Smoky Muscatel Gopaldhara Autumn Flush Darjeeling

In picking which tea to review I looked through what my friend Ralph liked best in his Instagram based reviews, and noticed one of these teas from Gopaldhara is smoked.  That should be different.  Of course Lapsang Souchong is the main smoked tea, the traditional Chinese version, and I've tried a version from Japan before that was nice, one smoked using the wood from whiskey barrels to give it even more complexity.

I tend to never read any description of teas before reviewing them, to approach them with a clean slate, since hearing a description will influence what you pick up, but it seems like a reasonable time to make an exception.  I'll read and copy Ralph's description here, from his Instagram post:

thedailytealegraph

2021 Smoky Muscatel Lapsang Black FTGFOP1 Autumn Flush from Gopaldhara, Darjeeling, @gopaldharateas

The tea variety is an AV2 bush grown in high elevation at an average of 6000ft (1830m), the tea gets heated over pinewood for the smoked flavor.

1st infusion: great! A rounded, sweet, fruity and smoked Lapsang aroma, where the smoke is nowhere bitter or too intense, just obvious enough to blend in very balanced and add to the flavor. Minerality is nice as well and gives an oily viscosity.

2nd infusion: it's a bit lighter, but still very sweet and fruity, the pine smoke shows some slightly fresh sour notes now with a very tiny bit of bitterness in the background which is just typical as these notes are naturally in the pine needles and the smoke itself...

Daily facts: a great version of a Lapsang Souchong and as a Darjeeling tea it's even more fruity and sweet than the usual Chinese Lapsang souchong. It might be not as thick and powerful in the mouth as other versions, but totally makes up for that with sweetness, fruitiness and quality.

Daily rating: 4.8/5

Sounds good.  Maybe I can even keep the description short to adjust for including two reviews here.

One thing that stood out was calling this "Lapsang," since that seems to reference that Chinese tea type, Lapsang Souchong, which this isn't (I don't think).  In looking up their website description, cited at the end, it doesn't include "Lapsang."  That's probably better, since everyone would already know what smoked black tea means.  Of course comparing the character / aspects to the main smoked black tea type, Lapsang Souchong, makes a lot of sense.

It occurred to me just as I was pouring the first infusion of water into the gaiwan that Western brewing might work better, since the smoke flavor might extract faster than the rest using multiple infusions / Gongfu style.  I guess I'll know better soon enough, but trying it brewed both ways would tell the full story.

Review:  

first infusion:  it is smoky, and smoke flavor is extracting faster than that of tea.  It could still fall into a normal range balance next round, since surely one fast infusion didn't rinse off the smoke, and tea flavors should be ramped up a lot even by a second round.  The smoke effect is nice.  It's hard to get the level to balance, which I can judge better next round, but a pronounced but still clean effect is also important, which is easy enough to assess this round, since smoke dominates.  It tastes like pine smoke.  Dryness is at a good level, adding an edge to the feel and aftertaste, but that could easily be rough, and it's not.  Too strong and a pine smoke aftertaste would seem a bit cloying, but this is still just pronounced.

second infusion:  it's a cool effect the way that both tea flavor and smoke ramped way up, even for using a fairly fast infusion time, under 10 seconds.  This would brew good intensity tea Western style at a moderate proportion.  Smoke is still a little strong in proportion, but for Lapsang Souchong that can be normal.  I've tried much stronger.  The smoke isn't balanced with sweetness and tea flavors but it still works, and that should even out next round.  

The effect is clean; a heavy mineral base and higher end smoke make this tea intense, but it's not rough, overly earthy, or sour.  A touch of sourness is present, or maybe even a medium level, but it works in relation to the sweetness, other flavors, and smoke taste.  It's going to be hard to judge if these infusions wouldn't be better combined.  I could've "stacked" the last half of the first three rounds, but I just thought of that too.  My mind is running behind in planning out this tasting session. 

third infusion:  tea sweetness and flavor ramped up, with smoke dropping back in proportion.  I don't think it's fading just yet, but this was a really fast infusion, drawing out less of that.  The way it balances makes for a pleasant effect.  A dry feel to the tea, a good bit of edge, but not astringency roughness, works well along with the strong flavors.  That feel reminds me more of good Assam than Darjeeling, which tend to either be smooth or have a sharper bite, but not so much the dryness, which seems to pair with the malt flavor in Assam.  

Sweetness is a little towards molasses, but it stops short of that, landing more where a sweet version of cured leather smells.  Or it's like the sweet scent in pipe tobacco, which may or may not translate over to the taste of that smoke; I've never smoked one of those old style pipes to find out.  With the smoke in this it might remind someone a lot of a pipe tobacco effect.  There is other range, beyond the heavy mineral base, it's just hard to break out as a list, beyond the smoke and the rest I've described.  It's complex.  

fourth infusion:  that "other range" is really emerging this round.  I can see how someone might like this better combined together as two more complex infusions, or how some others would rather experience it layer by layer like this.  Smoke, heavy mineral base, and dryness are still present, but the leather / tobacco sweetness is developing quite a bit.  A bit of citrus seems to develop, along the line of orange peel, or maybe red grapefruit instead.  The leather tone is slightly woodier, but sweet and rich, along the line of cured (aged) sawdust.  That's a favorite scent from my childhood, from lots of playing on a huge old pile of sawdust that was part of a long forgotten sawmill operation on my parent's property.  No one had any memory of that sawmill, or the trees, but judging from old pictures the land had been clear-cut decades before.

I grew up in the upper-middle left of this photo, near an old drive-in movie theater

a mall replaced that drive-in movie theater, and some forests regrew

fifth infusion:  spice tones ramp way up in this; it's cool that it changes round to round.  Citrus is still there, with mineral and smoke dropped way back.  If I had brewed this using a conventional two round Western approach I'd expect this infusion range to be a part of the second infusion.  The form of that spice is catchy, but hard to pin down.  Towards cardamom, just including a touch of fennel seed?  It might even lean a little towards clove, or that aromatic aspect could tie back to the grapefruit citrus.  It's probably the best that it's been, even with the smoke mostly faded.  The dry astringency is dropping out too, giving it a rich and full feel.

sixth infusion:  all of the rest fades a little to give way to a more conventional wood tone. This is probably finally on the decline.  There is still plenty of positive complexity, but I would imagine it will just get woodier, and although the intensity isn't easing up quickly stretching infusion time to keep that up will draw out less positive flavor range.  Citrus might seem more like dried orange peel now, a bit warmer.  

