This is just delightful: a lifted, sweet, honeysuckle aroma and very pure, refined, etherial flavour that lingers on the palate and in the imagination. It's the first violin of the Hibiki-an tea orchestra!

Lovely brew - quite like the sencha karigane, a gentle, soothing, cleansing flavour that now reminds me of cucumber more than anything else (but don't let the idea of warm cucumber juice put you off!). Many thanks to hibiki-an for conjuring up another magical green ...(more)

Has a more intense & complex flavour than the 'ordinary' premium - to my palate, at least, it is richer and more savoury than sweet; less of the fresh green note, more autumnal scents, damp hay & spice. For any wine-tasters out there, if sencha is the equi...(more)

Gyokuro lacks the briskness of sencha, so may not make such an impression initially, and it seems to need fairly careful brewing to unlock the magic: low temperature as advised, a long soak (it doesn't go bitter), and I use quite a lot of leaf - more than sencha - t...(more)

In some ways this is different to the Fukamushi Superior: a higher proportion of long, needle-like leaf (which suggests that a lot of care & attention has gone into making this tea), it brews to a slightly paler, more sencha-like yellow green. And the silver pa...(more)

I'm gradually working my way through the catalogue... This sencha has a hint of honeysuckle about it - not dissimilar to a green oolong from Taiwan, although far less heady. Seems a bit mean to take a star off any of these teas, but I guess I'm comparing it to the fu...(more)

I can't get enough of this one! It has it's own distinctive character: more gentle than sencha, sweeter, softer but with a real purity of flavour, & that hibiki-an freshness we all know and love. So don't see it as a cheap sencha substitute, or lump it in with...(more)

As Hibiki-an so helpfully write, this seems to offer the best of both worlds: distinct gyokuro aroma and sweetness, with a more sencha-like tang on the palate. It's just delicious.