. Umami is rich in things like tomatoes, in parmesan cheese. Meat is very rich in umami. Seaweed, kombu. All of these things that have this savory, delicious flavor, and this savoriness turns to sweetness on your tongue. It's this kind of the epitome of deliciousness in food. So Asian foods, a lot of Mediterranean foods, are rich in umami. But let's try to nail some other flavors here. There's definitely a sweetness that comes from a starchiness, like sweet taro. There's cut grass. There's buttered spinach. Buttered courgette. Cooked courgette. Not raw. There's a pepperiness to it. Some parsley. Some bright herbs. Some cut grass, but not too much. Then overlaying it all is this rich, rounded, delicious savoriness. As I said, for many people, when they first try Gyokuro it's a bit of a shock. You can be taken a little bit aback, because it's like having one of the most intensely nuanced, but concentrated, vegetable stalks, or bone broth. It's got that real, real intense, savory taste. Mmm! It's powerful. Now some people, for some cultivars, I find that the umami dominates too much. For Okumidori cultivar I like the top notes that come with it. So it's got a little bit more of a play. It's not just giving you this intense and one-dimensional, savory hit, but there are those top notes. If I breathe out through my nose... Yeah! Parsley, and buttered vegetables. Nice, nice, bright notes to it as well. Okay. Mmm! Take your time. Don't rush like I did. Savor your first infusion of Gyokuro. It's a very special thing. Right. Now we're going to move on to the second infusion. Second infusion I'm going to brew with warm water. 50 degrees, 120 Fahrenheit. That's what I'm going to brew with, because I think that once you've... Oh, take a look at these leaves. Take a little look at how they've expanded in the Kyusu. But beautiful color. Really, really lovely color. Deep, saturated, vibrant. Vibrant color. Okay. So we're going to brew now with 50 degree water. Now, because we've cold-brewed we want to heat up the teaware. You don't have to do this. If you don't then I would brew with like 55 or 60 degree water, the teaware will soak up some of the heat. But because I have a Gong Fu Guru here, I've got a water tray, I can have that luxury of just warming up the teaware, so it's not going to take too much heat away. Now I'm going to estimate 100 ml, which is just going to cover. So when you're brewing Gyokuro you're kind of just covering once the leaf has expanded. So we're going to put 100 ml of water in here, and now we want to wait two-and-a-half minutes. So I'm just looking at a clock in front of me. Two-and-a-half minutes. So we're back in two-and-a-half minutes to taste the second infusion. Right. Let's pour this off. Two-and-a-half minutes, and take a look at the liquor. It still has the viscosity. Definitely, you can see the viscosity is still there. Not quite as jelly-like, maybe, as the first cold-brewed infusion, and the color is still vibrant. A little touch more green than yellow, but still a very, very vibrant color. So 50 degree, or warm water brewing, is going to bring out a little bit more of the minerality, in my experience. It makes a slightly drier tea. Let's give it a taste. Yeah. Now more of the vegetal. I'm getting more of the courgettes, more of the spinach, cooked vegetables, green vegetables. So the first infusion, when you cold-brew it, it brings up more of that umami taste. This is still very, very savory. Mmm! And fleeting. It's just like the hint of bitterness, and then it disappears. Good dryness. Real sweetness is starting to build with subsequent infusions. But even after the first infusion, while I was waiting for this second infusion to brew, I was getting a lot of sweetness in my mouth, which is that umami transformation from savory to sweetness. Mmm! Buttered vegetables, a little bit of sea air starting to creep in, seashell minerality. Let's have a sniff of this empty cup. Yeah. Marine air. I don't mean fishiness, okay? I mean that really fresh, brisk marine air. A little bit of seaweed going on, but there's a sweetness as well, a sugariness to it, which is interesting. Spinach, those vine tomatoes. I'm getting all of it. It's a very complex, nuanced flavor. I'm not doing it justice just by sitting here through the infusions, but it's a very nuanced, very particular flavor profile. Okay. Third infusion, you're using the same temperature of water, same amount of water, but you're increasing the steeping time to three minutes. I've got 50 degree water here. I'm just going to pour some over the Kyusu again, just to kind of warm it up, and then pour in my estimate of 100 ml of water. Look at the clock. So three minutes for the third infusion. We're coming up to the three-minute mark, but I just want to say that I'm already really feeling the theanine here. It's such a lovely, settled feeling, a feel-good feeling. You kind of get washed over with a sense of, everything's okay. It's all good. Calm down. Chill out. I totally understand why this tea is so revered, and brings you back to the moment, brings you back to a really settled feeling. The theanine stimulates alpha brainwave activity, which is the state of mind, or the activity which is closely associated to the meditative state. Okay. Here we go. Three minutes are up. But really, you can sense that theanine, the richness of that theanine, in the taste and in the mood. I can feel definite mood enhancement after only about five to ten minutes. Okay. Here we go. Color of the liquor, again, going a little bit more green. Whoops. Focus. Sun. Here you go. Right. There you go. Let's to my nose with these long glasses. I'm getting a little bit more sweetness, more minerality, the sweetness of cooked