Japanese Green Tea

Japanese Characters: 新茶

Shincha, Meaning – ‘New Tea’ / ‘First Tea’, This is the first tea to be harvested in the year.

When April’s gentle wind has blown the cherry blossom petals and brought forth the engendering of the tea leaves, the shincha season has started in Japan.

Shincha Season

Shincha season is roughly from the end of April to the end of May.
The beginning of the Shincha season is called “hachijuu-hachi-ya” (88 days), the 88th day from the first spring day (around Feb. 4).
Shincha, with its rich taste and aroma, has been believed for a long time in Japan to protect a person from illness throughout the year.
The leaves blessed with the sun shine are continuously harvested for two to three weeks around this day.
The amount of yield picked in this season accounts for as much as a half of the annual yield.

Grades Of Shincha

Early first flush is the top grade, these leaves are usallay small and soft which can enhance the taste of the tea.
Tea shrubs have only a small amount of young foliage and the softness of these tea leaves will be lost as time goes by, thus the price of early picked tea leaves becomes high.

Hand-picked leaves are also high-end quality.
In the shincha season, many “chatsumi-musume” (professional tea picking girls) come to tea gardens as seasonal working forces to help hand-picking.
As opposed to machinery picked leaves which contain old leaves and stems, hand-picked leaves have uniform size.
Because it takes time to pick by hand, only a small amount of hand-picked tea leaves go on sale.
Machinery picking usually starts after hand-picking.

Appearance

Shincha takes on the appearance of a light grassy green, similar to some varieties of Sencha.

Taste

Shincha has a fresh, youthful and energetic taste.
Contrary to “nibancha” (the second crop) or “sanbancha” (the third crop), shincha contains many amino acids, the base of the flavor and sweetness, and includes lower bitterness and tartness.

Preparation

See the page How to prepare Shincha.