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This article was last modified November 28th, 2021. by Yuki

Here we’ll be covering how to brew Fukamushi-Sencha.

Fukamushi-Sencha is a Japanese tea that is similar to the standard Sencha tea, but is deep-steamed during the production. It allows to maximize the umami and sweetness of the tea.

Chart: Instructions for brewing Fukamushi-Sencha

The most important item you need obviously are the tea leaves. If you don't, you can drop by our Fukamushi-Sencha section.

If you have several types of Japanese kyusu or teapots, you'd like to use a medium sized type suited for Sencha. A size somewhere between 250 ml and 400 ml would be convenient for brewing Fukamushi-Sencha as well.

While having a teapot of the size of the amount of you you'd like to make is ideal, you can also use oversized teapots as well. If you don't have a teapot for Japanese tea, you can essentially use any.

A Yuzamashi is a bowl to let the water cool. It's very important to cool the water to optimum temperatures after boiling the water. The Yuzamashi helps do this quickly.

If you don't have a Yuzamashi, this bowl can actually be anything. If possible, I recommend using a lipped bowl for easy pouring of water.

When brewing Fukamushi-Sencha, you would typically use 2g of tea leaves, or 1 teaspoon, per serving, which is about 60 ml of water. Use this as a benchmark to adjust the amount of servings required.

If 60 ml feels too small, you can double it to 4g of tea leaves for 120 ml of water. You can increase the amount of tea leaves as you increase the amount of water you'd like to brew.

The next step is to boil the water.

Once it’s boiled, don’t put the boiling water directly into the Kyusu! It will be too hot and would extract too much astringency from the tea. You’ll have to lower the water temperature first by pouring the boiling water in the Chawan.

This is also a good step to measure the amount of water you need for the infusion.

By pouring the water into the cups to be first, you'll know exactly how much water you need to brew.

Typically, the Chawan would be filled up to about 4/5 of the cup. Keep in mind that when you infuse the Fukamushi-Sencha, the tea leaves will absorb the water so the amount at the end will become less. They would absorb about 4 times the mass of the leaves.

Next step is to lower the temperature of the water. For a high-grade Fukamushi-Sencha, lower the temperature from 100 degrees Celsius to 70 degrees. For a normal-grade Fukamushi-Sencha, 90 degrees Celsius will do.

To lower the temperature, you can use a “Yuzamashi”, which is a bowl to lower the temperature of the water. If you don’t have one, well, you can use anything!

Each time the boiling water is transferred to a bowl or a Chawan, the water temperature will drop between 5 to 10 degrees. This will depend on many factors such as the size of the bowls and room temperature, but generally in Singapore, you can expect the drop to be closer to 5 degrees. You can use this mechanism to reduce the temperature of the boiling water to optimal levels.

Once the temperature is optimal, put the water into the Kyusu, and start the infusion.

Don’t let it seep too long!

Since Fukamushi-Sencha has been steamed for an extended time during manufacturing, the nutrients will easily be extracted.

Let the Fukamushi-Sencha seep for roughly 30 seconds. You’ll notice that the tea will be much more clouded compared to that of Sencha after the infusion.

The key when you serve Fukamushi-Sencha to several people is to keep the richness of the tea to be the same. The tea will become richer as you pour. In order to keep this even, the tea is poured in the following order.

This method of pouring is called “Mawashisogi”. If there are 3 Chawans, firstly, pour halfway in the order of 1 – 2 – 3. Subsequently, pour again in the reverse order of 3 – 2 – 1.

Make sure that the tea is poured to the very last drop. For the Fukamushi-Sencha, it may take a while while waiting the water to be extracted from the tea leaves.

However this is very important as these "last drops" is where the thick and dense umami of the tea resides.

Taking out as much water as you can from the first infusion also helps to keep the second infusion delicious as well. If tea is remaining in the Kyusu, the water will continue to cook the leaves of the tea, and the second infusion may not be as enjoyable.

For the second Infusion, use boiling water directly and infuse for an even shorter amount of time to extract the nutrients and release the aroma.

For Fukamushi-Sencha, you actually don't need waiting time. Begin to serve immediately after the 2nd round of hot water is poured into the teapot.

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