My search has lasted over 6 months to try to find a solid "fishy"
tasting green, and no matter how much money I've thrown at it and
searching and trying new greens I have come up empty... until last
weekend. A local Korean Grocery had a small box of Yamamotoyama green
tea for like $4 and I picked it up for work use since I've been
hellishly busy and needed a teabag tea or two for the hectic days. This
is the ticket! It is actually better than a number of my senchas I just
purchased and has a wonderful vegetal/fishy taste. These aren't your
average teabags either, they are well stuffed with tea and not
powder/fannings either... they also come individually sealed in foil
pouches and are extremely fresh.

I've since picked up all they had and now happily reveling in the glory
I'm going to have to dig into this company a bit more and find out a
little about them. The other day I saw this brand in highly colored
photographic boxes in my grocery store in surprising varieties: Puerh,
Dragonwell, Gyokuro, Sencha, and a bunch of others. However these
"western" offerings were twice as expensive as the unassuming
white/green box from the same company from the Korean market.

Just an FYI for others who enjoy and seek out a good "fishy" green.

- Dominic
Drinking: I bet you can guess!

It's an old thread, but Yamamoto teas come from Brazil which in itself
makes them 'fishy' if you didn't know that.

Jim

Dominic T. wrote:
> My search has lasted over 6 months to try to find a solid "fishy"
> tasting green, and no matter how much money I've thrown at it and
> searching and trying new greens I have come up empty... until last
> weekend. A local Korean Grocery had a small box of Yamamotoyama green
> tea for like $4 and I picked it up for work use since I've been
> hellishly busy and needed a teabag tea or two for the hectic days. This
> is the ticket! It is actually better than a number of my senchas I just
> purchased and has a wonderful vegetal/fishy taste. These aren't your
> average teabags either, they are well stuffed with tea and not
> powder/fannings either... they also come individually sealed in foil
> pouches and are extremely fresh.
>
> I've since picked up all they had and now happily reveling in the glory
> I'm going to have to dig into this company a bit more and find out a
> little about them. The other day I saw this brand in highly colored
> photographic boxes in my grocery store in surprising varieties: Puerh,
> Dragonwell, Gyokuro, Sencha, and a bunch of others. However these
> "western" offerings were twice as expensive as the unassuming
> white/green box from the same company from the Korean market.
>
> Just an FYI for others who enjoy and seek out a good "fishy" green.
>
> - Dominic
> Drinking: I bet you can guess!

Dominic 10/25/06


> My search has lasted over 6 months to try to find a solid "fishy"
> tasting green, and no matter how much money I've thrown at it and
> searching and trying new greens I have come up empty... until last
> weekend. A local Korean Grocery had a small box of Yamamotoyama green
> tea for like $4 and I picked it up for work use since I've been
> hellishly busy and needed a teabag tea or two for the hectic days. This
> is the ticket! It is actually better than a number of my senchas I just
> purchased and has a wonderful vegetal/fishy taste. These aren't your
> average teabags either, they are well stuffed with tea and not
> powder/fannings either... they also come individually sealed in foil
> pouches and are extremely fresh.

That's just what I thought: Fishy/seaweedy is a mark of
some of the cheaper offerings. BTW, your tea was most
likely grown in Brazil, but what the hay.

> I've since picked up all they had and now happily reveling in the glory
> I'm going to have to dig into this company a bit more and find out a
> little about them. The other day I saw this brand in highly colored
> photographic boxes in my grocery store in surprising varieties: Puerh,
> Dragonwell, Gyokuro, Sencha, and a bunch of others. However these
> "western" offerings were twice as expensive as the unassuming
> white/green box from the same company from the Korean market.

They are a large firm, growing much tea in Brazil, but
supposedly by Japanese growers, applying a Japanese
sensitivity to the process.
>
> Just an FYI for others who enjoy and seek out a good "fishy" green.

Thanks. I like that style, too.

Michael

Michael Plant wrote:
> That's just what I thought: Fishy/seaweedy is a mark of
> some of the cheaper offerings. BTW, your tea was most
> likely grown in Brazil, but what the hay.

I originally thought this too, but over the years I have been proven
wrong over and over. I have had tea hand delivered from a Japanese
friend that was only a week old and it was the most splendidly fishy
green ever. It was fresh, expensive, and ultra high-quality. Then
through the years a lot of my seasonal fresh greens from certain
Japanese farms (many in Uji) have produced fishy teas one year and then
completely non-fishy teas the next.I have also tried many cheap greens
that have no fishyness either.

It's basically a crap shoot, which is why it drives me so insane. Other
people have go-to teas for certain flavors, but with this there are
none... except this Yamamotoyama (the yama thing is really quite
redundant I vow to one day pin it down to either nature or nurture
as to the fishyness of green tea because it has to be something
concrete that causes it.

- Dominic

Dominic T. wrote:
> I vow to one day pin it down to either nature or nurture
> as to the fishyness of green tea because it has to be something
> concrete that causes it.
>
> - Dominic

Aha! I may be on to something here... part of the answer may be very
simple after all!!! A quick read of the Yamamotoyama website
(http://www.yamamotoyama.com/index.html) turns up very quickly that
they sell only two products: Green Tea and Nori (seaweed)!