I checked the next round and it's just as positive; this might be fading but it's not fading fast.

Conclusion:

Quite positive!  The level and type of smoke input was nicely balanced, which makes a lot of difference. The tea input seemed well suited for that, heavy in flavor but sweet and balanced.  The form of astringency seemed a little unusual in relation to what I expected, dryness versus light edge, but it worked with the rest of this tea character.

The comparison tasting against Ralph's impression didn't work so well for using two completely different brewing approaches, but it did match well enough. That fruit he mentioned seemed to take the form of fresh orange, then red grapefruit, then dried orange peel.  Of course smoke was a primary flavor in the first few rounds, with some sourness joining that, and a lot of mineral range.  The rest was harder to interpret, but I saw it as contributing a lot, especially in the 4th and 5th infusions.  It was cool how earthiness similar to pipe tobacco transitioned to spice range.  Even up to the 7th round this is nicely balanced and complex, and not finished.

I can't really place this in relation to higher quality smoked Lapsang Souchong; I've just not been drinking any versions of that for years.  The last I tried was clearly artificially smoke flavored and I guess that put me off.

I've tried a lot more unsmoked Lapsang Souchong over the past 5 years or so, and I suppose this could be a little similar to those.  I always did like smoked versions, but it's hard to find versions where the smoke balances well, or where that input isn't a bit off in taste, too sour or contributing a harsh aftertaste, or where using low quality tea doesn't limit complexity detract from overall effect.  This doesn't seem to suffer from any of those flaws.  The strengths and positive aspects that do shine through are quite pleasant.  

Gopaldhara Darjeeling Smoky Muscatel – Clonal Black Tea

This Darjeeling smoky muscatel tea is designed for those who are fond of good quality clonal black tea with smoked preparations. This Darjeeling black tea is made from AV2 bushes which is one of the most flavorful cultivars of Darjeeling; heated over burning pinewood shavings, which contributes to the sweet fruity and smoky flavor with a honey finish. As we are using pinewood for smoke, it also imparts a little pine resin aroma and muscatel flavor taste...

The Gopaldhara smoky muscatel tea is made with hand-picked leaves collected from Darjeeling at 5500 to 7000 FT elevation during the Autumn Flush season. After a little rolling, the tea leaves are passed through the pine smoke chamber several times to get the smoked flavor... 

I've been discussing what "muscatel" means a little lately, and it's strange that there isn't a clearer meaning.  Let's consider two meanings, from the source of all mostly correct but incomplete knowledge, Wikipedia:

Muscatel (/ˌmʌskəˈtɛl/ MUSK-ə-TEL) is a type of wine made from muscat grapes. The term is now normally used in the United States to refer to a fortified wine made from these grapes rather than just any wine made from these grapes. This fortified muscatel became popular in the United States when, at the end of prohibition, in order to meet the large demand for wine, some poor strains of muscat grapes (used normally for table grapes or raisins) mixed with sugar and cheap brandy were used to produce what has since become infamous as a wino wine. This kind of fortified wine has, in the United States, damaged the reputation of all muscat-based wines and the term muscatel tends no longer to be used for these "better" wines in the United States.[1] In other markets the term Muscatel, or Moscatel, refers to a wide range of sweet wines based on these grapes.

So I always thought it referred to a strong version of wine, towards grape, raisin, and brandy in flavor, also leaning towards heavy citrus.  In my mind I was working backwards from what is present in tea, but then who knows, maybe I was always way off, or completely inconsistent.  The tea version description:

Muscatel refers to a distinctive flavor found in some Darjeeling teas, especially the second-flush teas. It has been described as a "distinct sweet flavour" that is not present in other flushes or tea from other localities,[1] a "musky spiciness," [2] "a unique muscat-like fruitiness in aroma and flavour,"[3] or "dried raisins with a hay like finish."[4] Though difficult to describe,[4] it is prized by tea aficionados.[5]

The flavor develops in part through the action of sap-sucking insects, jassids and thrips, which partly damage the young tea leaves. The tea plant then produces terpene as an insect repellent. This higher concentration of terpene produces the muscatel flavor.

Right, so sort of related to Oriental Beauty oolong.  This tasted like citrus to me, a little, maybe just not so much like grape or wine.

Japanese goishi cha and shu pu'er tea bag review

Kind of an odd theme, comparing two versions of tea bag teas, which aren't quite as similar as they might be at first glance.  This Japanese tea probably is goishi cha, but it was only represented as a version of Japanese tea closest to sheng pu'er, but not sheng pu'er, from the source. 

Kittichai of Jip Eu (a local Bangkok shop) gave me some in a visit a month or so ago.  He didn't seem to love it, and it is on the strange side.  It tastes a little like seaweed, and it's slightly sour (they were brewing some that day, so I've already tried it).

there again with a nice visitor from Belgium yesterday, Dennis

Related to that identification this recent group thread discussing Japanese teas in relation to sheng pu'er might help place things.  To be clear I'm not claiming this is definitely goishi cha; it may well be an attempt at replicating sheng, a hybrid style, that didn't land too close.  It is whatever it is.  It finding it's way into a tea bag isn't a great sign; it may not be the best version of whatever it is.

This citation from the My Japanese Green Tea blog fills in more of what goishi cha is, which it seems likely this is:

Goishicha (碁石茶, go stone tea) is a rare Japanese dark (post-fermented) tea made in Ōtoyo Town, Kochi prefecture.

It’s classified as a type of bancha, although it’s not a green tea...

...This tea goes through two fermentation steps, one by mold and the other one by lactic acid bacteria.  In the second fermentation process, the tea is pickled. That’s why it has its distinctive sour taste.

Although it was mostly used as an ingredient in chagayu (a Japanese rice porridge with tea), nowadays people have begun to drink it as any other tea.


