Superb (極上) Blend
Ikeda Cha-en’s Superb Blend is a mix of Tsuyuhikari, Saemidori and Yabukita cultivars, originating from different Sonogi tea farmers, skilfully blended and refined by Ikeda Chaen.
This blend has a bold, round, full bodied and strongly umami character. It is suitable for those that love a powerful tea with rich aroma, thick mouthfeel and has an almost matcha-like creaminess.
This blend is considered Ikeda Chaen’s top grade tamaryokucha blend and was the first tamaryokucha we selected when we started Ikedoki Tea. The Tsuyuhikari and Saemidori will yield a deeper green colour, and Tsuyuhikari adds a depth of stronger umami to the flavour.
The Superb Blend really showcases what local Nagasaki people see as a luxurious and excellent tea.
Brewing suggestion:
First brew – 5 gr / 120-200 ml / 60ºC / 50 sec
Second brew – brew slightly hotter ~80ºC, short brew of just a few seconds
Officially we would say that you can infuse the tea at least 3 times from the same tea leaves, but this tea, as with many of our other teas, you can definitely infuse more times.
Tamaryokucha
Tamaryokucha (玉緑茶) is Sonogi tea region’s speciality. In Nagasaki, ‘ocha’ (お茶) which means ‘tea’ is automatically assumed to be tamaryokucha. Ocha in other regions of Japan will usually be assumed to be sencha (煎茶) as it is by far the most prevalent tea throughout the rest of Japan.
Tamaryokucha in Sonogi region are by and large fukamushi (deep-steamed) style green teas. The processing of tamaryokucha is for a large part similar to a sencha, but has a few different processing steps at the end of the production process. This difference in processing causes the leaves to retain a more curly shape instead of the straight needle-style shape of sencha leaves.
Read more about our Ikeda Cha-en Tamaryokucha selection in our blog post.