courgettes, or zucchini. When you cook it the flesh inside has got that particular sweetness. Less of the umami now, more minerality. So it's interesting with this Gyokuro brewing. Really, it's all about exploring the flavor as the leaf changes from that real intense umami, as it starts to become fresher, become slightly more simple and sweet. Nice. The bitterness is controlled. If you hit this with too hot water then you're really going to bring out a lot of bitterness. So 50 degree, I think, is good. That's 120 Fahrenheit. Okay. But now it's starting to get a little bit weaker. For the fourth infusion we're going to be brewing for two and a half minutes, but we're going to be brewing at 70 degrees. So 70 degrees, that's about 160 Fahrenheit. So we'll be back after that brew. Fourth infusion, I just want to say that smelling the empty cup now, really, really sweet. Almost like candy-floss sweet. Really, really interesting. So the liquor is becoming clearer, less of the cloudiness, which means, I think, there's less nitrogen. So that's just, again, showing you that the theanine, I think, has been extracted, so it's going to be less savory again, a lot clearer, but still very, very vibrant. Nice, elegant, and glowing green color. Definitely, the texture is thinner, not so thick. The hotter water brings out more minerality. I'm getting more dryness, but you need that hotter water just to pull more of the flavor out of the extraction. Now it's more approaching what you would expect from an average green tea, in the sense that it's fresh, it's mineral, it's dry, it's got the astringency, it's got the cut grass freshness. The bitterness is still attenuated really, really nicely. Very elegant, but certainly a lot lighter in terms of its savory brothiness. Okay. Final infusion. Increase the temperature again. Two-and-a-half minutes, 80 degrees, which is 175 Fahrenheit. Back soon. Fifth infusion, the last infusion, in my opinion. I don't like to brew Gyokuro past the fifth infusion. I think that it's given up all of its verve and flavor in five infusions. Let's give it a taste. You can see the liquor again is clearer and lighter. This is brewing with hotter water, 80 degrees, or 175 Fahrenheit. Give it a taste. Again, thinner, drier, still really, really nice. Very, very mineral, almost chalky in terms of its minerality. The cooked vegetable sweetness has kind of disappeared. It's still there. I'm getting slight nutty notes to it, chestnut notes to it. Still very, very delicious, but very, very light. I'm definitely feeling both the caffeine and the theanine. I've gone through five infusions quite quickly, but I can feel like my brain is rewiring. The synergy between the caffeine and the theanine makes for a lovely state, albeit a little bit energetic when you drink infusions in quick succession like that. See? I can't even speak. Now, what do you do with these lovely leaves? Really, really still vibrant, green leaves, and they still have a lot of flavor to them. Now, if you've got high-quality Kyo Kuro, and it has to be high-quality Kyo Kuro, it has to be first flush, because first flush Japanese green teas, if it's grown well, and it's made by a good producer, high-quality, will not have any pesticides on them. I know this source. I've visited the farm. I've seen them picking it. I know how they make their teas. So I'm very, very confident that this leaf is actually edible. This is a very traditional way of finishing off your Kyo Kuro experience. Take a squeeze of lemon, a good squeeze of lemon, give it a good zing, and a dash of some light soy sauce. So a nice dash of light soy sauce. Not too much. You don't want to mask the flavor, but just enough. Or you could use Ponzu soy sauce if you wanted. Then you can just mix this up, and you can eat it with rice. You could sprinkle it into a salad. I'll show you what it looks like. I know. Mmm! Oh! Really, really lovely. I know this seems a bit strange, but it is a great way to finish off the Kyo Kuro experience. Really, really delicious, but it comes with a warning. These leaves still have caffeine, okay? I have gone through, when I was trying to work out the best brewing methods, we brewed quite a lot of Kyo Kuro, and I ate it all, and then I was rushing like crazy with the caffeine for quite a few hours. It was not particularly pleasant. So be careful, be sparing, depending on how caffeine sensitive you are. Mix it into rice. It makes a really nice, very simple, but delicious, savory, and warming broth. So if you have some warm, steamed white rice or brown rice, and you mix some of this soy sauce, lemon, Kyo Kuro in, it's delicious. Hard to explain. Mmm! I guess kind of spinach-y, but much more bite in its texture. Really nice consistency. So when you bite through it it's very satisfying. You crunch through these leaves. Really, really nice. I have to be careful with the caffeine, because I'm feeling it already, but wow! The best way to finish off your Kyo Kuro experience. Wonderful. Even better, shared with someone, so you're not getting the full caffeine hit. So, I hope that this video has given you a detailed, step-by-step on how to get the most out of your Kyo Kuro session. That's it teaheads. If you made it to the end of this video give it the thumbs-up. Check out our YouTube playlist and let us know if there are any videos that you'd like us to make. If you're ever in London then come visit us in Camden to say hi and taste our wares. If you have any questions or comments then please fire them over. Other than that, I'm Don from Mei Leaf. Thank you for being a part of the revelation of true tea. Stay away from those tea bags, keep drinking and eating the good stuff, and spread the word. Because nobody deserves bad tea. Bye.