01.20.05
Posted in Green Tea in General at 1:35 am by site admin
Here’s an informative email I recently received. The customer has done his homework, and this message speaks for itself.
“Dear Sirs:
In your “new to green tea” section you make it sound as if your tea’s cost more than the readily available retail teas. I do not find this to be true in practice. My $14.00(delivered) bag of daily sencha is less expensive for me to brew as the cheapest green tea I can purchase, and is far less expensive than the “better” brands. As for taste the cheapest local tea is unpalatable and doesn’t look or taste like green tea whereas your daily sencha is very enjoyable. I hope this doesn’t inspire you to raise your prices, but you might want to consider representing yourself as having a tea that is vastly superior and at a most competitive price point.
One box of bagged green tea cost no less than $3.00 and has 20 bags that produce very low quality tea and can not be used for a second cup. In one month I consume 6 of these boxes drinking 4 cups a day for a cost of $18.00 plus tax. A bag of daily sencha allows me to drink 6 cups a day at a cost of $14.00 delivered. And this completely neglects the fact that daily sencha is vastly superior.”
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01.07.05
Posted in Green Tea in General at 7:16 pm by site admin
With all the interest in matcha these days (sometimes also referred as maccha), I thought it might be a good idea to explain the differences in the powdered green teas that you will likely encounter on the market.
First there is powdered sencha, not to be confused with matcha. Although they may look similar and are both a type of “powdered green tea” - they are not one and the same. Powdered sencha is simply sencha that is, well, powdered. You know, sencha is the normal green tea that is grown in the full sun. If you are looking for a good tea to drink for health reasons, this is indeed very good because sencha has the highest amounts of catechins and polyphenols of all the green teas. The taste, well - it’s “okay”, but it has a completely different taste from matcha. Here, we prefer to brew but powdered sencha is quite popular. It is not a replacement for matcha by any stretch and if you’re looking for a cheaper alternative for your matcha ice cream or latte, this isn’t going to work well.
Next, there is matcha. Matcha is also extremely good for one’s health, but it has slightly different characteristics from powdered sencha. It is higher in theanine and amino acids, but has less catechins and polyphenols. That said, it’s still high in both. Matcha comes from the leaves of shade grown green tea. The price of matcha tends to be double or more the price of powdered sencha, mostly because there is much more labor put into producing it. Not only do the tea plants have to be shaded, the leaves must be de-veined. The de-veined, but yet to be powdered shade grown leaves are known as tencha.
Matcha can further be broken down into two main types, the thick and thin types known in Japanese as “koicha” and “usucha” respectively. The kind most often encountered is usucha. A lot of people mistakenly assume that the thick type must be stronger tasting that the thin type, but in fact the opposite is true. The thick type is used to make matcha with a thicker consistency, meaning that twice as much green tea powder must be used. For that reason, the thick type must actually have a somewhat milder, sweet taste. Since most of the thick matcha comes from very old tea plants, this type is almost always more expensive than the thin.
Also important to keep in mind, there are many grades of matcha out there. There is food grade matcha, there is ceremonial grade matcha, and there is organic matcha which could be of either type. These days a lot of the food grade matcha is coming from China, not Japan, and this is what is typically used for matcha ice cream. The ceremonial grade is the best of all, but even here, there are many grades. Needless to say, a very fine ceremonial grade matcha not be cheap.
Lastly, good matcha doesn’t stay fresh forever. Typically, matcha will expire about six months from manufacture. For that reason, finding the freshest product is imperative.
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