That last idea about it not being a good sign that the Japanese tea is even in a tea bag leads into the next tea, the one I'll compare it to, a tea-bag version of shu pu'er.  I've passed those in two different grocery stores here (in Bangkok), Dayi / Taetea versions (maybe only sheng?), and it never really crossed my mind to buy the tea.  For the sake of reporting on it I might someday, I just wouldn't have high expectations related to that.  It's odd thinking of what tea material that didn't make the cut to be pressed into the cheapest Dayi cakes would be like.

between $8 and $10, but pricing isn't the issue

A vendor sent this along with an order, as a free sample (Chawang Shop).  That's crazy, isn't it, sending a tea enthusiast tea bags?  Or a tea blogger; that's a strange way to seek attention. There seems to be two ways of taking that, as a way to provide access to something unusual that's more interesting and pleasant than it might sound, or as an insult, a critique of someone's taste in tea.  Being as generous as I am I just suspend judgment about that part.  It could be good aged, low grade tea dust.  It lists the raw material production date as April 2010.  That changes things a little, doesn't it?  If highly compressed cakes or tuochas age slower tea bag tea would have to age fastest.  It's too bad it's not sheng; aging transitions shu less.

Comparing the two probably won't turn up much for relevant overlap or one informing the experience of the other.  It's as much about getting two tea-bag versions of teas out of the way in one review.  They both sound interesting, if unconventional and probably limited in degree of promise (one I've tried--that's all the more true for that).

As to methodology I'll preheat two tea cups and brew both using two tea bags, in about 6 ounces / 200 ml of water (not measured, if that matters).  My intention is to brew the first round between 2 and 2 1/2 minutes and the second for about 3 minutes, depending on results the first time.  I suppose it would be possible to "Gong Fu" brew these, using 3 or 4 tea bags and short dips in the water.  It all feels a bit off the map.

Review:

shu:  it's shu.  That kind of works as a two-word review, not only in this case but often enough for shu.  I like shu but it's on the more basic side compared to sheng.  Subleties, complexity, and variations occur across a narrower scope.

It's not bad though.  Cocoa stands out most; that's a good start.  This would already resolve a lot of people new to shu having a problem with the off flavors; it has none.  The warm, rich, earthy flavor that identifies shu as shu is present, in the range of dark wood, shifted a little towards peat.  From there it's a bit non-distinct.  It would be a stretch but someone with the right type of imagination could just keep on going, listing out dried fruit, root spices, specific mineral undertones, and so on.  It's not as if it only tastes like cocoa and that dark wood / peat range, there's more complexity to it, but the rest is mixed and unidentifiable.

Feel is ok; it has some thickness, and the feel range is pleasant.  Aftertaste isn't typically that pronounced in shu, compared to other tea types, but it's intense enough and doesn't vanish immediately.  To me this seems like decent shu, just nothing to noteworthy or exceptional.  It may have had more for distinct character and rough edges earlier in it's existence, with those evening out to add more depth instead over that 9 1/2 years.  The depth is fine.


Japanese tea (possibly goishi, potentially a sheng hybrid style):  it's not bad.  That's an odd way to start a review, affirming a tea isn't bad, and there are positives and negatives, with novelty making a read on that relate to a mismatch to any expectations as much as an objective, neutral assessment.  It's only slightly sour, and I'm not "getting" as much seaweed as seemed to have emerged in a later round trying it at that shop.  Spice is a main flavor aspect, not so far off clove, but it's not that.  It might be a mix of spice range flavors, so including a touch of clove but also cardamom, and probably a more neutral root spice too. 

It's hard to place.  This is nothing like sheng, nothing like any tea type that comes to mind.  A flavor list might help explain that.  A trace of sourness isn't primary but it stands out for being odd, and that spice might be the strongest, most "forward" flavor aspect.  A warm base flavor around the range of cured hay grounds that, but that leans a little towards vegetal range, so maybe cured hay with just a touch of roasted bitter melon.  It's not as bitter as sour, but both are there in a very light form.  The warmth of the tone makes it hard to place in relation to other teas; it's in between conventional somewhat aged sheng (how those often are after 4 or 5 years) and a mild black tea.  That also relates to a mineral base addition, not nearly as strong as is very common in sheng, and in a different form.

The feel is a little odd; no surprise given that flavor list part, right?  It has a limited fullness to it, and a hint of dryness, but no structure that is similar to other tea types, nothing conventional.

I think I'll use a faster infusion time to see how that works out, around a minute instead, and then give these a long soak and see what's left of them.  I can't imagine that the shu is "going anywhere," but we'll see.  Back on brewing methodology I didn't mention that I'd been dunking them a little.  It's funny reviewing tea bag teas.

Second infusion:

shu:  being prepared quite light didn't help this tea, and it didn't seem to develop at all.  It's just a lighter brewed version this time.  It's decent, drinkable tea, just not exceptional in any way.  It's much better than I expected; this is average range shu.  Well above average, if someone has been drinking cheap shu, but I tend to run across good versions instead. 

A faint hint of citrus might be emerging; that is different.  I like shu brewed a bit stronger than most other tea types so I might be judging this unfairly based on brewing it in opposition to my own type preferences on this round.


goishi cha (if it is that):  I think this improved a lot related to me being more familiar with the range from drinking that first cup, more than related to any actual transition.  It might be better prepared lighter, and the initial sourness might have faded some.  To be clear that had been quite moderate, and if someone had any tolerance at all for sourness in tea it could be seen as well-balanced.  I could also relate to not having any tolerance for it; that flavor range is unusual, in other tea types.  An unconventional sheng version I've been drinking a little of (tried twice, but I own a cake of it) is a little sour, and I've ran through the exact same concern and cycle with that.

Some of the positive range seemed to bump a bit, I think.  The spice ramped up, and the warmth of a cured hay range plays a slightly larger role.  The feel is fine, not so unusual, just not exactly typical either.  The dryness faded and a slight fullness added in.  Other than being a very unusual tea it's pleasant.  Or strange instead, if a negative bias pairs with that particular form of novelty.

Third infusion:

It's not looking so promising; both are brewing a bit light already.

shu:  this really could've used another 4 minutes.  It's still pleasant though, and at least the flavor and character isn't going off in any way, beyond thinning.  For 4 grams of tea-bag tea it performed much better than I expected.  Shu is inexpensive enough that it makes sense to me to find slightly better versions than this if you are going to drink it, but this is reasonable.


goishi:  sourness is picking up; this is probably closer to where I drank it that time in that shop.  I've not really noticed seaweed so far, as I did then, but it would apply a lot more as a description in this round than in the past two.  Savory character seems to have bumped up a lot.  It had some of that range in the earlier rounds but it wasn't that notable, and the other unconventional flavors stood out even more. 

It's not the really notable umami in sheng and gyokuro but it's not completely unrelated either.  Going back again and trying this tasting over while more familiar with the tea (flavors, overall effect) I'd probably list that as a main component for those first two rounds, only leaving it out for being absorbed by the novelty of the rest. 

