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HARVESTING AND PROCESSING
Green tea comes from the Camellia
sinensis plant which is native to Asia. The part of the
plant used for making tea is found in the uppermost shoots. This
is where the young, tender new leaves and buds are formed. The
top two leaves and the bud are prized both for their fullness
of flavor and their ability to be twisted or rolled into a variety
of shapes.
For high-grade sencha, harvesters pluck either the bud or the
bud plus the youngest leaf. For good to average tea they
pick the bud plus the top two leaves. For lower quality
teas they pick the two top leaves, the lower leaf below them,
plus
parts of the twig.
After the leaves are picked they are immediately taken away for
processing. Processing for green tea is markedly different
than for black teas. To make black tea, the fresh leaf is
withered by exposure to air and is broken and left to ferment
after picking.
For green tea, the leaf is not fermented at all. It is steamed
immediately after harvesting to stop the fermentation process. Sencha
is dried after steaming and, when dry enough, rolled into a variety
of shapes until it is completely dry.
About 75% of all tea harvested in Japan is graded as sencha. The
quality of sencha is, however, highly variable. Quality
depends on the tea's origin, the season, and leaf processing
techniques
that are used.
For gyokuro only the youngest
flush leaf is picked. Special cultivation techniques are
employed to produce a tea that is famous for its rich flavor and
pale lemon-green color. Gyokuro tea plants are grown in
the shade for approximately three weeks before harvesting begins.
Removing direct sunlight in this way reduces leaf photosynthesis
which alters the proportions of flavenols, amino acids, sugars,
and other substances that provide tea aroma and taste.
For high quality gyokuro the leaves are (unlike sencha) aged
for about 3 months. This aging blends and mellows the flavenoids
and other organic compounds to produce a tea that is renowned
for its smooth elegant taste.
Matcha differs from gyokuro in that the leaves are not rolled
at all. After steaming, the leaves are thoroughly dried. This
is tencha. The tencha is then ground into a superfine powder,
and that powder is what is known as matcha.
As green tea is unfermented, it contains much larger quantities
of a group of powerful antioxidants called polyphenols which are
chemically altered during the fermentation of black tea.
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