12.31.04
Gyokuro…
If you look around, you’ll find the price of gyokuro to be quite a bit more expensive that other types of green teas. What’s the deal with gyokuro? I thought it time to explain this a little more.
Gyokuro is considered by many to be the premier green tea. Surprisingly, it’s not too uncommon to come across a Japanese person who has never even tried it. It’s not something your average Joe drinks 3 times a day. The main reason gyokuro is more expensive than other green teas is because more labor is put into producing it. About 3 weeks before harvest, out come loads of bamboo poles and rice straw, and a crew to assemble them. The poles are set up in a canopy fashion that covers the entire field. Basically, what they do is make a “hut” over and around the green tea plants. The bamboo latice work is covered with rice straw to the point where the tea plants are under 90% shade. They’re grown in this fashion for three weeks, and then are harvested.
Why do they do this? When green tea grows in the sun, catechins from the root system are transported into the leaves, and theanine in the leaves return to the root system. When covered by shade, this process is interrupted. While both sun grown sencha and gyokuro have properties of each, gyokuro tends to have higher amino acid/theanine content, while sencha is higher in catechins. Those catechins are what give sencha that somewhat astringent taste, and because gyokuro has less of catechins, it gives what they call a “sweeter” taste. “Sweet” here is not in the sugary sense, but the less astringent sense. The keyword is “less”, as even gyokuro has some astringency to it.
Brewing gyokuro: Here’s where it gets tricky. Since it’s expensive and is considered the best of the green teas, people naturally want to try it. Often, a person who is used to brewing sencha green tea will brew gyokuro exactly the same way, and it won’t turn out good. Gyokuro must be brewed differently from sencha. It should be brewed at a lower temperature (around 130F), use more leaves (1-2 tablespoons), less water (about 5 ounces), and should be brewed for a longer time (2.5-3 minutes). Easier said than done. If you get your water down to 130F, add tea to the teapot, pour the hot water into the teapot - the water is no longer going to be 130F, it will most likely drop by 15 degrees. Pour that again into a cold teacup, and you’ve got a lukewarm cup of tea that won’t taste great. Therefore, it’s always best to pre-heat your tea ware first.
Probably the best way to do this is to start off with water that’s around 175F (water boils at 212F). Pour that into the cold teapot, and wait for about a minute. Pour that into a small teacup, wait for about a minute. Pour that water into another teacup, wait for about a minute. Add your leaves to the empty teapot. Pour hot water from teacup back into the teapot and brew for 2.5-3 minutes. Note that you will have a very high leaves to water ratio, this is correct. For second infusions, a wait time of just 30 seconds if satisfactory. Quite often, the second infusion will be greener than the first.
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