Back to the basics, I explain what is Japanese green tea exactly.

Here is the script I used in this presentation.

In this part, I will sort Japanese tea out of all the tea kinds.  In the next part, I will explain the variety of Japanese green tea.

There are several ways to sort teas, and I decided to sort them by way of processing.  But to begin with, I’d better to tell about tea as a plant.

In the botanic classification, all the teas in the world are made from 1 species, which is called Camellia sinensis, originated southern China.

Camellia sinensis has one variety, and it is called Camellia sinensis assamica. 

Assamica tree heights around 5 to 6 meters while Camellia sinensis 1 to 2 meters.  Assamica has more astringency and more yield than Camellia sinensis, so it is suited for commodity black tea, so it is mainly grown in India. 

But both of them can be crossed or made cuttage, and in fact, there is very major cultivar called British variety which is grown Camellia sinensis from assamica cutting.

Cultivars are improvement or optimization of tea tree according to geography and climate.  Yabukita is the major cultivar of Japanese green tea.  Saemidori is very suited for Gyokuro.

We can roughly sort teas into 2, Fermented or Unfermented. 

In the fermented teas, there are many ways to do it.

Fermented by bacteria is like cheese and yogurt. It is called dark tea or post fermented tea, or black tea in Asian countries.

Pu-erh tea is the most famous, it is fermented by aspergillums. Goishi cha is famous Japanese dark tea.

Fermented by enzyme.  Tea leaf contains oxidase by itself, so without neutralize it, the leaf will get oxidized.

Perfect fermented tea is black tea or crimson tea in Asian countries. Picking the leaves, and leaving them as they are, and dry them after fermentation process is over.  More than 70% of entire teas are processed into black tea.  Keemun and Yunnan is from Chinese, Assam and Darjeeling is from India, and Uva Ceylon is from Sri Lanka. Keemun and Yunnan and Darjeeling are of camellia sinensis, and Assam and Uva Ceylon is mainly used assamica. Keemun is very famous for Earl Gray.  Earl Gray, to be exact, has to be made from Keemun tea with Calabria Bergamot oil.

Most of the partial fermented tea is made in China.

Blue tea is fermented in range from 30% to 70%, and terminated the oxidization process by heating.  You may know Oolong, Oolong is blue tea.

White tea is scarcely oxidized but decomposed by its enzyme.  Bai Hao Yinsen or silver needle is very famous.  Large tea plantations in India try to make white tea, but it cannot get superior to Chinese so far.  Some cheap silver needle is often made in India.

Fermented by Oxygen means leaf reacts with oxygen directly. 

Yellow tea is heated to neutralize the enzyme immediately after picking, it is the same as green tea, but it get wrapped with parchment and aged.  Usually green tea cannot be aged, and actually deteriorates with the passage of time, but under a certain condition, it goes to Yellow tea. Junshan Yinzhen or silver needle yellow is very precious tea.  It is not unusual at all that it is sold more than 10 thousand euros par 100g.

Green tea is unfermented tea.  I have heard that so called “tea professional or tea master” said Japanese green tea is unfermented and Chinese green tea is fermented.  It is wrong.  Both Chinese and Japanese green tea are not fermented at all.  So what’s the difference?  It is the difference in the way of neutralize the enzyme of the leaf.  Chinese green tea is toasted, and Japanese one is steamed.  There are a few exceptions like Ureshino cha, but 99% of Japanese tea is this steamed green tea.