I never knew this but the long half-clear pouches of sencha sometimes
found in asian markets are also made by Yamamotoyama which I never
realized and also I buy for a more subtle fishy taste!

Now, I sent my friend in Japan an email asking if the Tea grower he
frequents also processes or sells nori!

It may taste fishy, because it is! If it is processed in around or on
the same equipment that the nori is then the flavor is easily traced.
If it is this simple after all this time I could cry. It makes sense in
that delicate greens would easily pick up other flavors and aroma's and
of they are in close proximity to nori... then BINGO. I'm almost
speechless at this simple finding and how basic it all may be.

I have a quarter pound of a sencha that I'm not all that keen on, and I
think I'm going to store the bag in a ziplock with a couple sheets of
nori and see if I can create my own nirvana!

.... can't wait to get home and experiment.

- Dominic

It's funny the way YamaMotoYama works in Japanese. It translate as
YamaMoto mountain. The character for both Yama is the chinese
shan(yama) for mountain but Moto says use the preceding literal and not
the meaning. I have a box of green tea teabags in aluminum foil that
is at least 10 years old. One of these days I'll make a point to see
if they taste fishy and report back. I wished all teabags came in
aluminum foil. These are the only guys I know doing it in their entire
product line from what I remember seeing on the shelves.

Jim

Dominic T. wrote:
> Michael Plant wrote:
> > That's just what I thought: Fishy/seaweedy is a mark of
> > some of the cheaper offerings. BTW, your tea was most
> > likely grown in Brazil, but what the hay.
>
> I originally thought this too, but over the years I have been proven
> wrong over and over. I have had tea hand delivered from a Japanese
> friend that was only a week old and it was the most splendidly fishy
> green ever. It was fresh, expensive, and ultra high-quality. Then
> through the years a lot of my seasonal fresh greens from certain
> Japanese farms (many in Uji) have produced fishy teas one year and then
> completely non-fishy teas the next.I have also tried many cheap greens
> that have no fishyness either.
>
> It's basically a crap shoot, which is why it drives me so insane. Other
> people have go-to teas for certain flavors, but with this there are
> none... except this Yamamotoyama (the yama thing is really quite
> redundant I vow to one day pin it down to either nature or nurture
> as to the fishyness of green tea because it has to be something
> concrete that causes it.
>
> - Dominic

Space Cowboy wrote:
> It's funny the way YamaMotoYama works in Japanese. It translate as
> YamaMoto mountain. The character for both Yama is the chinese
> shan(yama) for mountain but Moto says use the preceding literal and not
> the meaning. I have a box of green tea teabags in aluminum foil that
> is at least 10 years old. One of these days I'll make a point to see
> if they taste fishy and report back. I wished all teabags came in
> aluminum foil. These are the only guys I know doing it in their entire
> product line from what I remember seeing on the shelves.
>
> Jim

I was unaware of that rule in Japanese... it has never really come up
before in anything I've seen... but thanks for the explaination I
appreciate it, I like that kind of stuff.

As for the tea, I like it. Even if it wasn't fishy it is actually a
consistent and solid green tea. Even though I'm not a snobbish tea
person, I'm still not a fan of many teas that come in tea bags... but
this tea is quite acceptable. It seems like a lot of people are a bit
down on the company but after reading the brief info on their website
and some other online resources I think they are actually a respectable
tea company. The foil pouches is another plus, and whether it is Brazil
or Japan really doesn't affect my opinion.

- Dominic

Basically any character in Japanese can have the Chinese or the
Japanese sound if it is common to both languages. The two characters
for Japan are Nippon in Japanese. That is the Chinese sound. You'll
never hear the Japanese sound Hinomoto. Marco Polo gave us Japan.

http://www.watanabesato.co.jp/jpcult.../howjapan.html

Jim

Dominic T. wrote:
> Space Cowboy wrote:
> > It's funny the way YamaMotoYama works in Japanese. It translate as
> > YamaMoto mountain. The character for both Yama is the chinese
> > shan(yama) for mountain but Moto says use the preceding literal and not
> > the meaning. I have a box of green tea teabags in aluminum foil that
> > is at least 10 years old. One of these days I'll make a point to see
> > if they taste fishy and report back. I wished all teabags came in
> > aluminum foil. These are the only guys I know doing it in their entire
> > product line from what I remember seeing on the shelves.
> >
> > Jim
>
> I was unaware of that rule in Japanese... it has never really come up
> before in anything I've seen... but thanks for the explaination I
> appreciate it, I like that kind of stuff.

[Michael]
>> That's just what I thought: Fishy/seaweedy is a mark of
>> some of the cheaper offerings. BTW, your tea was most
>> likely grown in Brazil, but what the hay.

[Dominic]
> I originally thought this too, but over the years I have been proven
> wrong over and over. I have had tea hand delivered from a Japanese
> friend that was only a week old and it was the most splendidly fishy
> green ever. It was fresh, expensive, and ultra high-quality. Then
> through the years a lot of my seasonal fresh greens from certain
> Japanese farms (many in Uji) have produced fishy teas one year and then
> completely non-fishy teas the next.I have also tried many cheap greens
> that have no fishyness either.

