Nov 16
Review: American Tea Room Yame Gyokuro
American Tea Room, Green Tea, Gyokuro Tea, Japanese Tea Add commentsKatie’s Teaview Snapshot
 | "This is not the sort of tea I could drink regularly, nor could I sip it without thinking, but it is a great Gyokuro when appreciated fully."
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I'll just come right out and address the controversy now: This tea is expensive. Very expensive. I want to emphasize that I'm not saying it's TOO expensive because I don't have enough experience with Gyokuros to compare values. This hefty price tag deters me, but clearly I'm not the type of person this company is looking to sell tea to.On another note, I'm really excited to try this tea. Gyokuros are top-notch Japanese green teas, processed the same way as a Sencha, but grown in partial shade. The leaves are tiny and deep green with the occasional shimmer of lighter shades. They smell deeply vegetal and sweet, like a spinach pie. I prepared this carefully, as a leaf of this calibre deserves, using three ounces of 160 degree water to one teaspoon on the leaf. After one minute, the resulting cup has a pale green liquor and, again, a deeply vegetal scent.
The medium-body tea completely coats my mouth with every sip. It is completely smooth in all ways, with a slight nuttiness in the aftertaste, but mostly the consistent taste of spinach and asparagus, though rather than savoury the cup is distinctly sweet. A mere three ounces of this feels much more intense than 12 ounces of 99.9% of the rest of the world's teas.
I prepare a second steep the same way as the first, and I begin to sense some astringency and sulfur flavour in the aftertaste. This cup is less intense and doesn't coat the mouth as much, and overall I prefer this more demure cup to the first. The third cup, again steeped for one minute, is even lighter, becoming just a fraction sour. Though all three cups have differed slightly, the tea remains much more consistent than the average leaf, and I manage to get one more steep before both the leaves and I feel ready to give up.
This is not the sort of tea I could drink regularly, nor could I sip it without thinking. It is finicky and requires thought and care while preparing and while drinking to truly appreciate the cup, but it is a great Gyokuro when appreciated fully. If I had the extra coin and was looking for a tea to impress or spoil elite guests, even if I didn't want to buy this particular leaf, this experience has made it clear that this company is a good place to look if you're in the market to buy really, really fancy teas.
Special Offer! Free shipping on all purchases over $60 from AmericanTeaRoom.com.
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Katie Teaviews.com Reviewer » Read more about this reviewer on Katie's profile page. » Find a list of recent posts by Katie. |
November 16th, 2009 at 7:41 pm
Wow, that is expensive, at least for my budget. I’ll have to go vicarious on this one. Thanks for the review. How many steeps do you usually get from a “normal” Gyokuro that you drink?
November 17th, 2009 at 11:23 am
I prefer my teas strong, so I generally get 4-5 steeps. American Tea House now has sample sizes available at their website, so it’s possible to try it out without breaking the bank.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:33 am
we have also lowered the price on Yame Gyokuro (we are now using a different caddy which comes free with purchase).
Now $125 from $160…a substantial savings.