Submitted by WRETCHEDSORCERESS in tea
can't say the "milder sencha" descriptions I heard appealed to me, but I wanted to try it out.
first I did a standard steep @ 80c for about 1.5 minutes.
had a very pretty green-gold liquor, tasted pretty nice but honestly I was disappointed with how dead-on "milder sencha" was. There wasn't a lot of astringency or umami, which are two things I look for. Still, it was lovely for what it was and it made for a cozy drink on a chilly day.
I heard, however, that ice brewing is a great method for guricha specifically and decided to try it out. I put the leaves in my kyusu mixed with ice and let it melt over a few hours while tending to other tasks. it's a pretty neat "set it and forget it" brewing method. it also made the kyusu so cold to the touch it felt like some manner of wizard's relic.
on the manner of wizardry, wow! this created perhaps the most potion-like tea I have had in a long time. the liquor was an even deeper green, very saturated with color in comparison. it was incredibly smooth, and there was this amazing delicate flavor — and just this remarkable sweetness! it was absolutely strange having a tea taste quite so sweet on its own. i'm not really a sweet tea person but somehow the ice-brewed guricha really won me over! I know kukicha is also sweet but I always wrote it off because of that! might give it more of a shot now.
I'm now wondering what other teas might be like using an ice brewing method! I think it'd be nice to try out a sencha and, just for fun, my PROFOUNDLY umami gyokuro (literally tastes like meat broth. or what i assume meat broth tastes like i dont eat meat)