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.

Merry Christmas! And about a coconut flavored tea, while I'm at it

elves!  ok, just ordinary small humans

Merry Christmas!  I never write holiday theme blog posts, and I never drink flavored teas (except for a little jasmine, osmanthus, or Earl Grey, and then there's masala chai, but you know what I mean).  Monsoon teas, a tea shop in Chiang Mai, Thailand, sent me a sample of a coconut green tea so it seemed a good time to break form.  I wrote about another plain green tea version of theirs here, and mentioned they seem to specialize in unusual Thai teas, likely more closely related to native plant types, more traditional locally sourced tea, etc.


First, about Christmas in Bangkok.  I worked, so that part is different.  It was less of a loss because my son is at school too, so we did presents opening early and will get back to what it's supposed to be about later, or just skip some of that.  It doesn't seem like Christmas when it's 80+ degrees out (nearly 30; I've switched this to F given the context), and it can be hard to keep up the same level of traditional celebration here.


The part about being in a Buddhist country changes things too.  They put trees up, and decorate the malls, but otherwise they don't know what to make of Christmas.  I once went to a work New Year's Eve party on Christmas day and no one acknowledged it was that--kind of strange.


How does this relate to tea?  Maybe it never will completely tie back in, but I've meant to say something about the trade-offs of living in a different country at some point, outside the US.  One positive aspect is that I'm in a tea producing country, and a half dozen others are a bus or train ride away, although we usually fly places.  We travel a lot, and it's relatively inexpensive, more so than going to the next state over back in the states.

the important part covered, the good spirit

The list of problems and adjustments related to living in a foreign country is so long it would sound like whining if I even started in.  Giving up the normal celebration of every single holiday, and not offering that same form of my own past experience to my kids, is just the start.  So trade-offs, along with other positive aspects; but then, one would expect that.  Of course there's much more I could say but I'll switch this back over to tea-blog mode instead.

About the earlier Monsoon teas I tried, it had occurred to me that they would work well for blending related to how the earthiness came across, even though they were much better than the average Thai teas I've tried here.  Part of considering that was a review of a traditional Thai iced tea post, where it came to light that such teas were originally based on somewhat native Assamica type plants.  Modern versions are artificially flavored, powdered tea, a bit nasty, but the original based on real tea, crushed tamarind seeds, and orange blossoms sounded interesting, and the version I actually tried was ok (not really sure what was in that though).

Tea review

The coconut flavored tea was the first flavored tea I've drank this year, aside from the other types I mentioned (jasmine, etc.).  It is a loose tea, nothing like tea bags, so I was wondering if it could really work.  The tea tasted almost exactly like a Mounds bar, just without cocoa / chocolate, which did work for me.  The flavors were very clean and natural, with a little softer green tea flavor, but as much toasted coconut taste as that.  One would have to at least consider pairing the tea with chocolate, then it would be like actually eating the Mounds bar, but with half the experience in a hot beverage form.

I talked to Kenneth, the shop owner, about the tea, curious about what the flavor was.  He didn't get into processing details but it is from an essential oil made from toasted coconut, something they make or have made for them (or so it seemed).  I was wondering how it could taste as real as it does, without some strange aftertaste or aspect, and that's it; it is real, just not as if there is actually shaved coconut in with the leaves.  Getting the balance right would be the trick to it, but the coconut taste level was about where it should be, and somehow didn't vary much across infusions, so all good there.

It's easy to stop there and not drift into how a tea matches or doesn't match my personal preference.  One might even say it's a tea blogger convention to do that when it does overlap well, but not when it doesn't, to keep things positive.  I won't be switching over to flavored teas anytime soon but this is easily the best flavored tea I've ever tried.  I suppose that's not saying much, since setting aside those few exceptions the others were tea bags, and I've definitely not drank even one such tea this year, and few enough across my lifetime.  It's not negative aspects of this tea that would keep me from drinking more of it, and others like it, but the vast expanse of other new teas to try, each with different character based just on plain loose tea.

an Ibis hotel in Malang, Java, Indonesia (some Christmas trappings there too)

I had a nice conversation with Kenneth about other aspects of the local industry, about tea production and drinking, sustainability.  I'd think most people that are more into tea would have given all this some thought, and it's nice to hear about real steps being taken on the other side, a producer picking teas to sell based on that.  On the other side of that, it's sort of a leap of faith to believe anything any vendor says about it.


