Kuma Tea Garden FK032: 2023 Yamecha Mountain-Grown Sencha Yabukita 奥八女 上陽茶 やぶきた Kuma Tea Gardens

This yabukita sencha from Kuma Tea Gardens is an artisanally crafted sencha, grown with reduced use of pesticides and harvested in April 2021. It is our most typical and traditional sencha, great for everyday drinking. It is simultaneously delicate yet provides a strong umami aroma and flavor. This is what Kuma-san says about the mountain-grown yabukita sencha from this year:

This yabukita sencha is full of life energy, highly aromatic, with refreshing notes of spring. When you enter our tea factory during this time of year, it is filled with the scent of freshly picked tea leaves, it’s such a pleasant olfactory sensation! Our yabukita sencha is a tea that could be described as one that has captured the scent of the raw tea leaves that you smell in our tea factory. 

During the time we harvested this tea, we received periods of sunny and dry days. This tea has an honest, straightforward taste, perhaps as it grew steadily under such conditions. On a side note, our garden brews this tea every morning! With this tea, I feel my mind and body are in balance.

Steeping notes

• 1st steeping – Tea: 5g. Time: 1 min. Water: 70C/158F, 140 ml.
• 2nd steeping – Time: 20 sec. Water: 90C/194F, 200 ml.
• 3rd steeping – Time: 60 sec. Water: 90C/194F, 200 ml.
• 4th? 5th? – Yes, it will still be enjoyable but it depends on how light you like your tea!

Flavor Profile 

• Umami：★★★☆ ☆
• Aroma　：★★★★★
• Invigorating：★★★★☆
• Freshness：★★★★★

Product Info

• Ingredients: Green tea
• Cultivar: Yabukita
• Harvest: April
• Region: Yame, Fukuoka, Japan
• Notes: Mountain-grown. Steaming is on the long side of standard steaming for sencha, not quite fukamushi. This results in a broken leaf and a near fukamushicha-like opacity.