Sugiyama 2017 First Flush Shincha Tea

Sugiyama is our extremely rare first Spring harvest of 2017 (shincha) from Japan and is a tea worthy of it's acclaim.  This tea is steamed for longer than it's fellow Japanese teas and was the very first plucking of this year and harvested a very late for a Spring tea, around  May 18- 20. It's long needle-like rolled leaves are interspersed with more broken, dusty leaves, due to the extra steaming. No need to worry, as Japanese teas are less about the shape of the leaves and more about the final brew flavor. Grown along a steep river bank below the source for Lake Biwa where morning fog helps to create richer amino acids in this tea, resulting a brothy brew.