I like it.  I don't love it, and I'd not go out of my way to explore this range further, to see how even better versions come across, but it's pleasant and interesting.  I've had the experience many times of trying new tea versions and them just not clicking, and then once I try a better version it all just makes sense, and even those lower quality versions seem better after that.  An epiphany, I guess one might call that experience, a sudden grasp of insight.  That might well happen in this case too.  Shu is probably like that, to some extent, and sheng definitely would be.  For me Wuyi Yancha worked out that way; even though I always liked the moderate quality, dark toffee with cardboard-aspect versions once I tried a better one it all made that much more sense.

these leaves don't look so bad, freed from that tea bag, just an unusual color

An interesting thing came up trying to brew a couple more rounds out of these later:  the shu had kind of had it but the goishi (or whatever it was) brewed with plenty of intensity and was even more pleasant.  The sourness had faded and a good bit of citrus picked up, as a notable part of the experience.  I stretched it for two more rounds and it probably could've went one or two more, even though it was tapering off a bit. 

I bet with the tea bag cut open, brewed Gongfu style in a gaiwan, this tea wouldn't be bad at all.  The sourness could seem odd, or off, but related to working through that expectation with an unusual version of sheng any hint of that doesn't have to be clearly awful.

Very interesting experiences!  Many thanks to those two vendors for passing these on to try.

Honyama Japanese Black Tea

I've only ever tried one Japanese black tea so this will be interesting.  That version (reviewed here) was so-so, not really good, purchased in a mall shop in Tokyo on a trip there (with more about that trip here).  But then tea purchased in a mall shop of any type could be on the ordinary side, and it would seem normal for one to stock a moderate quality level version of an unconventional type.

The owner of Tea Mania, Peter, sent this.  We met when he was visiting here (Bangkok) awhile back and as it often goes stay in touch only now and again, but he was nice enough to share a number of different teas to try this year.  The sheng stood out to me; a few really nice commissioned versions.  Atypical for those types they were selling for around the same pricing as factory versions, even though the teas were much better.  I'm not so into Japanese green teas but that set also worked out as a chance to explore some.  I always thought eventually I'd circle back to that range (I drank mostly that at one point, back when getting into tea), and I'm not converted yet but I can see what people see in them.

I'll cite the Tea Mania introduction, including background and brewing recommendation (edited down just a little; there's more on that page):


Honyama (also known as Tamakawa) is considered by connoisseurs of Japanese teas as one of the top growing areas. In Honyama, where the Abe River springs, are ideal conditions for top quality tea. The nights are clear and cool and the morning misty. The narrow valleys also ensure natural shading of the tea fields. So it is not surprising that the tea leaves in this area are about one month later ready for harvest compared to tea from the low-lying areas near Shizuoka city.

...For more hand processed tea there just isn't enough time because Mr. Sato and his wife run the entire tea production by themselves and harvesters can't be used in the steep slopes of Honyama mountains .

Mr. Sato produces only single-variety teas... Blends are not per se considered as bad in Japan... but we think teas based on single cultivars are much more interesting. They allow to experience the differences of the individual cultivars. Blends, however, are in return more balanced.

Harvest: May 2018 
Taste: Sweet and refreshing aroma.
Origin: Honyama, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan.
Varietal: Zairai
Steaming: none
Preparation: Appx. 5g per serving, temperature 90 - 100°C,  time 1 min.
Tip: Use rather a higher leaf to water ratio and infuse repeatedly for short time. First infusion max. 60s and all further infusions only 30s as the leaves are already soaked. Use a Kyusu tea pot.

Honyama plantation, not necessarily this producer (credit Tea Mania blog)

I was actually going to use this advice for how to brew the tea, given the general category isn't familiar. I'll use a modified version of Western brewing, as described.

made in a standard infuser device; I don't have any kyusu pots

As far as price goes this tea costs less than one might expect, 12 CHF / 50 grams (about $12).  I think this is a rare case where buying more directly is resulting in end-customer savings, that equivalent tea would cost more.  Based on my own experience of walking around cities in Japan checking out shops as of 4 years ago it would be very difficult to find, especially if this version is as nice as it sounds.

Of course there isn't really an explicit quality level or even aspects range claim in that description, it's more that the source description implies that it's probably really good tea.  Tasting informs more about that; I'll see what I make of it.

Review

This is a lot more like what I was looking for all those years ago.  It's clearly black tea, and definitely different than Chinese, Indian, or SE Asian versions.  The Japanese origin and relation to the green tea range from there definitely comes across.  Putting aspect description to that will be tricky, but that's part of the fun.

A more forward mineral-intensive layer is a bit malty.  It's a soft, distinctive, different form of malt, so not the range I'd use as a description for Assam (a lot edgier version), or for sweeter, milder complex teas, malt more like in malted milk balls or the milkshakes, which might stand out in a more-oxidized winter harvest oolong.  That malt range connects with a deeper underlying layer of minerals, in between sharp rusted metals and warm rich dark clay.  It's probably not clear but I mean all that as a good thing.

A fruit range reminds me of apple cider; not so much that it's tart (maybe a trace, but not so much), more because of that distinctive, warm earthy flavor found in a soft, fresh version of cider.  It's sad that a lot of people probably can't even relate to what I'm describing.  Not like something from a grocery store, unless the store is selling local, fresh versions.  Fresh-pressed real cider is worlds different, not like apple juice at all, and nothing like cider vinegar.  Every sip is sweet, warm, complex, and incredibly rich, so much so that you crave the next drink even before swallowing the last.

To me those three aspects summarize what's going on as well as a longer written description could.  Warm, smooth, sweet malt hits you first, with a lot of slightly oxidized apple tone filling in beyond that, supported by an earthier and "deeper" mineral layer.  It's all a lot cleaner and more pleasant than it might sound, put that way.  It's bright, distinctive, clean in effect, lively, and subtle in a way that's complex and refined.  It's definitely unfamiliar territory; I drink a good bit of black tea but nothing like this.  For matching my preferences it works.  It's easy for something so novel to not click, since it can't be what you expect, but I can relate to it.

It's hard to really specify how this overlaps with Japanese green teas, and this review never does make much of that, but somehow there is still a connection.  It would be easy to guess that maybe something like the mineral tones match but I'm not sure that's it.  I'm not noticing umami; I suppose it's conceivable that a limited amount of it is present but I'm just missing flagging that.

