Choosing Japanese Tea 2

These are the few suggestions for choosing Japanese tea for beginners.

 Try sencha first
 What grade to choose
 Two major types of sencha
 Good leaves and bad leaves
 Reliable tea shops

I talked about fist two tips yesterday. I recommended you to try some nice middle grade sencha. The next tip is …

 Two major types of sencha
Sencha can be categorized into two major types. One is called sencha or futsu-sencha, which is regular-steamed sencha. The other one is fukamushi-sencha, which is deep-steamed sencha. Green tea is usually steamed when produced. The steam processing makes slight difference in their flavor.

** Regular-steamed sencha (sencha or futsu-sencha) **
Leaves: Thin needle shape; well-formed shape
Brewing time: 1 minute
Brewed tea: Clear yellow, flavor with good harmony of bitterness and sweetness.

** Deep-steamed sencha (fukamushi-sencha) **
Leaves: finer pieces than futsu-sencha
Brewing time: 30 seconds
Brewed tea: murkier and greener than futsu-sencha, richer in the flavor



When you try several different senchas, I recommend trying both futsu-snecha and fukamushi-sencha. If you are looking for clear flavor green tea, you will probably like futsu-sencha. If you prefer rich flavor, you will like fukamushi-sencha. I hope you would try them yourself and find the difference and your favorite.
If you want to know more about futsu-sencha and fukamushi-sencha, please refer to my previous three blogs.
1. http://everyonestea.blogspot.com/2009/12/regular-sencha-vs-long-steamed-sencha-1.html
2. http://everyonestea.blogspot.com/2009/12/regular-sencha-vs-long-deep-steamed.html
3. http://everyonestea.blogspot.com/2009/12/regular-sencha-vs-long-deep-steamed_10.html

On the next post, I’ll tell you how to distinguish between good leaves and bad leaves.