Sencha tea-Japan's most popular spring tea, drunk in most homes

The Tea Detective
Uncovering and Exploring the Facts About Tea

Sencha-Japan's Favorite Tea

Sencha is Japan's most popular tea, drunk in most Japanese homes and restaurants, and
accounting for more than 80% of its total annual tea production. Sencha is the first spring tea
to be harvested, following the shincha preharvest pluck, and heralds the beginning of the main
spring flush season.

Called first-flush sencha, this first sencha of the
season has all the sugars and compounds stored
up over winter, and contains all the rich, satisfying
sweet goodness you'd expect from a first flush
green tea.

And, it also comes with a much higher price tag as
well, about 30% higher than later harvests.

As the season wears on the flavor becomes strong-
er and the color darker, as each successive flush
yields lesser quality teas. There are several quality
grades of sencha produced, including handpicked
artisan made senchas, made in smaller quantities
and usually costing more as well.

Starting in mid May is the first plucking of sencha
called ichibancha, the second plucking, beginning

around the end of June is nibancha, the third, starting in mid August, sanbancha, and the fourth
beginning in late September, yobancha.

One style of sencha that's particularly prized in Japan is Kakegawa
Ichiban Sencha, made from the very first leaves plucked during the
beginning one to two days of the first shincha harvest.

These teas contain the best compounds that have been stored in
the plant over winter, giving them exquisite flavor.

To improve the quality of mass produced teas (like sencha) made
from larger, poorer leaves, the fukamushi method of deep steaming
was invented by Kakegawa tea producers after WWII.

This method steams the tea for an additional 30 seconds longer than the standard, traditional
steaming, breaking the leaves into much smaller filaments, allowing the tea to brew faster and
stronger.

Ichiban means "the first," meaning the tea was made from the first, most tender leaves, har-
vested around the beginning of May.

The Kakegawa area is totally devoted to tea production. The hills surrounding Kakegawa are
blanketed with row upon row of perfectly trimmed tea bushes, and at the top of one hill there is
even a large topiary in the shape of the Japanese character for tea.

Kakegawa's tea production is some of the most sophisticated in the world, with giant fans out-
fitted on the hills overlooking the tea fields to protect the leaves from frost (the fans prevent
cold air from settling down low near the leaves where it could kill the tender new shoots).

Tea factories are located every few miles throughout the region, ready to process the tea
harvest on a moments notice if need be.

Another style is Kagoshima Sencha, a good quality blend that has a lively, vegetal, mouth filling
flavor, something the Japanese call umami. Kagoshima sencha is grown in the port city of
Kagoshima on the southern tip of Japan's Kyushu Island, the second largest tea producing area.

Spring comes earlier here than to Japan's other tea producing regions, so Kagoshima sencha is
usually one of the first spring flush teas available.

This area is mainly a flat plateau, so many of Japan's largest tea farms are situated there. Be-
cause the farms are large and flat and the rows of tea wide set, they are able to accommodate
the large, high volume mechanical shearing machines that pluck hundreds of pounds of tea a
day.

The mechanical harvesting means Kagoshima sencha can be pro-
duced more economically, and therefore costs less. The down-
side, if there is one, is that rather than producing one field of high
quality sencha, Kagoshima tea makers blend several varieties of
individually inferior plants from many fields, to produce one good
quality sencha.

One of these senchas is called a "natural gyokuro." It is an entirely sun grown tea, yet it is still
able to produce the additional amino acids as that of a shade grown plant.

The end result is a lemony flavored sencha with the rich, mouth filling, vegetal brothiness, the
umami, of a gyokuro. Enjoy.

For more information or to learn more about tea, visit our other
pages:

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Learn all about shincha tea, what it is, what about it makes it so special, and why it's the most eagerly
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Herbal teas - bringing together tea and herbs, two of nature's powerhouses for health.
Tea and herbs together form a powerful healing and nutritional element to your everyday diet. Find out
why herbal teas can be beneficial to your health. (Try Silver Leaf Tea's healthy herbal Blood Orange tea
rich in Vitamin C and antioxidants -caffeine free rooibos tea, orange peel, hibiscus, rosehips, apple
pieces, safflowers, and rose petals w/orange, vanilla, and lemon flavor. It's healthy and delicious.)

Receive A Guide To Tea, an 88-page book on the history and enjoyment of tea free with your first Adagio Teas order of $19 or more.

An easy-to-use ingenuiTEA teapot, whose ingenious design has been featured in The New York Times, Time Magazine and HGTV.

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