Gentle Sunlight: Sencha Taniba

A first flush sencha born of the early Spring, the Sencha Taniba is a sencha-lover's sencha. It has a bright, almost sharp taste and feel while still being quite delicate.

Lower temperature water can yield a milder flavor while brewing with hotter water will bring out more of the astringency. When tasting this tea, I continued to get notes of watermelon rind, pasta, rice paper, spinach.

When drinking this tea, it felt like I was drinking gentle sunlight. It is not that the tea had a warming affect necessarily but that the feeling of the tea could be described as bright, clear, and radiant. It was like experiencing the Sun in the afternoon on a cloudless Spring afternoon when the sun quietly and continuously beams down on the Earth.

While it is our tea of the month, I recommend this one to those who like a sencha with noticeable body feel.