In the Japanese black tea version I had tried earlier a similar balance of flavors extended to be just a bit sour and musty instead, and it didn't work for me.  I can see how this could have went in that direction, with just bit of shift in some of what is there.  That faint trace of tartness does border on an expression of sourness.  For people very averse to tartness it would be way too much as it is, but I do like black teas with a touch of that aspect range, if it balances.  It gets to be way too much very quickly but as a mild supporting element that makes sense with more pronounced aspects this works for me.  It balances.  And it's very clean in effect; I think that's what threw off that other tea, that it wasn't.  Mustiness doesn't tend to match up with any tea style.  I guess if one had to pick a best-case for a musty tea to work some unusual hei cha version might pull it off.

second infusion

I went a little light on this round, using an infusion time of around 30 seconds, as recommended, but the proportion made that turn out light.  It's probably as well, and it was the intention, to try the tea on the lighter side.  For some more subtle teas you can miss a lot of the effect and how aspects should balance just by going with a normal infusion strength (with "normal" meaning different things to different people, and that optimum varying by type).  Brewing a tea on the slightly lighter side makes it easier to pick up aspects, even though that's counter-intuitive.  For a warm, rich, soft Chinese black tea sometimes I might like it better on the strong side anyway, but even in that case for reviewing the tea and getting the clearest impression a little lighter is better.

The flavor shifted a good bit towards cinnamon; that's different.  The aspect I was interpreting as malt seemed to.  The tartness (which was limited) essentially dropped out, leaving the warm effect to come across as stronger.  That one apple-cider tone is a bit more into cooked apple range in this round.  Even the underlying mineral isn't the same; that seems to still be present, but it's bridging more into that bark-spice range as well, now earthier, deeper, more mineral-inclined.  I like it better this round, but it already had been pleasant in the first.

I really should get some training in root and bark spices to put more specifics to those descriptions, but I'd only be clear to a really narrow audience who was familiar with that then anyway.  Or maybe no one; who explores unconventional spices, besides fusion-oriented trained professional chefs?

Some of the shifts I was describing could relate to dropping the infusion strength to slightly lighter, versus transition across infusions.  I'd guess mostly not, since those types of changes are typical.  This kind of level of detail of experiencing specific trace aspects seems to be exactly what Peter was talking about in that tea description, about experiencing single cultivar and narrow-source range tea versions differently than blends.  Mixing a few kinds of black tea (not national-origin differences, just local varied cultivars) can result in a nice balanced aspect profile, but it would also muddle those finer traces of subtle flavors, and make the experience of transitions across infusions less interesting.

I'll go slightly heavier on the next infusion (up around 45 seconds, or just above) to check how the tea works at a different infusion strength, and if being lighter seemed to cause the change.

third infusion

Earthier tones are drawing out again, maybe a little towards dark wood, with more underlying mineral.  Some of the bright, sweet, fruit range is fading.  This will go one more infusion in the same range, for sure, and probably another stretched a bit beyond that.  It really didn't increase the infusion strength by that much, really accounting for fading intensity instead.  It's at a good level anyway; drinking the tea stronger than average would only inform how that affects the balance, and it probably wouldn't be positive.

I could break that down to a finer level of detail, about what shifted to what, but it seems the general character of the tea wouldn't become clearer, and also wouldn't for describing the next infusion or two, filling in how it was altered by the tea fading.  It's still quite pleasant at this point.  Tea brewing a good number of positive infusions is generally a good sign for quality, but it would be easy to over-generalize related to that.  I did brew it again and it just seemed to be fading.  Some teas go off related to later transitions, and become much less pleasant, woodier in a negative sense, and some stay really pleasant (I end up stretching out Dian Hong a lot), but this stay similar, just thinning.

All in all a very nice tea, very interesting and pleasant, covering new ground for me.  The cost is a little high as black teas across a broad range of types and quality goes but to me value seems a selling point for this too; it seems it should cost more for what it is.  It wouldn't be an easy tea to find, maybe not even online, related to this specific type and quality level (it's clearly very good tea).  For overall aspect range matching preferences I'd probably still prefer a Yunnan black but related to the high degree of novelty this tea is much more desirable.

Teamania Fukamushi Sencha (sencha that's steamed longer)

very dark green tea

I'll cite the vendor description towards the end

It'll be nice to take a break from tea types that make up frequently recurring themes here, and this Japanese green tea definitely counts as that (a higher end version of sencha, it seems).  I've emphasized that green tea is my least favorite among all the types in the past, but that's offset by better versions of different tea styles allowing aspects sets to make sense in a different way.

Oddly enough I started on Japanese green tea for loose tea.  We visited Japan and Vietnam around 8 years ago and I brought back Japanese green tea from both places.  And also tea from Laos around that time frame, but that tea was local, not made in any particular established style and not good quality.  I moved onto Thai oolongs more next, and later got into Chinese teas, partly tied to visiting China a couple of times.  Not very far along all that I just let the Japanese teas drop.

Really good and bad versions of Japanese green teas both tend to taste like seaweed, but in a bad or mediocre version that's grassy, not completely clean in effect, relatively astringent and more vegetal than sweet.  In a good version it all balances, with the umami working well with other clean flavors.


Seaweed really isn't just one thing anyway; there are lots of types that taste different ways.  It all takes getting used to but once you get past the initial "eww!" they can be interesting, not so much as something to eat by itself, but as an ingredient that works along with others.  It's hard to pin down why seaweed doesn't taste better than it does to most people.  Unfamiliarity, probably.  I had it with sushi or in other Japanese foods some back in the States but it came up a lot more often living in Hawaii (Japanese food and seaweed both, really).  One form of seaweed is the dried sheets they use to make sushi, a bit similar to the version that's found in miso soup, but different.  My wife loved poke, raw tuna mixed with a completely different form of seaweed, a chewier version that's not leafy.

People can go out in the ocean and just pick it there, if they know what they're doing.  My wife is on close terms with a local family and they would.  They had an "in" for local sea salt too, if I'm remembering that right.