I trust what he was saying, but it really helps that it won't matter so much if it wasn't accurate.  If that tea came from a recently strip-cut rain forest farm--which it didn't--it would be sad, but I'd never learn of that truth.  If that taste was from some chemical mix--which it isn't--it wouldn't be as healthy, and it would be unlikely for it to taste so natural, but my health wouldn't suffer, probably even if I drank a few hundred grams of it a year.  A bit cynical?  I suppose.


Even for the most transparent vendors, people that offer lots more details--and business names do come to mind--it's hard to really know.  Some vendors one step up the sourcing chain could dig lots deeper into growing conditions than a consumer looking at a web page, and they might feel convinced, justifiably, but the whole landscape would need to shift before it would seem easier to really separate at the lower level, for the person buying the tea.  So what do we do?  Some enthusiasts and vendors would say to vote with your purchasing dollars (or baht, or rupiah), but some of the time the grounds for doing that could just be marketing spin, so it's right back to the issue of separating fact from fiction.  I'll keep it in mind, and write more about it as there is more to say.

Wonosari plantation Indonesian green tea

An interesting tea from the Wonosari tea plantation; a nice one to follow-up the initial travel-blog themed post about visiting Indonesia recently.   The appearance is unusual,  a dull light green, presented as folded bundles of tea.  Somehow the color seemed a little flat, if that makes sense.


The initial taste was vegetal, towards grassy, but more in the range of spinach and green peppers.  I was reminded of a recent experience with a Thai green tea thinking that someone else more into green teas might really like the tea.


There was a little mustiness to the flavor as well.  That also reminded me of that Thai tea. I had initially thought it related to freshness but per the owner of Monsoon teas it was more an attribute of the plant type,  a local "wild" Assamica strain.  And of course it could also relate to terroir, and processing could come into play.


About freshness, the "use-by" date on the package gave the tea another two years, really too long for a green tea even if it had been made in the past month, but without knowing how long they thought it could last I wouldn't know that origin date (without asking about all that directly--a bit of gap there on my part).  Since they were cutting tea then (we saw someone doing it), and since Northern Hemisphere seasons don't mean much on the equator (8 degrees South of it, if memory serves), it's hard to say what they were doing for harvest seasons.

about freshness, not sure how long shelf-life is

The next infusion was a lot cleaner in flavor.  I'm out of the habit of doing rinses but it occurred to me that it might work to experiment with that for this tea; essentially throw out the first short infusion to get better results in general.  I have a cold so the aspects were coming through across a compromised palate but I'll give description a go.  I thought to try it a second time, and did the next day, buy my sense of taste seemed completely gone at that point, so I think my cold is getting worse.  If I thought it would change things I'd have held off on posting this but I'm sure a few more details would emerge, but doubt the general impression or review would.


The vegetal aspects toned down a good bit after the first infusion.  More mineral elements started coming to the fore.  I had wondered how volcanic soil would affect this tea (there were volcanoes everywhere;  clearly we were standing on an older one), and it seemed likely that was part of background for that aspect.  It wasn't the same rock effect found in Wuyi Yancha,  a little closer to Vietnamese teas, but not that either, richer and earthier and less dry, not so much like shale or granite.  I'd like to think it was like a black sand beach smell,  but it's been awhile since I've been to one, or to that active volcano in Hawaii where brand-new rock is all around.


Other nice aspects joined in, a fruitiness.  It was hard to separate particular fruit, maybe towards blueberry,  or a light sweet tropical counterpart.  I have tried the herb that Fruit Loops cereal tastes so much like that it almost seems to be based on it, pandan; maybe like that.  And this seems a good place for a tangent.


To begin with, Fruit Loops isn't based on pandan, it's just a coincidence that the mix of artificial and natural flavors end up sort of close to there (and it turns out that the different colored loops all taste the same--crazy; I could swear Toucan Sam said otherwise).  Pandan is an herb described as one used in the same way vanilla is in some references (like Wikipedia; that's digging deep into the research).  Don't take my word for it that pandan tastes like Fruit Loops, though (just better); here is a Michelin-starred restaurant dish review that makes the same comparison:


A delicate, paper-thin slice of steamed sponge cake is soaked in pandan syrup and topped with pandan ice cream, milk gelato, and candied pistachios. The long green leaves of the Southeast Asian pandan plant lend an aromatic, fruity flavor that is startlingly reminiscent of Fruit Loops (of all things), making the addition of the milk gelato even better—like cereal milk.

tea plantation workers; friendly as everyone in general was

Back to it then; astringency in that tea was limited.  All in all it was a nice tea, good complexity,  interesting range of developing flavors from one single tea.  It might have been lots better when fresh, or maybe that was relatively fresh.  Although I literally bought the tea from the people that made it (and who did plantation tours) we didn't talk much about the tea, at all.

