Awa Bancha

While green tea is made by stopping oxidation, awa bancha is deliberately fermented by lactic acid bacteria — one of Japan's few 'post-fermented' teas. Coarser leaves picked from July on are boiled, then packed into wooden barrels, fermented for roughly 10 days to two weeks, and finished by sun-drying. It's said to carry a refreshing sourness unique to lactic fermentation, a flavor entirely unlike green tea. After fermentation the leaf turns a reddish brown, brewing into a clear reddish liquor said to carry a sourness reminiscent of pickled plum.

Picked leaves are boiled in a large pot, then packed into wooden barrels while being crushed with dedicated tools, and weighted down to ferment. The barrel used, the number of days fermented, and how long the leaves are crushed are all said to vary by farming household, so sourness and flavor differ from maker to maker even within awa bancha. After fermentation, the leaves are spread on mats and sun-dried to improve their keeping quality. Soaking runs roughly 10 days to two weeks as a guide, with fermentation moving faster in warmer weather, so timing the pull depends on watching the conditions.

Said to have been handed down for over 400 years, the method is considered a piece of mountain-village wisdom — using lactic fermentation to make a tea that holds up to long storage. Alongside Kochi's goishicha, it stands as one of the country's few lactic-fermented tea lineages, passed down as a household craft specific to its region. The steep mountain terrain around Naka and Kamikatsu leaves little farmland, and making a tea that keeps well is said to have taken root as part of daily life there.