That Hawaiian family sort of took her in.  Asians in general don't limit family as much to who is born of common genetics.  Of course that's not intended as any sort of claim, as saying "my wife is Hawaiian now," because she's definitely not.  It was an interesting and positive experience there, knowing them.  My wife had no intention of setting it aside after we moved back to Thailand, and naming our kids Keoni and Kalani is something of a tribute to what that means to her.

near our old apartment in Honolulu, on Kapahulu street

it wasn't very far from Diamondhead

the Alawai canal, in the other direction, the northern edge of Waikiki

he was so cute six years ago

not at all traditional Japanese teaware

I actually met this vendor in Bangkok once, Peter Pocajt, after we had talked for awhile.  He founded the Teapedia wiki site, and varies in how active he seems to be in social media, probably busy with this shop, different work, and other interests.  He gets out; I met him on the way back from a sourcing trip in China, and he was just in Japan this year.  All that travel must be helping his tea selection, which I'll say more about in reviews.


Onto tasting issues.  This would be a perfect opportunity to specify exact brewing parameters to make for a controlled, repeatable trial, since I will finally get back to reviewing a tea brewed Western style.  But I won't.  I will brew the tea using much cooler water (70 C sounds standard for sencha, unless I'm remembering that wrong), but I'll pass on the measuring weight and timing.

Review

Wow!  That's different.  Heavy on seaweed, sure, but with interesting layers going on beyond that, which balances in with the rest.  Sweetness stands out; that's normal.  One aspect reminds me of fresh popped popcorn; that works well with the rest.  It's not too far off the toasted rice aspect that I love in Longjing.  That Chinese tea type is the only one I drink regularly, and if versions emphasize that over grassiness I like them.

Umami is pronounced.  Of course that's the basic flavor described best as "savory," one that is so hard to pin down further that it still goes by a Japanese name.  Maybe that stands out the most; this tea reminds me of other gyokuro I've tried, where that aspect was a lot stronger than in any sencha I'd ever tried.  It almost comes across as a touch of salt, but it's different.

There isn't much for vegetable aspects coming to mind to describe.  Seaweed, sure, and that trails a good bit into fresh spinach, but beyond that those other layers / aspects stand out.  The flavor is nicely balanced, sweet and clean.


Overall this works.  Someone else could place it better on a scale of other sencha.  It's finer ground than some other versions I've tried, and the umami is more pronounced, with plenty of sweetness and complexity.  The astringency is limited and the overall feel and flavor effect is very rich.  It's hard to compare it to similar teas since I can't remember the last time I tried a good version of sencha, and may or may not have ever reviewed one in this blog.  It could've been five years ago, accounting for that.


That's a little odd since I was in Japan myself around four years ago (for the second time), but I didn't put effort into finding different better green teas.  I wanted to try something else from Japan, to test out a black tea from there, and the search part worked but the version wasn't great.  So it goes trying one random tea version.


I would expect it to make a few rounds of interesting, positive tea but I'm bored with the two-page posts myself, flavor by flavor extending round after round.  Describing a second infusion will inform a bit about natural transition across those.

Second infusion

The tea did transition a good bit.  Someone more on the page of optimizing sencha brewing to their own preference would pass on a better best-case more-objective review, how this tea fits their preference and expectations of type related to quality level, but I still can communicate what I'm experiencing.

The brightness exchanged a bit for depth.  That one fresh popcorn aspect--which wasn't really a main flavor element--traded out for more vegetal range, again seaweed with some fresh spinach, but in a different presentation this round.  Mineral seems to pick up, giving it more base.  Sweetness is still pronounced, and umami level hasn't necessarily changed, but the way the aspect range all fits together is different.  It's still quite limited in astringency level and full in flavor and richness.  It's still catchy and pleasant; I like the tea.  It's pretty far from the "buy whatever you find" sencha versions I'd mostly tried in the past.

People might get the impression that changes a lot in another country, if you visit a tea producing nation, that if you buy lower quality level teas there they'd still be a lot better.  To a very limited extent that's true, but to some degree it's not.  Of course green tea from a local market or supermarket booth in China is better than grocery store gunpowder you buy in the states, but it's not necessarily better than specialty tea versions, and normally probably wouldn't be.  You can run across pleasant and interesting surprises buying tea that way, some unusually good versions, but also some bad tea.  I probably should've put more effort into it on that last visit to Japan but I was really focused on the theme of trying something other than green tea.

It's hard to describe how vegetal range ramps up in this; it gains complexity as much or more than intensity.  It might extend into grassiness, but not the "straight grass" version I and some others tend to be turned off by in some green teas, more that complex range in fresh cut hay.  For everyone who grew up outside of farm country that's not going to mean much.  When you cut hay it smells a bit like grass, but different, more complex.  Quite soon in starts to change in smell, as the tea begins a curing process, just not soon enough that it changes before you bale it and store it in a barn (which is a lot of work; helping someone do that can make for a very long day).  Aging / drying / curing hay has a cool smell, sweet and complex and vegetal, but dried hay is a totally different thing.  I'm talking about the new version here, when it's first cut.  It's not a form of grass, at least not like your lawn is, so it's not grassy in the same sense.  It's simpler to just say it's closer to kale but that's not exactly right.

The flavors still work.  Umami is still really pronounced, a bit intense.  I might've liked it better that first round but this is still pleasant.  This tea is so complex that drinking it once probably wouldn't get you to the same experience you'd have a dozen sessions later.  Maybe you'd burn out on it and give it away, or more likely come to love it even more as you gain exposure.  For someone who likes green tea more the fit would be that much more natural.  It's nothing like teas they serve in Japanese restaurants, any more than a Chinese restaurant is really going to pour you a good version of Da Hong Pao or Shui Xian.

Tasting Conclusions

There're probably plenty more to say about transitions over the next couple of rounds (it was similar, and still good), and I really didn't even start in on aspect range related to feel or aftertaste, as one might dwell on related to other tea type reviews.  I liked the tea; I'll mostly leave it at that, beyond that earlier description.  It works for an example of how better versions of teas transcend preference for a type to some extent.  I think just about anyone could appreciate this tea, with or without loving Japanese green teas first.  Unless they just couldn't handle umami as a main flavor component; then it wouldn't work at all.

I won't switch over to drinking Japanese green teas just yet but someday I probably will cycle back to those more.

