Tasting Set Kabusé Sencha - Organic Japanese Green tea

Can't decide which tea should be yours? Looking for the perfect gift for a tea-enthusiast? This Tasting Set gives you the opportunity to test five of the Keiko teas of the early first plucking to explore the different flavors.

Tasting set of Japanese organic green teas produced by Shimodozono company from Kagoshima, South Japan. In the set you will find five top green teas from the early spring pre-harvest in mid-April. These are teas from shaded tea plants (Kabuse, 7-10 days shaded) of the Yutaka Midori cultivar, which is typical for the tropical region of Kagoshima. All teas in the set are so-called fukamushi sencha, where the length of steaming of the leaf ending the oxidation of enzymes is stretched to 120 seconds. This gives the teas a unique character with a rich, intense, dense flavor, a deep green infusion and a delicate, varied aroma.

The set contains 15g of each tea variety:

Kabuse Diamond Leaf

Shaded sencha harvested in mid-April. The shading of the tea plants and the longer, more intense steaming of the leaf (Fukamushi) give the tea its characteristic fresh, sweet fruity flavour with hints of basil and asparagus. Small, glossy, dark green leaves shaped into longer needles.

Kabuse Tenbu Fuka

7-10 days shaded tea plants of Yutaka Midori cultivar. This Kabuse Sencha is the most intensively steamed (Fukamushi) of all the teas in the set. The small, dark green rather matte leaves shaped into longer needles are rather broken due to their fragility. Intense green, thick infusion of full, heavier to oily flavor with cool, fruity notes and a trace of asparagus and spices in the aftertaste.

Kabuse Dan

Shaded sencha from the spring preharvest in mid-April. Due to the higher leaf drying temperature, the overall character of this tea is somewhat different from the other samples in the set. The dry leaves consists of small, dark green, glossy needles with a delicate sweet aroma and a hint of chocolate and vanilla. The infusion is deep green in colour, full-bodied and dense in flavor with hints of nuts and meadow herbs and a slightly astringent aftertaste.

Kabuse Soshun

Leaves are longitudinally shaped into traditional needles, dark green, medium glossy in colour and with a cut, juicy sweet fruity aroma with a hint of citrus. The bright green infusion has a delicate, smooth sweet vegetal flavor with balanced fruit notes and sweet umami in the aftertaste.

Kabuse Tenko

A small, longitudinally shaped leaves of dark green colour and an intense, fresh, sweet fruity aroma with hints of lime and basil. A light green infusion of fine, lively to juicy flavours with delicate fruit notes and lingering sweetness in the aftertaste. This tea is also available separately.

Ingredients: 100% Kabusecha from ecological agriculture

Origin: Japan - Kagoshima

Picking: Early 1st picking

Steaming: Fukamushi - deep steamed

Shading: Half-shade (7-10 days)

How to prepare Kabusé Sencha

Use 5 grams of tea leaves for 0.5 litre of boiling water cooled to 65-70 °C, steep for 60 seconds. Infuse the second infusion for 30 seconds and the third for 60 seconds. Feel free to experiment with steeping time, water temperature, and the amount of tea leaves. You can also read our articles on tea preparation and water quality. These tea leaves are also suitable for Asian-style preparation, which includes multiple infusions: you steep 5 grams of tea leaves per 150 ml of water that has boiled and cooled to 55–60 ᵒC for 20 seconds and in the following three infusions, you steep the leaves for 30, 40, and 50 seconds, respectively. You can also try steeping the leaves in lukewarm water at 37 ᵒC for 7 minutes, or in slowly melting ice.

Shimodozono company

is one of the pioneers of tea cultivation in the Kagoshima region. It was founded in 1954, at a time when commercial tea cultivation in Kagoshima was in its infancy. Teas from the south of Japan, the Kagoshima area, were not easy to come by at that time. They were considered an inferior variety of tea compared to the far more famous teas from the Shizuoka area.

The founder of the company, Mr Minoru Shimodozono, worked intensively and patiently to improve the quality of the teas produced. In the 1960s, Minoru Shimodozono met the renowned tea expert and researcher in the field of breeding new cultivars, Mr Katsuro Okamura, who recommended his newly bred cultivar Yutaka Midori. It is well suited to the warmer and more humid climate of Kagoshima. It took several more years of intensive experimentation before truly superior teas could be grown and processed to compete with teas from other regions. It was the partial shading of the tea plants before harvesting and the subsequent longer steaming of the leaves during processing that enhanced the specific characteristics of the Yutaka Midori cultivar, resulting in the finest teas with a delicious, sweet and full flavor and rich aroma.

Tea Tasting Notes

Also included is a notebook where you can record the results and observations from your tastings. The notebook contains info and tips on preparation and 20 evaluation pages that give clues on what to look for when tea tasting and help visualize the diversity of varieties, the influence of preparation on taste and the classification of flavors. The notebook is in German only, but you can download an English translation for it here.

Kabusecha

Kabusecha or Kabuse Sencha stands for shaded Sencha. For this green tea, the tea plants are shaded with special nets before harvesting. The nets allow only about half of the light to pass through, which means that the plants produce a high content of chlorophyll and other active substances and at the same time few bitter substances. Their characteristic "shade aroma" is called "ooika".

Fukamushicha

The teas in this set have all been intensively steamed (fukamushi-cha, 100 - 120 seconds steaming time). The gentle steaming opens the leaf pores and the extracts pass from the tea leaf more easily and quickly into the water. This can be recognised by the deep green colour of the tea in the cup and the yield of the tea - with top qualities like these, 4 infusions are possible! Incidentally, the early pluckings also have a particularly high theanine content, which is noticeable in the sweet taste and comes out best at a low infusion temperature!