First comes the Essence of Tea
An Italian friend of mine who lives here in Japan asked me:
“How comes that on the menu there is a list of at least five different type of teas but the English translation – if there is any – it’s always Japanese Green Tea?”
He is so right! For a non-Japanese reader, in fact, it’s really difficult to guess which tea is going to drink!
Sencha, Shincha, Hōjicha, Kukicha … all of them translated always as ‘Green Tea’…when they are so different it taste, color, aroma and cultivar!
Contrary to the English translation, in Japanese there is something before the little character of ‘cha 茶’, which means ‘tea’. What’s before? The essence of the tea itself! I am serious, read here:
煎茶：Sen is ‘fresh’, so Sen-cha is fresh tea (i.e. ‘steamed’)
新茶：Shin is New, so Shincha is ‘new tea’ (i.e. picked up the current year during the first harvest)
焙じ茶： Hoji means roasted Hojicha is Roasted tea
茎茶：Kuki are the tea-leaves stalks, so stalks-made-tea.
And then also the tea quality might chance!
For instance, usually kukicha is considered one of the lowest quality tea, just because it is made of stalks instead of proper tea leaves. But this is not true all the times! The kukicha I’ve tasted today, for instance, it is one of the best quality ever! Not only because it comes directly from a renowned farm in Shizuoka, but also because these little stalks belongs to this year best quality Shincha (New Tea, we’ve said). A truly cup of freshness and steaminess expressed in a reach vegetable aroma, as delicious as a cup of King Shincha!
Thank you Akari for this precious present
Words and pic by me