Vendor input about the tea

What I've said so far didn't seem to capture it.  I'll mention a bit about Peter's input about the tea, starting with citing a blog post covering travels in Japan.  Since he's Swiss everyone from outside there (except maybe Germany) would have to hit the extra "translate this page" button.  I commented in picture posts of his travel in Facebook that those images show how beautiful and orderly Japan looks.  They even keep nature tidy and perfect looking there.  I'm from a beautiful part of the country in the US, from Pennsylvania, which means "Penn's woods," but nature there tends to go its own way a bit, beautiful but less orderly.

just beautiful, which is just normal for Japan (credit the Teamania blog)

Here is the vendor page for that tea, with the idea here being citing what he says about it:


This exceptional Fukamushi Sencha is grown in the small village of  Ujitawara . Fukamushi Sencha is characterized by a longer steaming time compared to standard Sencha. As a result, the tea is milder and the tea flow gets more into the foreground. 

For our premium Fukamushi Sencha the excellent tea variety Saemidori in Shincha quality is used by which only the young and tender shoots are used. Tea made from Saemidori tastes much sweeter than tea of ​​a Yabukita which is normally used. Since Saemidori is less frost-resistant than Yabukita, unfortunately, it can only be used in southern regions such as Kyoto or Kagoshima and is therefore also a special rarity for Japanese!

The village of Ujitawara is located in Kyoto Prefecture, not far from the tea town of Uji. Kyoto itself is known as the cradle of Japanese tea-making and many well-known teas such as Matcha and Gyokuro have their origins here.

This exceptional tea is packed in fine Washi paper. 

Harvest:  April 2017  
Taste:  Sweet and refreshing aroma with an incredible amount of umami. 
Origin:  Ujitawa, Kyoto Prefecture, Japan. 
Variety:  Saemidori 
Preparation: Per pot about 3g, water temperature 50 - 60 ° C, brewing time max. 1 min. 
Tip: Take more tea leaves and pour in for a short and several times. First infusion max. 45s and each additional 20s since the leaves are already soaked. The best is a Kyusu teapot suitable.

one more of Keo as a three year old; so cute

That's why you should always read those descriptions before brewing unfamiliar versions; it might have turned out better using slightly cooler water.  There's more to try it again.  Gyokuro brewing recommendations do sometimes suggest using 50 C water, getting way down towards bath-water temperature; so it goes with some Japanese green teas.




This would be a natural place to close but I wanted to cite just a little more about how that long steaming time works out and typical character from a really nice blog about Japanese teas, My Japanese Green Tea by Ricardo Caicedo:


Fukamushicha (深蒸し茶, deep-steamed tea) is a green tea that is initially steamed for a longer time than what it’s considered to be usual. It’s commonly produced in the prefecture of Shizuoka.

Normally, the steaming process for green tea runs for about 30 seconds to 1 minute, and the resulting tea is called futsuumushicha (普通蒸し茶, normal steamed tea).  In contrast, fukamushicha is steamed for longer than 1 or 2 minutes...

...The steaming process makes a big difference in the flavor of green tea. The main advantages of using the fukamushi process is that the astringency is suppressed, while gaining more body and sweetness.

The longer steaming time makes the leaves very soft, and during the rolling process the tips often break. This small particles make the fukamushicha look like if it was a lower-quality tea, but it really isn’t. When brewed it also has a darker color, with sediments on the bottom. One would think that it’s a very bitter tea, such as funmatsucha.


So far so good; this tea seemed like that in character.  I hadn't really thought it through but it was odd that a tea so finely ground would be that low in astringency, even given using cooler water as is common across green tea types.  Green teas vary in flavor range and astringency but the less whole a leaf is should increase the infusion of the related compounds that cause astringency.  This is quite noticeable in black teas and sheng pu'er, both of which vary a lot within those broad types, with the tendency for somewhat broken and finer chopped leaves to ramp up that aspect range more as the leaf-piece sizes decrease, as one separate factor among others.

Related to all that Ricardo mentions other factors tied to this difference:

The appearance of fukamushicha is a disadvantage, although as a bonus, the small particles means that the health benefits increase. How come? Just as  with matcha and funmatsucha, when drinking the small solid particles you’ll get more of the nutrients found in green tea (such as catechins), plus the ones that aren’t water-soluble like fiber, some vitamins, and chlorophyll.  


So there's that.  It'll add up to about half of that blog post but I'll also mention his brewing advice as well for completeness:


It’s brewed just like sencha, but with a lower steeping time.  The general guideline is: 60 to 100 ml ( 2 to 3.33 oz) per cup, 3 gr (3/4 of a teaspoon), 70 to 80°C (158°F to 176°F), 40 seconds of steeping time.


I was using that temperature, on the low side, but a higher proportion and shorter infusion times, so more like the alternative version listed in the Teamania site, but around 70 C as opposed to 50-60.

Anyway, the tea was really nice.  It was probably too good for me to fully appreciate just how good it is.  It'll be even better once I get brewing parameters dialed in a bit and slightly more re-acclimated to the general range.

Gyokuro from the Trident Booksellers and Cafe Boulder, Colorado

I recently reviewed a very nice Japanese green tea an online friend sent, from Peter of the Trident Booksellers and Cafe in Boulder, Colorado.  I talk to lots of people from different places online about tea, mostly in one Facebook tea group, and in this case that led to him sending some teas to try out (very nice!).  It's an unusual case because they don't sell tea online, but then different background for sharing tea isn't unheard of.  I lived two places in Colorado for a long time, in the Vail Valley and Fort Collins, not really related, just saying.

A bit of back-story about Japanese green teas:  I usually don't drink them.  That's odd because they were one type that served as a gateway for me to get into loose tea, initially from drinking tea in Japanese restaurants.  And we picked some up tea in Japan a long time ago, and a little there again last year; kind of a shame I'm not more on that page.

There's not really much to explain about that preference.  People seem to get into tea based on trying what they cross paths with, and then later other exposure can help steer them in different directions.  I drifted towards Chinese teas, more to oolongs and black teas, although I drink a lot of different types regularly, and go through cycles related to teas from different countries.

Type reference:

Although I won't get far in identifying the tea trueness-to-type I can give an opinion of the experience, but first I'll start with a little background on the type.  This is from the "My Japanese Green Tea" blog by Ricardo Caicedo, a site that's really worth a look for reference about Japanese teas, really not limited to green teas:


Gyokuro (玉露, literally gyokuro translates as jade dew) is considered to be one of the highest grades of green tea in Japan....  Gyokuro has a dark green color, and when brewed it is slightly sweet, with a refreshing aroma.

How is gyokuro made?

The process to make gyokuro is very similar to sencha, the only difference lies in the cultivation method. At least 20 days prior to harvesting, the tea leaves are shielded from sunlight. Because of the added difficulty in shading, the production cost is higher.

