Good opinion once lost, is lost forever.

Yes the title of this post is a quote from Pride and prejudice, and honestly I have been pondering its implications slightly regarding tea. Most notably I recently received an order from Hibiki-an, and as Hibiki-an still lists its tea prices in terms of USD compared to most Japanese tea vendors located in Japan, who list their prices in Yen. So as the Yen is rather strong compared to the dollar right now, I decided to give them a try, that and the fact that compared to Ippodo who I was actually planning on ordering from saved me the price of EMS shipping required from Ippodo.

So I was hoping Hibiki's Sencha Superior could be an alternate to Ippodo's Nichi getsu which while it is not great I think it is a great price vs value ratio and when it was 11 dollars for 100 grams was a sencha I was content to drink nearly all the time.

But upon cracking into the Sencha Superior I had possible the worst sencha session I have had in quite some time, though it was something that I did not believe was the teas fault. As my stomach had been feeling slightly funny, and while tea usually settles it this time it did quite the opposite and my stomach was in serious pain after the first infusion, and stayed so throughout the session. Now it could be as I poured the bag out into the container then scooped directly from the container there may have been a large amount of smaller broken leaf bits which added a bit extra astringency causing the discomfort.

It does not change the fact in my mind that the worst session I have ever had with a sencha, happened on my first try with this tea. So now I am worried that I might always view this tea in a negative light, especially since today I had another session and the session was perfectly fine, no stomach problems, or really problems of any sort. It was a perfectly enjoyable session, but I still feel my view of this tea is still tainted. But I honestly feel I did not enjoy it nearly as much as I should have because constantly in the back of my mind is the reminder of the first session with this tea.

So here is to hoping my opinion of this tea improves through many more good sessions.