Reading the Tea Leaves

Many people have probably been drinking Sencha Green tea without realizing it.  Sencha is probably the tea most widely used to make a base for Green flavored blends, such as Peach Green or some other more exotically named Green’s.

The reason for this choice of tea perhaps has less to do with its flavor than with the size of the leaves in standard and lower grades.  The leaves have a good amount of surface area to which the flavoring can adhere.  Compare a Sencha with a Chunmee Green, another tea widely available as a “standard” Green, and the difference is obvious.

(As an aside, it’s noteworthy that traditional Chinese flavored teas are still made with pan-fired rather than steamed (Sencha type) Green tea leaves, such as osmanthus Green, lichee Green, or rose Green teas.

But how do Sencha’s taste on their own, without, depending on your point of view, the benefit or adulteration, of added essences produced in a lab?  The prices vary widely, from around $10/lb to over $100/lb or more.  If one is accustomed to the long, spear-like leaves, what is one to make of very fine, uneven dark green leaves — both types bearing the Sencha name?

The characters “shin cha” mean “new tea,” and top quality Sencha, along with other early Green’s, is a harbinger of warmer days ahead.  After the dormant phase, several pluckings will follow.

And here (below) is a representation of a Gyokuro, a step up from Sencha, that caught my eye because the color is all wrong:

As is true of many subjects, it is easy to get in trouble when one generalizes about teas.  Travel posters and other images of tea pickers (usually in attire more colorful than ordinary work-day garb) have instilled in us the notion that hand-harvested teas are best.  There is no denying that buds and budsets are the product of dexterous, practiced hand-plucking.  One Oolong commentator notes this and goes on to characterize machine-cut teas as suitable only for mass production or cheap teas.  With Japanese teas, the situation is more nuanced.

Much is made sometimes about the fact that this or that tea was hand-picked.  In Japan most teas are cut by machine, although this does not diminish the quality or the price.  The craft behind processing still plays a vital role in the outcome.  How dramatic a difference labor costs can make is clear in the teas described below.  The highest priced tea of the three is a Sencha from Japan at $144/lb, and it was machine-cut.  The cheapest one from China was hand-picked and probably retails for under $30/lb.  I recently came across a hand-plucked Shizuoka (a well respected area) Sencha that was $544/lb!

Japanese-style Green teas are produced in large quantities in China, especially in Zhejiang province.  The factories I have visited, usually joint ventures between Chinese and Japanese companies, were large and well equipped with the latest machinery.  From these manufacturing facilities not just Sencha, but teas in the style of Gyokuro (shaded) and Genmaicha (with roasted rice and popcorn) are shipped to Japan and other countries.

Tear an iceberg lettuce leaf, leave it out for a while, and the edges will have turned dark.  We’ve all seen this.  To stop chemical changes like this in tea leaves, the leaves are heated shortly after plucking.   This steps halts the enzymes from acting further and producing changes in the leaf.  Most Green tea is de-enzymed by pan-firing, either by hand – with the fingers and palm moving the leaves quickly and evenly over a wok-like pan, while simultaneously gently turning and tossing the leaves — or mechanically.  A much smaller percentage of Green tea is de-enzymed by steam.  I recall an image of round baskets filled with freshly plucked leaves, their fresh fragrance filling the workroom.  After a brief resting stage, the leaves were placed on a conveyor belt and steamed for mere seconds to de-activate the enzymes.  (In contrast, leaves to be made into Black tea are shaken to bruise them so that when exposed to air, the leaves will darken.)

The tea usually brought to the table at Japanese restaurants is either a Sencha or a Genmaicha.  Senchas have a definite vegetal, herbaceous flavor.   At their best, the brew is vegetal in a sweet way.  Less charitably, in the case of some Sencha’s, the taste can only be described as grassy, with a raw edge and even fishy smell, rather than a fresh-mown scent.  So what might one expect in shopping for Senchas?  I chose three to compare: the first at a price below $30/lb (I have seen a comparable tea in NYC for $22/lb), the second at $64/lb, and the last at $144/lb.

After steaming, leaves are rolled for making Sencha, and they end up looking like pine needles, pointy and brittle looking.  Senchas also tend to be uneven looking in their dry form.  In the first tea, most of the leaves were straight but there were some particles strewn about, and the fine residue in the cup was the result.  The leaves were of various sizes, from 1cm to 3cm in length.

Some were thin but others more robust, 2mm-3mm wide.  But most of the leaves here were relatively thick, that is, relative to the 2nd and 3rd teas, and not fine strands.

After steeping, the leaves were the color of well-cooked watercress or kale or other dark, leafy green vegetables.

Some leaves were choppy; the little mound of wet leaves smelled like fresh grass.

Golden-hued in the cup, the taste held less of the grassiness that might be off-putting.  Overall, this was quite a neutral tasting tea; little wonder that so much of it becomes the base for flavored teas.  As I learned later, when this tea was compared with another in my group, the grassy note did appear more prominently.

