Baisen Kōcha (焙煎紅茶), 50 grams
Roasted black tea, nibancha (二番茶) harvest (second harvest), Yabukita cultivar
Tea farmer Koichi Tōzaka (東坂幸一) loves experimenting with tea to search for new flavours. We first fell in love with his different hōjicha teas. He has now turned his skill and experience in tea roasting to apply it to his black tea.
When he dug out this new experiment to brew for us during a late summer visit, we knew we had to stock some of this rare tea.
Even though more and more tea farmers in Japan use their nibancha (second harvest) tea leaves to make wakōcha (black tea), we have not seen many at all that are then roasting their wakōcha in after-processing.
Tōzaka’s baisen kōcha has large leaves and yields a different kind of flavour profile than we usually see from Japanese black teas.
The tea’s character is light: sweet, toasted and fruity. Imagine a slice of freshly baked cherry pie!
Hints of stewed stone fruits, dark caramel, campfire toasted marshmallow (or oven-toasted meringue) and a touch of dark chocolate.
The liquor is clear, a pale rusty orange.
The tea is easy to brew as there is hardly any bitterness even when steeped for a long time and leaves a gentle lingering sweetness.
Tōzaka’s brewing advice:
2 grams
150 – 250 ml
90ºC
2 mins
Tōzaka is slowly trying to convert some of his fields to a natural way of farming without any fertilisers or pesticides. It’s a tough transition which leads to less yield and more labour, but Tōzaka is dedicated to a more artisanal approach to both tea farming and tea processing. This tea comes from his tea field that has not had any fertiliser or pesticides added for 7 years.
