My gyokuro tastes like an expensive sencha

In short

Gyokuro is not a better sencha to be brewed the same way; it is a tea whose entire character only appears under a specific set of parameters. Brewed at sencha temperature in sencha proportions it becomes a good ordinary green tea, which is a waste rather than a fault.

Likely causes, in order

Most likely first. Answer the question under each one before moving on — several of these look alike in the cup and are told apart only by what was done to the leaf.

1. 1. Water far too hot

   Temperature

   Check: What temperature went in — around 80 °C, or nearer 50 to 60 °C?

   Fix: Use 50–60 °C, and lower for the finest leaf. This is the single most important parameter and the one most commonly ignored, because the number looks implausibly low.

2. 2. Too much water for the leaf

   Leaf quantity

   Check: How much water went onto how much leaf?

   Fix: Use a large dose in a very small volume — the finished infusion is a few mouthfuls, not a cup. The concentration is what carries the sweetness and the savoury depth.

3. 3. Too short a steep for the temperature

   Under-extraction

   Check: How long did it steep?

   Fix: Allow well over a minute on the first infusion. Cool water extracts slowly, so a short steep and a low temperature together produce nothing at all.

4. 4. A vessel that is too large or loses heat unevenly

   EquipmentInferred by TeaHQ, not established

   Check: Are you brewing in a full-sized teapot?

   Fix: Use a small handleless vessel — a houhin or shiboridashi — or the smallest kyusu you own. A large pot forces a large volume, which is the same problem again.

5. 5. It is kabusecha rather than gyokuro

   Leaf quality

   Check: Does the label say gyokuro, or kabuse or kabusecha?

   Fix: Kabusecha is shaded for a shorter period and behaves much more like a sencha, deliberately. If that is what you have, sencha parameters are correct and the tea is doing what it should.

Tea types this applies to

• Green tea

Brewing methods this applies to

• Low-temperature brewing (gyokuro style) — A great deal of shaded Japanese leaf in a very small volume of water that is deliberately far below boiling — cool enough that the vessel can be held bare-handed. It is the most extreme low-temperature steeping in common practice, and it exists to extract one part of the leaf while leaving another behind.
• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style) — The Japanese domestic approach to green tea: a moderate quantity of leaf, water well off the boil, short steeps, and two or three infusions from the same leaf with the times adjusted each time.

Related problems

Sharing a cause category, a tea type or a brewing method with this one.

• My water is not the temperature the kettle says — The kettle is set to 80 °C and the tea behaves as though it were much hotter or much cooler, and the same setting gives different results on different days.
• My Japanese green tea comes out cloudy — The liquor is opaque and deep green rather than clear, with fine particles suspended through it and a layer settling in the bottom of the cup.
• My Japanese green tea tastes of seaweed or fish — A sencha, gyokuro or matcha reads as marine — seaweed at best, distinctly fishy at worst — and it is not clear whether that is the tea or a fault.
• The leaf clogs my strainer and the pour stops — Liquid backs up behind the strainer or the pot’s built-in filter, and the last of the tea will not come through.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

Sources