sipping on some sencha

I've been hooked on sencha since that first ineptly-infused cup. At its best, sencha is wickedly good.

Right from the start I found myself on a mission. I asked sencha fanatics, "If I could only have one sencha for the rest of my life, which one would you suggest?"

Answers came.

Sencha lovers, if opportunity allows, will really geek out on you. So it's not hard to learn a few things.

Fast forward, and I've had countless cups of some seriously good steamed green tea from Japan.

The word "sencha" doesn't encapsulate a single, two-dimensional tea experience. Sencha can be fresh, buttery, grassy, astringent, and more, in varying degrees and depths of expression.

O-Cha's Uji Sencha Miyabi, for instance, can be fresh, and potent, even capable of relieving congestion in my upper respiratory system when the mojo is on.

Den's Sencha Den, Hibiki-An's Sencha Superior, andAdagio's Sencha Premier are less intense, but still complex and yummy.

Some, like Den's Fukamushi-Sencha Maki and Mighty Leaf Tea's Shincha will shove you in the trunk, drive you to the docks, and hurl you into a river of flavor.

Friendly advice to senchadventurers: Evil faeries sneak in to tea vendors' supplies and work their magic to play tricks on you with instructions psychotically suggesting that you prepare your sencha in a particle accelerator. Or worse yet, they have been known to trick people into steeping sencha for three minutes.

Madness!

Depending on the sencha, the first infusion is quite often less than a minute, and some times significantly less. This infusion is generally milder than subsequent infusions.

The second infusion for me is usually over nearly as soon as I pour hot water into the pot. No, seriously. We're talking seconds here.

I go longer for milder variants, but do not dally when fukamushi is involved. This second cup will tend to be stronger, more aromatic, and in some cases eerily reminiscent of Kermit the Frog.

Third (and subsequent, in some cases) steeps can be longer and/or a bit hotter, depending on personal taste.

A cup of sencha can be a truly sublime experience during an otherwise very hard day. I can hardly do it justice here.

My advice? Get some. Get *lots* in great variety.

And at the time of this writing, the first sencha of the year will soon be plucked, shipped and finally sipped by some lucky soul. Why not you?