Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Night with teas

How many types do you think there are in Japanese tea? Sencha, Gyokuro, matcha, hojicha… Actually there are thirteen major types of teas. Last night, I gathered all kinds of Japanese tea to take pictures of their leaves and brewed forms. I think I had too much tea last night (^^;

Can you tell what tea this is?



Yes this is genmaicha!


How about this? I’m so mean. This will be difficult for you to determine …



This is kabusecha, he he he..^^
It looks very similar to sencha and gyokuro. You might not be able to tell just by the appearance.

I often have sencha, kabusecha and gyokuro at home. I rarely have some of other types. I liked the kukicha (twig tea) I had last night. It originated from mixture of gyokuro and sencha. I can find gyokuro flavor in its taste but it is never heavy. That is, the tea has a clear taste. And also sweet aroma like gyokuro came through my nose. I realized how nice kukicha is.
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6 comments:

  1. DavidMarch 3, 2011 at 12:53 AM

    Thirteen ?? There seem to be a lot that I don't know about then.

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  2. KoheiMarch 3, 2011 at 7:59 AM

    I have counted deep-steamed sencha and roasted/steamed tamaryokucha separately. I’m planning to introduce them sometime and preparing descriptions and photos. Here are just names for those thirteen types.
    1.Sencha 2.Deep-steamed sencha 3.Bancha 4.Kabushecha 5.roasted tamaryokucha 6.Steamed tamaryokucha(Guricha) 7.Matcha 8.Gyokuro 9.Hojicha 10.Genmaicha 11.Konacha 12.Mecha 13.Kukicha
    (^-^)

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    Replies
    1. DavidApril 27, 2012 at 12:51 AM

      Is there a reason why deep steamed get it' own category but light steamed Sencha and Tencha don't?

      Delete
    2. KoheiApril 28, 2012 at 12:42 AM

      I’m not so sure, but I think light-steamed sencha means sencha (regular-steamed).

      Sencha is usually categorized into sencha (regular-steamed) and deep-steamed sencha. The name “sencha” is pretty ambiguous. So, I think that some shops call their sencha (regular-steamed) light-steamed sencha for convince as a comparison to the term “deep-steam”

      ** Sencha **
      - Sencha or Regular sencha (regular-steamed)
      - Deep-steamed sencha


      Tencha is sold as matcha, and you don’t usually find tencha at shops. So, I only counted the final product, matcha.

      Please feel free to let me know if my explanations are not satisfying.

      Delete
  3. DavidMarch 3, 2011 at 4:44 PM

    Many thanks Kohei ! :-)

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  4. KoheiMarch 3, 2011 at 4:51 PM

    Oops, I mistyped “4.kabushecha”. “kabusecha” is correct. Sorry^^;

    ReplyDelete