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Monday, July 5, 2010

Yuuki-cha Honyama Shincha

Yuuki-cha has recieved a lot of bad press on Teachat lately, and I honestly hope the situation can be resolved as Yuuki-cha seems to offer a great deal of very appealing Japanese tea and teaware.

Honyama Leaves

I really must say the dry leaves both look and smell great. As this was only a sample of their tea that I got, I'm brewing it in my Hohin to cause the sample to last a bit longer.

The color is an amazingly clear yellowish green, with an amazingly fresh clean semi sweet aroma. For an organic tea, this is quite nice, mellow but complex, and presents itself quite well.

If you love teas that are a bit more subdued and not in your face, this tea is great. It also seems to have a very wide range of brewing parameters which still produce a very good brew.

Honyama infusion

It lasts as many infusions as you can expect to get out of a Sencha / Shincha, and while its never really in your face in longer infusions it does develop a bit more of a presence on your palate.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Hey Adam,

This was my first year ordering Yuuki-Cha's shincha and I too thought it was fantastic. Definitely comparable to O-Cha, Sugimoto, Zencha and the other great shinca providers. I didn't know there was a "conflict" on Tea Chat, so I went to check it out. In reality, it seems that it's only Chip who had a negative experience with their customer service. He claims that many others have had issues, but I've yet to see any other complaints on the forum. I respect Chip's commentary and expertise, but every retailer can screw up once in a while. I had a great experience with them, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

Cheers,

Nick

Alex Zorach said...

I saw that thread. We're all human and we all make mistakes. I think it's good to speak up about negative experiences with retailers, especially online ones, though.

It's hard, people seem to get upset easily online...it's one reason I don't like the internet. I think, because communication is not guaranteed (emails can get lost / bounce, or can just be ignored), it makes it easy for people to experience alienation / rising hostilities when things don't work out.

Part of me imagines that we'd be better off if we used online communication much less--and if we shopped mostly at local stores--stuff like this probably would happen a lot less.

And thanks for sharing this review, it's good to hear people's positive experiences too!

Chip said...

With all due respect to Adam and his blog, I would like to clarify a few points so there is no misunderstanding.

I did not say many others had problems ... in fact I said "many members have good things to say about this vendor and have had good experiences, which I do not dispute!" But I am not alone and have been contacted by others. I am however the only one to go public.

This was not a customer service issue, this was a year plus long series of experiences with Dan, the owner or partner.

I do not easily get upset, I am very "moderate" by nature. I do not use the forum as a personal soapbox to vent. In 4+ years, and after 100's and 100's of my positive reviews and comments regarding vendors on TeaChat, I believed I had to share these experiences, in their totality.

I prefer to share positve experiences, this is my personal mantra.

Read the review topic again for yourself, ask me anything you would like.

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