The price of the second seems modest only when on learns about the price of even better Sencha’s, such as the third tea in the group.

At $4 for one ounce, this falls roughly midway between the first and third teas: under $30/lb, $64/lb, $144/lb.

A mix of needles, flakes, and small particles, this second Sencha was not a tea you could pick up easily with your fingers.

A good amount of powdery bits would likely adhere to your fingers too.  Where the first tea smelled grassy, this one was less so, and the third tea, even in its dry form, smelled sweet.

After steeping the wet leaves were a mash of green material.

Dark olive-green in color, it was hard to separate the leaves.  The photo of the tea in the cup was taken a few minutes during which I allowed the tea to settle, and it is easy to see the residue left by the fine leaf particles, and I had already filtered this through a fine-mesh strainer.

More of the fine broken bits left more trace of the leaf in the brew; the third Sencha had some of this character but the brew was not nearly as cloudy.

On the counter, the brew seemed a standard gold with a little green, perhaps because I expected this.  Under natural light from a north-facing window (ideal for tea!), the brew was a brighter yellow-gold, quite stunning were it not for the residue at the bottom.  More careful pouring after allowing the tea to settle in the pot or mug would have made for a clearer cup.

The tea was bittersweet in the mouth, although not bitter in the finish.  While tasting, I envisioned a bowl of rice with green tea poured over it, a good ending to a Japanese meal.  Even though there was no rice in the tea, the taste held that quality for me.  It strikes me as curious that this group of teas – so very green in very sense of the word – should call up in our tasting frame of reference something quite disparate — baking bread.  Words like “round, soft, mellow” do not apply to this tea; there was an edge of fresh astringency, and if this is what one seeks out in a Green tea, here was a good example.

The uneven, almost broken look of the leaves in the third Sencha may seem strange for a tea at this price ($144/lb).

These were very fine needles, and the fine grainy particles at the bottom of the tin or pouch will leave traces in the cup.  But if one harbors any disappointment, such reservations would dissipate quickly once the wet leaves are examined.

A bright spinach green, these leaves announced the freshness of something vernal.  Given their fine, dry appearance, it’s little wonder that the wet leaves look smushed.  How different they were from the neat, discrete budsets of other Green teas at this price range.

With some liquid left in the mug, the leaves here had a flaky appearance.  Captured inside the brewing mug was a fresh, “green” aroma, decidedly vegetal rather than floral.  I did not get grass at all.  The plants that yielded this tea had been shaded for a few days prior to plucking.  The shading was only partial, meaning not all light was blocked from the tea plants.  Yet even this dappling of light meant that more chlorophyll was produced in the leaves, resulting in leaves that are more deeply green and a taste that proved rounder, more buttery. (Strange description for something so green.)

For such measures, the brew turned out a delicate gold, noticeably tinged with green.

This pale shade was deceptive, for the taste was full and rich from the outset.  There was a pleasant bite, and this terms seems too harsh in this context; a bit of an edge at the finish might be a more appropriate description.  But there was a bracing little jolt — making one aware that this was made from something fresh and green.  The first sips brought to mind freshness, thta fresh vegetal note was right up-front; the middle soothed and calmed.  The finish brought home the message that the “green” qualities were quickly sealed by steam and still had enough presence to show a bit of that green intensity.

I then set up all three teas for another round of tasting, so they could be sampled more simultaneously than sequentially so as to obtain a more immediate comparison:

Wet leaves: the fragrance inside mug for Tea #1 reminded me of nori (seaweed), which I like, but perhaps less so in a tea.  The leaves of Tea #2 gave a toasty, pleasant aroma, fairly neutral and not grassy.  Tea #3 gave a fresh, clean, very inviting fragrance from the leaves at the bottom of the mug.

Brew color: #1 – gold but much duller once set aside the other two teas; #2 was gold-green; #3 a markedly paler shade than the second tea and less cloudy too.

Flavor: with nori on my mind now, Tea #1 had the familiar taste of a seaweed broth, along with a faint nuttiness.  Tea #2 was full tasting; no hint of nori here; an astringent finish — this tea had some bite.  Tea #3 was a rounder, softer tea after the other two, without that edge or bite in the finish.  In this last tea, there was some light toastiness at first, then the vegetal opened up, with a spike of freshness.  Alternating between the second and third teas, it was easy to pick up the layers of flavor in the third Sencha, where the second teas was more one-dimensional.

This difference carried over to iced versions: the second tea offered less flavor where the third was quite delicious, if a bit extravagant.  In the second Sencha the astringency (not unpleasant) was there but without the fullness or softness of the tea’s hallmark vegetal taste.

Whenever I drink Oolongs, I marvel at the floral quality that was innate in the leaves; I remain amazed each time that the processing could bring forth such wonderful notes of blossoms with nothing extraneous added to the tea.  When I want something that truly tastes of the essence of Green teas, a good quality Sencha fits the bill, for the same reason — to taste and smell something inherent in the leaves.