[M]
Two things: First, I wasn't saying that an inexpensive tea
is necessarily not fresh; it might be plentiful or lacking in
name recognition, or drunk locally. Second, I wasn't saying
that Brazil is necessarily associated with "fishy" teas, but
that Yamamotoyama is, although not entirely. Your last
point is on target: You win a few, you lose a few, and some
get rained out.

[D]
> It's basically a crap shoot, which is why it drives me so insane. Other
> people have go-to teas for certain flavors, but with this there are
> none... except this Yamamotoyama (the yama thing is really quite
> redundant I vow to one day pin it down to either nature or nurture
> as to the fishyness of green tea because it has to be something
> concrete that causes it.

[M]
May we switch to calling it "seaweedy"? It would make
me happy. May we switch to calling it "seaweedy"? It
would make me happy.

Michael

Michael Plant wrote:
> [M]
> May we switch to calling it "seaweedy"? It would make
> me happy. May we switch to calling it "seaweedy"? It
> would make me happy.
>
> Michael

We may switch to calling it "seaweedy." We may switch to calling it
"seaweedy."



- Dominic

I vote for seakelpy which makes it taste better.

Jim

Dominic T. wrote:
> Michael Plant wrote:
> > [M]
> > May we switch to calling it "seaweedy"? It would make
> > me happy. May we switch to calling it "seaweedy"? It
> > would make me happy.
> >
> > Michael
>
> We may switch to calling it "seaweedy." We may switch to calling it
> "seaweedy."
>
>
>
> - Dominic

Space Cowboy wrote:
> I vote for seakelpy which makes it taste better.
>
> Jim

Seakelpy works as well. I hold to my "fishy" description because for a
few years it was always referred to as "that fish tea" when I would go
into the little pan-asian market and try to describe the one I wanted
in limited vocabulary.

The owner found it amusing and we always knew what I was talking about.
But I agree there are much more appealing terms. I kinda like seakelpy
or nori-ish over fishy or seaweedy.

I'm still amazed that it may all really be related to seaweed being
processed around or on the same equipment as the tea after all this
time. I used to say that jokingly and now it may be reality! crazy.

- Dominic

[Jim]
>> I vote for seakelpy which makes it taste better.

[Dominic]
> Seakelpy works as well. I hold to my "fishy" description because for a
> few years it was always referred to as "that fish tea" when I would go
> into the little pan-asian market and try to describe the one I wanted
> in limited vocabulary.

[Dominic]
> The owner found it amusing and we always knew what I was talking about.
> But I agree there are much more appealing terms. I kinda like seakelpy
> or nori-ish over fishy or seaweedy.

[Dominic]
> I'm still amazed that it may all really be related to seaweed being
> processed around or on the same equipment as the tea after all this
> time. I used to say that jokingly and now it may be reality! crazy.

[Michael]
"Seakelpy" is great! From now on it's seakelpy for me. BTW, did you
know that if you produce nori in the vecinity of tea, the nori will begin
strangely to taste a bit like a seaklepy oolong? It's really worth looking
into.

Dominic T. > wrote:
>As for the tea, I like it. Even if it wasn't fishy it is actually a
>consistent and solid green tea. Even though I'm not a snobbish tea
>person, I'm still not a fan of many teas that come in tea bags... but
>this tea is quite acceptable. It seems like a lot of people are a bit
>down on the company but after reading the brief info on their website
>and some other online resources I think they are actually a respectable
>tea company. The foil pouches is another plus, and whether it is Brazil
>or Japan really doesn't affect my opinion.

Did you try the Ka-Me (turtle) brand loose sencha? It's inexpensive, and
it really does taste offensively fishy to my tongue.
--scott


--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

Scott Dorsey wrote:
> Did you try the Ka-Me (turtle) brand loose sencha? It's inexpensive, and
> it really does taste offensively fishy to my tongue.
> --scott
>
>
> --
> "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

As far as I knew Ka-Me only sold two packaged teabag teas one labeled
"Chinese Restaurant Tea" and one as "Green Tea." Where can I get the
loose stuff? If you could provide a link or some lead I'll be buying
some up instantly. I think I may be fairly alone in that "Offensively
fishy" sparks a feverish desire to buy a tea, but hey why fight it ?

....or is that "offensively seakelpy"

- Dominic

Dominic T. > wrote:
>Scott Dorsey wrote:
>> Did you try the Ka-Me (turtle) brand loose sencha? It's inexpensive, and
>> it really does taste offensively fishy to my tongue.
>
>As far as I knew Ka-Me only sold two packaged teabag teas one labeled
>"Chinese Restaurant Tea" and one as "Green Tea." Where can I get the
>loose stuff? If you could provide a link or some lead I'll be buying
>some up instantly. I think I may be fairly alone in that "Offensively
>fishy" sparks a feverish desire to buy a tea, but hey why fight it ?

Hmm... I have a box in my cabinet... but it turns out to be HIME and
not KAME. This is what I was referring to:
http://www.amazon.com/Hime-Japanese-.../dp/B0009V6GCQ
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."