Hello. In our workshop today we are going to show you some of the most popular varieties of Japanese green tea. It is not an exhaustive compilation but it is significant for the varieties that we are going to mention.
We start with the Bancha tea variety. This is a very popular green tea in Japan, which is usually drunk daily.
The first thing that catches your attention is the aroma and the leaves. A soft aroma, with very herbaceous organic touches, and flat, straight leaves, medium in size and with a very soft texture.
The Japanese method of making tea greatly defines the character in terms of flavor and aroma. They dissect the leaf by steaming it at a very intense temperature for a very short period of time. This makes Japanese tea more like boiled leaf, with milder aromas and flavors than Chinese tea, but pleasant and subtle to the taste. It is precisely this aspect that makes it a recommended option for everyday use, given that it goes on very well, without stridency of any kind, and not at all bitter.
Next we have Genmaicha, which is usually drunk especially in autumn and winter.
Originally, Genmaicha tea was a cheaper variety of tea in Japan, mixing rice with pieces of tea leaves. Over time it has become a more gourmet variety in Europe, adding pieces of popcorn and Matcha to its original recipe.
This Japanese Genmaicha tea is an unusual green tea, given the roast factor. Cloudy in color and persistent in aftertaste, it is very digestive, and a good remedy when it is cold, holding up very well to adding water several times.
The density of the aroma is maintained in the flavor, with a more favorable balance for the brown rice, without forgetting the herbaceous touches of the Bancha that round out this very particular recipe.
And now we move on to Kukicha, a variety of Japanese tea that is obtained from the stems left over when making Matcha tea.
In this specific case, the medium-sized stems still retain part of the leaf, and are lightly adorned with some loose leaves.
The flavor is a little stronger than other Japanese varieties such as Sencha or Bancha.
It is stronger in terms of bitter flavor, without having any grassy nuances, due to the lack of leaf.
Japanese Kukicha is a good tea with its own personality marked by its brewing method. Good option to refresh the mouth after lunch or breakfast, since it has that slight bitter touch typical of green tea.
Well, it’s time to get to know Gyokuro green tea, very recognized in Japan.
This variety of Japanese green tea has a series of very personal qualities that are obvious to the eye and aroma from the first moment. The color of its leaves is a dark green, medium in size and hand-rolled.
The flavor of this Gyokuro has a base with vegetal touches, with a very light bitter touch, very well balanced. It is very subtle at first, being persistent in the taste it leaves in the mouth.
This flavor is due to the way it is grown, leaving it in the shade for a few weeks so that it accumulates more chlorophyll and amino acids. An example of how with ingenuity you can replicate high mountain conditions, with little sun and persistent humidity.
And finally in today’s session, we have Matcha tea, possibly the most popular Japanese green tea today.
Matcha is tea ground from stemless leaves. The aroma is soft and the color is intense bright green.
The particularity that makes this variety unique is not only the way it is presented, but the way it is prepared.
It is prepared by whisking the tea until it obtains a foam that gives it its own personality, playing an important role in the final result.
It is a mild tea with a vegetable flavor without any stridency, in which you have to control the amount to be blended, given that it is a powdered leaf concentrate.
Like all good green tea, it provides antioxidants that are very beneficial for health, hence its great popularity internationally.
To conclude, there are other varieties of Japanese green tea, although these that we have mentioned today combine quality, personality and popularity.
I hope that today’s session has been useful to you. Thank you very much for your attention and see you soon.