Takumi Premium Yame Sencha is a wonderful medium steamed sencha from Japan, blended from three different cultivars, with strong umami and intense green colour.
I am finally getting back to Teabento teas, my favourite German tea shop. After all the amazing teas I have tried, I didn’t expect anything less from all other samples from this shop. And, they didn’t disappoint me. Takumi Premium Yame Sencha is the second Japanese tea from Teabento I had a chance to try.
Name: Takumi Premium Yame Sencha
Vendor: Teabento (Germany)
Tea type: Japanese green tea
A Blend of Three Cultivars
Takumi Premium Yame Sencha is a blend of three different cultivars – yabukita, saemidori and okumidori. I am a big sencha lover, and so far I haven’t been disappointed by any sencha coming from reputable vendor. This one is the same. Takumi Premium Yame Sencha has silky dark green leaves, quite a lot of them broken, and by the looks I would say quite on the verge of deeply steamed tea. This tea represents the spring for me. However, not because of the freshness, this sencha doesn’t have that very green, fresh grassy scent, but because of the incredible intense scent of a freshly picked daffodils. I have never experienced this much resemblance in a tea before. In a heated teapot it has an incredibly sweet nutty scent, more similar to a good long jing than to a regular sencha.
50 grams costs 14.90 EUR or around 13.12 GBP.
Brewing Takumi Premium Yame Sencha
Brewing: 4 grams, 150 ml, 75 degrees Celsius, 60, 15, 45, 120 seconds
Once you master the basics of sencha, brewing is always very easy. Depending on what result you want to get, you can easily adjust the parameters. The type of brewing I like the most is exactly the type that Teabento is recommending. That is, for those sencha teas that have a promising strong umami note. First steep results in a quite strong umami, the one that sneaks in on you, when you don’t really expect it. This tea doesn’t have a strong grassy note, it’s more similar to Chinese long jing, pan fired tea than any other Japanese green tea, which makes it even more interesting. This is the most evident from a third steep. Color is amazing, deep and intense green.
Takumi Premium Yame Sencha tea can easily give four good infusions. I think 75 degrees works the best, as it could give some bitterness, more than necessary, which I don’t think is that good given the fact this tea is closer to sweet pan-fired teas than grassy fresh teas. Even though it is labeled as connoisseur tea, Takumi Premium Yame Sencha is a great tea for beginners as well.
