Tamura san’s Okumidori

This tea will hopefully be available to purchase in the future! Watch this space.

Steamed Tea Background Information:
Steamed teas like sencha are one of the most traditional types of Japanese green tea. There are three main types of sencha; asamushi (light steamed, ~15seconds), chuumushi (medium steamed, ~15-45seconds), fukamushi (deep steamed, ~45+seconds). Lighter steamed teas tend to produce a golden yellow colour. Deep steamed teas however can produce vivid green colours usually with a thicker texture, and due to the longer steaming time the leaves are mostly broken and fragmented with many small particles, meaning we consume more nutrients (and caffeine!). Asamushi sencha leaves are mostly intact, rolled into needle shapes which unfold more attractively as infusions progress. Shincha (meaning new tea) is tea that has been picked during the first harvest of the year – in spring. Later harvests have drastically lower amounts of amino acids (which give us umami and sweetness) and higher catechin levels (astringency and some bitterness). After harvest the tea is steamed straight away to halt oxidisation, and will then go on to be dried and rolled through various processes, finally being fired (hiire) to further dry the leaves to under 5% moisture, and impart the final taste. Some Japanese green teas are made from blends of different cultivars or regions, and some are single cultivar (similar to coffee/whisky). Blends are created by tea masters who taste many teas and then choose a selection to combine for a desired final taste that is easier to replicate year after year by adjusting the cultivar ratios. Single cultivar teas show the drinker how that year’s particular harvest was for that cultivar, as easy year can be quite different. This allows the drinker to build up a mental profile of that cultivar’s characteristics with time, bearing in mind there will also be large influences from the region/terroir and the specific farmer and producer’s growing and finishing methods.

Notes For This Particular Tea:
This is an incredibly special tea from Kitago in Miyazaki prefecture, a single cultivar Okumidori grown as sencha and processed by Tamura san. Okumidori is a cultivar that is harvested later than Yabukita, which is why the prefix Oku is used, and our experience with this cultivar is that of a rich savoury umami profile, with the sweetness, astringency and bitterness depending on the growing and processing.

We first discovered this tea at the Nihoncha awards in November 2023 where we tasted 20 award winning teas - mainly steamed or roasted teas, but also black teas and teas mixed with fruit (the Nihoncha awards are separate from the National Annual Tea Fair - chahinpyoukai - and have a different structure and award categories). We met the company president at the Nihoncha awards, and were very grateful to be able to arrange a meeting with the tea producer himself, Tamura san, during our 2024 shincha trip. Tamura san told us that since the attention and awards his tea has been receiving over the past few years, other tea producers in the area have been attempting to replicate his hiire processing, albeit unsucessfully. Hiire is the final processing stage that Japanese green tea goes through and is also known as firing - where the almost finished tea is exposed to very high temperatures for a short period of time, and the exact temperatures and timings are incredibly impactful to the tea’s final taste (Tamura san’s secret in this case). We find that this Okumidori is basically completely absent in bitterness and astringency. While we love enjoying a balanced cup with bitterness and astringency, we also love being able to focus on umami and sweetness in Japanese green tea, which is something possible with this tea in a way we can almost compare to a Yame Dentou Hon Gyokuro, which is incredibly high praise if you consider that this tea is not grown as a gyokuro!!! We thank Tamura san and his colleagues for such dedication to their craft and all of the hard work they put in to allow us to enjoy such a special tea.

Sencha is a delicate tea and is sensitive to hot water temperatures. Because of this, please remember to cool the water down at least for the first infusion if you wish to enjoy the umami flavour. In order to enjoy the variety of tasting notes present (umami, amami-sweetness, shibumi-astringency and nigami-bitterness), we recommend controlling the water temperature according to the brewing guide below. Lower temperatures will bring out the umami and amami and with higher temperatures the shibumi and nigami will become more pronounced.

Please experiment with brewing to find your personal preference. A good starting point is listed below.

Hot brewing guide:
Sencha 4 grams (~1 teaspoon)
Water 60ml
First infusion 60°C for 60sec
Second infusion 70°C for 30sec
Third infusion 80°C for 5sec

Cold brewing guide:
Sencha 12 grams
Water 800ml for 6-12 hours
Spring or filtered water is recommended (specifically we look for a TDS of 30-80 - if you’re in the north of england tap water should be fine, and if you’re in the south you are probably familiar with water filters already). Simply pour the tea leaves on water and keep in the fridge overnight, or for 6-12 hours. Avoid vigorous handling/shaking. We use an ice and water mixture so that the brewing temperature is around 6 degrees celcius from start to finish, but forgoing the ice is absolutely okay. The duration of the brew can be experimented with to find your personal preference and when you are happy with the flavour, strain and dispose of the leaves. Consume within 24 hours.

Storage:
Store in a cold environment (6-10°C) and avoid exposure to light, air, heat, moisture and strong smells - these will degrade your tea. Best consumed within 1-2 months from when it is first opened.