Tea & drinks ── Nihoncha (Japanese tea)
Sencha
Sencha — Japan's everyday unshaded green tea
Green tea made from young leaves grown without shading, steamed and rolled dry in what's considered the most basic Japanese tea process. It's said to account for the bulk of the country's tea production, prized for a balance of fresh aroma and gentle astringency.
- Green tea
Lineage
What it's made of
Young buds of the tea plant, grown without any shading and left to take in full sunlight before picking. Steaming to halt oxidation, then rolling and drying, is treated as the basic template for Japanese tea, and the balance between catechins (the source of astringency) and amino acids (the source of umami) is said to give sencha a fresher character than shaded teas like gyokuro. It's said to make up the bulk of the country's tea output, and 'Japanese tea' most often means sencha first. The brewed liquor tends toward a bright yellow-green, and a grassy aroma rising through the nose alongside a light astringency that fades quickly after swallowing is said to be its signature.
How it's made
Fresh leaf is steamed to stop oxidation, then repeatedly rolled while being dried with heat, shaping it into fine needles. Steaming time is said to change the flavor, and a variant steamed far longer — fukamushi sencha — grew out of that. In finishing, the leaf is sifted by size and part, with stems, powder, and bud tips each handled as their own separate teas. Steaming time is typically around 30 to 40 seconds as a rough guide, with a shorter steam edging toward asa-mushi (light steaming) and a longer one toward fukamushi (deep steaming).
Why it took this shape
Growing tea without shading is said to be far easier to manage than the labor-intensive shaded cultivation behind gyokuro or tencha, and it's said to have spread widely from the Edo period on. The aosei sencha method said to have been devised in Ujitawara is credited as the foundation of today's green tea making, and this process, well suited to mass production, is said to have secured sencha's place as the tea of everyday life. Brewing with water around 70-80°C as a guide, poured briefly, is said to make it easy to balance astringency and umami, and this ease of handling is said to have helped it spread as an everyday tea.
Before You Go
Dishes in the same style
- Fukamushi SenchaA method of steaming the leaf far longer than ordinary sencha, said to break the leaf down finely and mellow its astringency into a deep green, richer-bodied tea. With smaller leaf fragments, more dissolves into the water, giving a notably smooth mouthfeel.
- GenmaichaTea made by mixing roasted, steamed rice at roughly equal parts with bancha or sencha. The toasty aroma of the roasted rice meets the tea's freshness, said to give a light, relatively low-caffeine cup.
Ingredients and dishes from this land
Known for it here
- Known for it here: Kyoto, Uji
Home of the shading technique called ooshita saibai, known as a production area for sencha, gyokuro, and matcha alike under the Uji tea name.
- Known for it here: Shizuoka
Ranging from the vast flatland plantations of the Makinohara plateau to the misty mountain gardens of Kawane, the prefecture is said to be one of the country's largest tea producers.
- Known for it here: Fukuoka, Yame
Continues traditional straw-shaded cultivation and is known as a producer of premium tea that has placed highly in national tea competitions for many years.
Contrast
- YokanSweet bean paste set with agar into a firm block, sliced to eat. It is said to descend from a Chinese mutton soup called "kan" that arrived with tea, reworked into a meatless dish with bean paste for Buddhist cuisine, and completed as the sliceable "neri-yokan" once agar was discovered.
- BanchaGreen tea made from later-picked leaves or larger, tougher leaves left over after the prized first flush — an everyday tea. Compared to sencha's young leaves, it's said to carry less astringency and bitterness, and has long been valued as an affordable, everyday drink.
- MugichaA drink brewed from roasted barley — not made from the tea plant at all. In the Edo period, a roasted cracked-barley infusion called mugiyu was popular among commoners, and from the Showa era on it's said to have spread as a chilled summer staple.
- KabusechaTea shaded for about a week before picking by draping straw or netting directly over the bushes — a style that sits between gyokuro and sencha. Because the shading period is shorter than gyokuro's, it's said to carry gyokuro's umami alongside sencha's brighter astringency.
- TamaryokuchaA green tea that skips the final leaf-straightening step, left curled up in a shape likened to a comma-shaped bead — also called guricha. It's said to come in two forms: steamed, and pan-fired in an iron kettle.
- Shizuoka-chaA tea-producing prefecture where distinctly different growing areas coexist — from the vast flatlands of the Makinohara plateau to mountain gardens like Kawane and Honyama. It's said to be one of the country's largest tea-producing regions.
Derived style
- UjitawaraA tea-producing area within the Uji tea region where, in 1738, Nagatani Soen is said to have devised the aosei sencha method. Credited with laying the groundwork for today's green tea processing, the town is sometimes called the birthplace of Japanese green tea.
- Fukamushi SenchaA method of steaming the leaf far longer than ordinary sencha, said to break the leaf down finely and mellow its astringency into a deep green, richer-bodied tea. With smaller leaf fragments, more dissolves into the water, giving a notably smooth mouthfeel.