Wakoucha Tasting, Tea N°3: Iwata Koshun, 2nd Flush, 2018, Thés du Japon

This tea was harvested on my birthday, the 27th of June 2018 ! But that's not why I liked it so much...

Iwata is the birthplace of the Yamaha Motor Corporation and is situated in the southwest of Shizuoka. Shizuoka is where 40% of all Japanese tea is produced, but we have no further information available about the teagarden, except that it is organic.

We do know the cultivar, Koshun, and we know that this tea is a Second Flush. It is not uncommon to see Wakoucha made from a second flush (harvested later than the first one in early spring). As an economic model this makes sense, it gives the farmer two occasions to harvest and sell at a good price from the same garden. The first harvest is used for green tea and the second, that will never deliver the freshness and umami of the first one for green tea, is used for black tea. The leaves are bigger now and are treated different, with a process of withering, rolling and drying.

Koshun, the cultivar used here, likes this. It is a cultivar that is often used for kamairicha where the tea is roasted and not steamed, and it is a very good choice for oolong and wakoucha. It is a crossing between Kanayamidor and Kurasawa, sometimes quite astringent as a green tea, with floral aroma's.

Iwata Koshun, 2nd Flush, Thés du Japon:

25 euro for 100 gram. No pesticides. Bought in a 50gr package, good until 20 april 2025. No pesticides nor chemical fertilizers were used, though the garden was not yet certified.

29 juli, evening of a beautiful summer day, a flower day. 150ml, 3 gram, 8 minutes, 98°C, in a kyusu. The dry leaves have almost no smell but look quite beautiful, quite big and complete, and with a nice amount of tip and some stems. Quite an enchanting smell for the wet leaves, sweet honey, frangipane and cooked fruits, and they are quite big and complete and look fantastic. The infusion colours beautifully, bright with a hint of orange, and has a spectacular smell that wafts from the cup. I put some tea in an INAO winetasting glass and then poured it out again, and the resulting smell was magical and beautiful. The infusion smelled complex and elegant like a dish with warm fruit and spices, never over the top, exactly as it should be. The taste is elegant and light and friendly and has a very interesting complexity. The changes in taste are spectacular, but always soft and friendly. The finish is beautiful. This is a beautiful tea that does not yell but caresses. Addictive. What a tea. A second infusion still was spectacular in the nose, but less complex in the mouth. But it was still extremely yummy with a very pleasant soft character. 😊😊😊😊