Mt. Bromo!  so cool it's hard to really take it in

I'd stayed awake almost the whole night before to climb a local, very active volcano (ok, really the next one over; we went up Mt. Penanjakan to see Mt. Bromo), so it was hard enough to focus in and not leave tea behind.  They also sold a good range of tea bag tea, which I did leave behind.


It's a good start for Indonesian teas but I wasn't under the impression I found the best of what they had to offer.  Subsequent discussion indicates there are probably more and likely enough better plantations in the West and center of Java island, and also on other islands (Sumatra in particular, as I recall, but I'll get back with a bit more research in another post).  I think by messing around a little with that tea I tried you could get a little more out of it, find the complexity it had to offer, and I will do just that, later, without a cold.  I also bought black tea and a white tea from them, and green and white from another shop, and some commercial teas, so I'll get back about more of those along with more to say about Indonesian tea in general.

More on Indonesia:

kind of normal looking residential areas

That was already the natural stopping point for that post; I gave a rough idea what the tea was like, and admitted to not knowing that much about it given that I was right there at the source.  There are some other teas to review, so I'll have ample space for going on about whatever, with more plantation research the one part I've promised, but I don't feel like I've really communicated much of what Indonesia was really like.  Somehow it deserves that, since it was different than I expected, nicer in a lot of ways.

It didn't really feel as much like a developing nation to me as most of the rest of South East Asia.  Some of that might be that the rough edges are just familiar now (I've been here for 8 years), so I'm just more comfortable with seeing shacks next to modern hotels or malls, or however that goes.  But I don't think that was it.

2nd class train, a great option to have

It was less Western too, so malls and convenience stores weren't quite as predominant as in Thailand, but at the same time the rough edges weren't quite as rough.  According to whatever development indexes the UN and such use it probably wasn't past the middle of the curve but they'd went their own way, and it wasn't a country rushing from a traditional agricultural society to Western infrastructure and shopping, with tourism and manufacturing as a base.  Ok, maybe tourism was the foundation in Bali, but not so much in Java.

As an example, we took both an ordinary class and a more premium class train on Java, both of which were nearly free compared to anything I've researched from Amtrak (which I never took; always too much cheaper and faster to fly).  Any train travel except high-speed options might seem a bit second-rate, to some, but I love trains, all types of them.  In Thailand and Vietnam they go the next step and offer sleeper cars, like a tiny budget hotel room but with a WW II era miliatry ship feel to it, but it was still great to have multiple, inexpensive options like those in Indonesia.


I'd guess it had to do with a long history of being a Dutch colony, the kind of thing Thailand is proud to not have in their own background.  Places like Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam don't really play up that background, at least in most places, although it's there in old architecture in some, related to the French influence.  To me the culture was also their own; without much concern about where they stand or how their development was going, if anything just a bit inquisitive related to still being somewhat isolated (again, not Bali, but that's essentially a resort island).  My wife didn't care for hearing the Islamic temples' call to prayer during normal sleeping hours but to me it was great how religion and culture weren't really an issue.  Until we tried to buy beer; odd you'd just expect that to be available everywhere, outside a place like Saudi Arabia, but not so much there.


The people were great too, but that starts a drift into me just being attached to the trip and those experiences.  People are ok everywhere, according my own limited experience, but Indonesia was really worth a look.

Monsoon Teas Lana Green (Thai green tea)

Odd I'd go right back to Thai tea reviews after picking up so many from Indonesia, but I'll mention another more local tea I just tried first.  It'll help me get back into the swing of drinking green tea since it's been awhile.

This Monsoon Lana green tea was an interesting version of a green tea.  There's a bit about Monsoon on a website here (mostly contact information), and more in a Facebook page here, but since it's more a physical shop than an online store not so much for product details in either place.  Of course they probably would sell you whatever teas they have without you actually going to Chiang Mai, I'd expect.  I might also mention that they provided this sample to me for no cost, which is much appreciated.

I'm probably skipping some cool back-story, since per discussion with the owner the black tea versions were from relatively native plant types.  I did a review post of one such nice Monsoon black tea here, and more write up about regional cultivars here, including some background on those "semi-wild" local var. Assamica plant types, so it's all there, except the tie-in to what this tea is.  But really, what's in a name, or DNA / RNA; it's all about what's in the cup.

To be honest green tea is not really my favorite general type.  I like darker roasted oolongs best, then black teas next, maybe more unusual types like Oriental Beauty or Bai Mu Dan / White Peony after that (both of which aren't so unusual to some people, but you might know what I mean, and if not you aren't missing much).  But I get around to drinking a lot of different kinds of teas, from lots of different places, and interesting versions like this one are easier to appreciate.

