Tea tasting

Today I’ll talk about tea tasting that I learned at the Japanese tea adviser work shop. Teas are evaluated with two aspects, appearance of dry tea leaves and substance of brewed tea.

150g of dry tea leaves are placed on a tray and evaluated the appearance. You can touch and smell them as well. Good tea leaves for sencha should be deep green, luster on the surface, rolled hard. Brewed tea tasting uses 3g tealeaves brewed with boiling water in a white porcelain cup. You evaluate water color, aroma and taste. Well balance of bitterness and umami, and refreshing aroma and after taste are good quality for sencha.

It was difficult to tell good or bad by smell of dry leaves and brewed tea color for me. Dry leaf color and brewed tea taste were easier aspects to tell the difference.