I dropped a tablespoon of high-quality sencha into a pint of vodka with
3 shiso leaves for about five hours. *Failure*.

The thing is: It tastes like sencha put into hot water and left for 15
minute; bitter, overly tanic, rigid.

I think gyokoro would be a better choice. And I think I'd leave a Tbs
of it in a quart for about 1 hour. Sweeter tea, less infusing.

The shiso did nothing. I'll do it separately in the future and
probably cut lots of teensy strips to maximize the shiso bite.

gtr > wrote:
>
>I dropped a tablespoon of high-quality sencha into a pint of vodka with
>3 shiso leaves for about five hours. *Failure*.
>
>The thing is: It tastes like sencha put into hot water and left for 15
>minute; bitter, overly tanic, rigid.
>
>I think gyokoro would be a better choice. And I think I'd leave a Tbs
>of it in a quart for about 1 hour. Sweeter tea, less infusing.
>
>The shiso did nothing. I'll do it separately in the future and
>probably cut lots of teensy strips to maximize the shiso bite.

When I made my pot of cabbage soup a few days ago it needed raisins
and fresh lemon juice to make it sweet n' sour. Large Sunkist lemons
being a buck each I hated to waste the squeezed rinds so I put them in
a quart jar with my favorite Crystal Palace vodka and placed it in the
freezer. Two days later: DD-Licious!
Sunkist limes are high too, $2/3.

gtr wrote:
>
> I dropped a tablespoon of high-quality sencha into a pint of vodka with
> 3 shiso leaves for about five hours. *Failure*.
>
> The thing is: It tastes like sencha put into hot water and left for 15
> minute; bitter, overly tanic, rigid.

Here's a current pic of gtr. heh heh heh ;-D

http://fotoninja.nl/data/uploads/pos...1347476576.jpg