What difference does shading the tea make?

The characteristic taste of green tea is due in large part to an amino acid called L-theanine. This compound intensifies the umami taste in tea and also adds sweetness to it.


The rest is really worth a look, with lots on brewing process recommendations, and more on those compounds in the tea.  The short version for the recommendation is to brew it using very cool water, relatively, but it's as well to read the long version.  I didn't actually read this prior to making the tea but I was already familiar with that being standard related to this type, since standard brewing parameters keeps coming up.

As for description of this particular tea, Peter passed on that it's from Asahina, Shizuoka, Japan, and it's made from the Yabukita varietal, which is the primary varietal used for Gyokuro.

Review:

My first impression:  the tea tastes like seaweed.  That's Japanese green tea for you.  Some might read that as an insult but tasting like seaweed isn't necessarily a bad thing.  There really is a range of what seaweed tastes like though, since it's not just one plant type (but then most people know that, right?).


I don't particularly love seaweed but I have come to appreciate it in limited forms, in sushi, of course, or with miso soup or ramen, or separate as a roasted snack, common in Korea but kind of an Asian thing in general.  In Hawaii they mix it with raw tuna as poke (a different kind than sushi is wrapped with), which probably would have been going too far for me, but since I was a vegetarian when I lived there it never came up.  Anyway, seaweed can be nice, it's just a matter of getting used to that flavor range, and the general idea.  I tried a very nice roasted river weed from Laos before as well, which was relatively similar, but there is no related point I'm headed towards, just passing that on.


I think the tea is probably very good, even though it's a type I'm not so accustomed to.  Past tasting like seaweed the flavors are nice, fresh and clean, with a nice roasted sesame effect coming across "under" the vegetal elements.  The sweetness is nice, and the complexity, and although it's not the same a I'm used to from oolong the feel of the tea is nice.  Once I "got back into" that range a little more I liked it.  The vegetal aspects really stand out but it seemed like a complex mineral undertone really made the balance of the tea work.  The seaweed effect seemed to level off a lot over infusions, but I'm not so sure that wasn't just me adjusting.

I did really used to like Japanese green teas, although I surely wasn't drinking versions as nice.  I've probably prepared Japanese loose green tea a couple of hundred times, although I take tea a lot more seriously than I did years ago when I first started.

Long tangent about tasting process

I just did a post about tasting, and sort of researched the subject a little, although it's a stretch to call the review I did that.  That taste is related to umami, although that's only one component, which of course Ricardo said a little about, surely with lots more on his site about all that.

I don't want to take this to being a research post because I've got plenty to say about it besides that, so I'll just mention the Wikipedia article on umami as background.  From there I'll go into a few points made by Barb Stuckey in a video on tasting.  She wrote several books that cover taste background in more depth, perhaps most completely expressed in "Taste What You Are Missing," but for purposes here only a few basic ideas are required.

It's sort of common knowledge, but umami is one of the basic tastes.  It's sometimes translated as "savory," although it doesn't translate well, the reason for leaving it with a Japanese name for description.  It tastes like seaweed, as much as anything, but really one part of what seaweed tastes like.  One odd part from that video was that it's really tied to a range of glutamate compounds, so MSG--mono-sodium-glutamate--is one of several compounds picked up by related taste receptors on the tongue, along with others for sweetness, saltiness, and bitterness.  Of course MSG is also known as the flavor additive that's perhaps best known for being used in Chinese foods, which gets a bad name because some people are sensitive to it.  It would be interesting to see how those people react to eating a lot of seaweed.

In that video I'd mentioned Barb Stuckey did an experiment that's easy to reproduce that can very quickly help us determine to what extent this is a taste, something identified by the tongue receptors, versus a flavor, a more complex sensation also informed by sense of taste but also related to smell.  The other portion is picked up by receptors in the nose from aromatic compounds making their way through air passages, essentially in the lower rear sinuses (but don't just take my word for that, since this isn't my field, read up if you like).  To determine the difference you taste something with and without your nose pinched shut.  It seems too simple to work, but it does.

For the experiment it might help to have a second type of tea on hand to use as a control, and I did cold-brew the last of a nice (but mid-grade) dan cong I have on hand from drinking it previously, so I used that.  If you try it pinching your nose closed most of the taste drops out (flavor diminishes, really, and the "taste" aspect from the tongue stays the same).  We tend to use the terms interchangeably in ordinary language, but there is a distinction.  So the question is:  does the "seaweed" taste drop out if you try that with this tea, is it really umami, or is it flavor and scent based?  The suspense...

Both, sort of.  It is related to a basic taste, so you still "get" a little of it tasting with your nose pinched, but not much.  A range of other characteristics that seem related do drop out from doing that, and then come back as soon as you stop pinching your nose.  It's kind of a funny experience.  This is not exactly science but it seems to support that the one aspect really is umami, a taste element, but that as I experience it that's very continuous with other aspects that are not that, picked up as scent instead.

Kind of really a tangent but something unusual came up related to the dan cong, the "control" tea.  It was still pleasant without scent-based flavors included but most of the experience of the tea stopped when tasting it that way.  A floral component really defines that tea and it just wasn't there.  But the interesting part related to sweetness instead.  It's a naturally sweet tea, but of course that can't be from a sugar compound.  Per input from Michael Coffey in another post this is what natural sweetness in tea comes from:


Sweetness typically comes from amino acids, but not always.  Amino acids are influenced by a number of factors--for example, the cultivar might naturally produce more than other cultivars, or environmental conditions might be just right for the plant to produce more than usual...


Since the sweetness isn't coming from sugars, what your tongue would pick up, that effect of sweetness should stop if air flow to your nose is completely cut off.  And this happens; easy to check by pinching your nose and tasting.  This also explains why tea tasting doesn't work as well with a cold.

Conclusion

Japan, Spring of 2015

After just a few infusions I was really enjoying the tea; funny how expectations and experience range can come and go like that.  As Japanese green teas go the "seaweed" / umami aspect is only part of what might relate to connecting with personal preference, or not.  This tea reminded me of the other positive aspects, and the better experiences I've had with Japanese green teas, and why those helped get me interested in loose teas to begin with.


I won't be switching back to drinking a lot of Japanese green teas right away but I always did expect to go through some related phase again eventually, and this just confirms that will probably work out.  I think this tea would make for a great experience for anyone, even if they don't like green teas or Japanese green teas, to at least experience some of the novelty and potential in them.