Brewing the first sencha of the season with boiling water

Hello, everyone. We are still in the rainy season, but it’s not raining this morning. It’s muggy, and I heard cicadas buzzing. I think it is the first time of this season. The summer is almost there.

Do you remember about the first sencha of the season from a friend of mine at Jun 7 and Jun 9 blog? I’ve told my mom about it. She says you should enjoy the aroma with the first tea of the season. The first sencha of the season has a great aroma especially. According to her, you should brew it with boiling water to bring out the rich scent. But I’ve never heard of using boiling water for good sencha. Tea usually get bitterer by brewing hotter water. It is said that correct temperature for sencha is 75 degrees C in general.

I have tried brewing the first sencha of the season with boiling water!! But I made a huge mistake with it. I brewed it too much longer. It should have been 60 sec. but, I did it with 80 sec…. so the tea got bitter.

Anyway I wanted to compare how different tea brewed with boiling water and regular brewed tea. I used the same tea leaves and brewed the same amount which is one cup for each with different temperature water. In the picture, the one on the left is sencha brewed with about 75 degree C water, and the other one on the right is the sencha brewed with boiling water. The colors are both darker than usual because of the longer brewing time. Boiling water tea has slightly deeper hue.

The smell, the most important thing in this experiment is that the tea brewed with boiling water has much better aroma. I really liked it. The regular brewing tea has milder aroma. In ten minutes later, still the boiling water tea has better aroma. My mom was right. You can enjoy rich refreshing green tea aroma by brewing with boiling water.

The taste was okay with the regular brewed tea. It was slightly bitter than usual but had still great flavor. However, the boiling water tea got too much bitter, and wasn’t taste good. You should be careful with brewing time especially when you brew sencha with boiling water. The bitterness comes out quicker with hotter water.

This time I failed with the brewing time, but I think you can prepare good first sencha of the season with better aroma by boiling water and correct brewing time. When you want mild tea, use low temperature water, and when you want to enjoy nice aroma of the first tea of the season try boiling water!

Have a good day.