Sencha Review

Green tea, or sencha, is everywhere in Japan. You can find bottles of it cold in vending machines, in the drink bar at diners, sushi restaurants brew it by the liter. If anyone offers you tea, they'll probably hand you a cup of sencha. Since Maura's box of samples arrived from Adagio's teas this weekend, we've been doing side by side comparisons of their sencha's versus the local brew.

I have to admit, it's rather difficult for me to describe what green tea tastes like because I have so often. My knee-jerk reaction is well, sencha tastes like sencha, but I know that's probably not too helpful. Sencha has no bitter flavor that are common to black teas. It has no smoky or nutty flavors like the roasted teas. It's not fruity like sakura tea. It definitely has a distinctive aroma and taste, but my ability to describe it has completely failed me.

Anyway, we drank side-by-side cups of Adagio's Sencha Overture, their low end green tea, and the common Japanese brand that Maura drinks at work. The Japanese brand had the distinct green tea aroma, while the sencha overture had none. Brewed up, the sencha overture was much lighter in color, and the flavor turned out to be extremely bland. The Japanese stuff, however, was a bit darker, and had a complex sencha flavor. On the whole Adagio's Sencha Overture was unimpressive, and the best compliment I could give it is that it is mild.

Then we brought out Adagio's Sencha Premier and brewed that side-by-side with a high grade Japanese sencha that was given to us as a gift. These two were much more similar. The dry leaves of both were aromatic, and when brewed they showed similar pale green colors. Just a quick not on colors here. I have red-green color deficiency (colorblindness), so you should pay more attention to what Maura has to say on the topic than I do. They also had a similar smell and even flavor. They were certainly not identical, but they were close enough for me to say that adagio got it's Sencha Premier right. I was also surprised at how mild the flavor was on both of these. I actually think the lower grade of Japanese sencha had more "green tea" flavor, but that may just be my ignorance.

If you only have access to US tea distributors, Adagio's Sencha Premier is a worthwhile tea. I won't tell you not to buy the lower grade Sencha overture, but I just don't think it's worth it. We'll definitely need to compare Adagio's stuff with what Tengu Natural Foods has, because they may be able to ship to the states.