Adagio Sencha Overture

Before I get into this too deeply, I should reiterate that I have lived in Japan for 19 months, and during this time have been served a lot of sencha. While, I'm certainly not an expert in Japanese tea, I can comfortably say that I know what sencha tastes like.

After last week's tastings, I decided to place an order with Adagio teas so that I could compare their offerings with what was available to the average Japanese consumer. I know that most of our readers don't live in Japan, and as such wouldn't be able to buy what I was reviewing. I'd heard good things about Adagio and decided they might be a good source of Japanese teas for our readers. To that end, I ordered samples of their six Japanese teas: Kukicha, Sencha Overture, Sencha Premier, Hojicha Fugue, Genmai Cha and Moonlight Gyokuro.

Here's the review I wrote for the Adagio website, FYI, I ranked it as "ok" or 3/5.

At first glance this tea looked promising with nice looking leaves and a great color. But, the leaves had no real aroma to them. The resulting cup of tea was bland, and lacking in true sencha flavor. In its favor however was its color. The color was the perfect green of good sencha. While it's several steps up from the green tea available in the supermarket, its flavor is far below even the least expensive loose sencha available in Japan. Heck, I've had sencha teabags in Japan with more flavor. If you want to try real sencha, spend the extra money and try the sencha premier, it's closer to the real thing.

In a quest for objectivity, I brewed this side by side with an inexpensive Sencha (the same one served daily at my school). The Japanese Sencha was literally the bottom of the bag. The leaves were broken, the bag had been open for months (although stored in a ziplock bag), the leaves were kinda dull and brownish... Looking at the two side-by-side I was cheering for the Adagio. There was simply no comparison in the beauty contest. The Japanese tea had one huge vote in its favor however, aroma! The unbrewed Adagio tea had next to no aroma. The unbrewed Japanese tea, even though it was old, was highly aromatic.

As you might have guessed from my review above, the Adagio was disappointing. If it were a choice between the Adagio Sencha Overture and American green tea bags, I'd pick the Adagio. If a tea newbie were forced to choose between the two, I'd again suggest the Adagio. But, that's about it.

I wonder if I'm being too hard on the Adagio tea. Is it fair to put it up against "real" Japanese tea?

I also wonder if they are choosing what varieties they sell based upon what they think American consumers expect vs. offering a truly authentic Japanese Sencha experience. In all honesty, this tea might have made me happy before I moved to Japan. Or, rather, before I knew the difference. I guess you can't go back....