The tea appearance was unusual; a bit dark as some green teas go, with large, twisted leaves, mostly whole, some broken a bit.  The smell was unique too; a warm, earthy, sweet smell, with lots of fruit, mineral and earth elements combining, with raisin or berry as the most interesting sweeter components, and a primary scent along the lines of toasted sesame.  Dried seaweed products can smell a lot like that, not as much like seaweed as you'd expect.  I had a really interesting and somewhat related dried river plant snack from Laos once, but I digress.


The initial infusion taste didn't match the smell so closely, with more pronounced mineral elements coming out, and a bit of grassiness, even earthiness, with that part related to the sesame.  The tea didn't seem exactly like a Vietnamese green tea but some of these aspects reminded me of those, flavor components that match the way some types of rocks smell, maybe slate or limestone.  These were combined together with earthier aspects and a limited degree of sweetness, in a way such that it all mixed together.

The general effect wasn't bad, just a bit muddled, and not as pleasant as the smell had promised.  The tea feel wasn't hindered by too much astringency as some green teas can be, but brewing with slightly cooler water may have offset the potential for that.  I couldn't help but consider how someone that really loved green tea would react to this one, versus how much I liked it.  The tea was fine, just not a favorite style, and the interesting combination of aspects wasn't completely winning me over, although the tea was nice.


It improved in later infusions.  To clarify, I was brewing it Western-style, but using a higher proportion of tea to water versus how package or general instructions for Western-style brewing usually go, with slightly shorter infusion times.  This really relates to a brewing methodology I prefer for some types, not some general standard approach, not intended as an improvement of that which would apply broadly to others.  Some tea types would brew three infusions at good strength using such parameters, like a black tea; others types would tend to go further, brew more times and more tea, as lighter oolongs tend to.  This tea really hung in there; a good sign for tea quality.


The flavor mix seemed to clean up a bit in subsequent infusions and move from pronounced mineral flavors to softer earthier tones, with more of the initially promised sweeter fruit flavors coming out.  The vegetal, grassy background remained, maybe diminishing a bit along the way as well.

The complexity, the number of different flavor components, made separating these as a list of individual flavors a bit tricky.  Some tea reviewers have no problems with that; they can easily list out 8 or 9 different flavor components, regardless of whether these are standard tastes one would recognize from foods (eg. spinach) or if they are not related to that at all (eg. flower types, rocks, types of wood, toasted peat moss, etc.).  In my own case it helps to drink a tea more than once to sort it out; obvious distinctions stand out right away, but finer ones are easier to pick up with a bit more exposure.  I tried this twice and it all was a bit clearer the second go.

So in the end after the first infusion more elements of berry or raisin came through, just very faint, along with a vegetal profile normal for green teas, just not to the extent that it clearly tasted grassy (ok, maybe a little; one subtle background taste element was pretty much "cut-lawn" too, grassy in a literal sense), and not so much like spinach or peppers, etc.  I liked the tea but never moved completely past the "do I like this?" reaction, if that makes sense, given the tea isn't a general style that I prefer.  Green teas in general don't usually exhibit the rich, full feel that other types can, and the finish can be a bit limited, but it's really more about a flavor profile, for me.  Those particular aspects didn't stand out as flaws in this case, it wasn't "thin," but also not as strengths.

I think someone that loves green teas would love it, especially if that potential for a slightly rough astringency aspect is something they didn't love, because this was a soft tea compared to others with that flavor range (much as a tea this unique has a common flavor range; I mean in general).  Being on the unique side tends to help, for me.

a silly tea lover

In Vietnam, per my understanding, people tend to love the astringency that is natural to their green teas (usually prepared in a dark-green "fish-hook" leaf style), so much so that they brew with hot water without limiting infusion times, letting it go from a little structured and edgy all the way to bitter.  But then preference is a funny thing.


Comparing it to wine, it's as if one person likes the full feel and effect of astringency in a Cab-Merlot blend, and someone else likes a lot more edge, exhibited differently in an earthy and rough-edged French Cabernet compared to that in a brighter and sweeter but slightly sharp Chianti.  This tea might be more like a Northwestern American Pinot; it had some interesting things going on but all that wasn't really about astringency, there was just a little to give it some feel.  Of course good versions of that type of wine are awesome, quite a compliment it seems, but I'm having trouble thinking of a plainer example that still works for the astringency parallel.  The tea was nice, though; it will be interesting to see how a couple of Indonesian green teas compare.