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Forgive me if this is a dumb question but after looking for some new sencha to brew I saw some qualities that I thought were primarily used to describe gyokuros(ie. sweet, umami) I think the site was zencha.net. I've seen the site mentioned so I checked it out and was surprised. Can someone with more knowledge than I explain this to me?

Thanks in advance!

Edit. The title was auto corrected by my iPad... Sorry. Sencha not seen.

Some of their sencha exhibit sweetness. Part of this is perhaps due to the cultivars selected such as Gokou (sp?) which wer have nicked Gyokuro grown in the sun since this cultivar is usually seen in Gyokuro, not sencha.

I have noticed sweetness in NOTTI 3 selections as well.

Sweetness versus bitterness can be accentuated by lowering the brew temp in high quality selections.

Poseidon wrote:Edit. The title was auto corrected by my iPad... Sorry. Sencha not seen.

If you click "edit" when viewing your post, you can also change your subject title!

From my noobish reading, it also seems that fukumashi (and another type that is escaping me... It's in between sencha and Gyokuro) and exhibits sweetness as well. How would you compare the sweetness compared to Gyokuro? I bring Gyokuro up so much because its what I have drank the most out of. I've enjoyed it the most so finding other greens that are close is only natural....right?

Poseidon wrote:From my noobish reading, it also seems that fukumashi (and another type that is escaping me... It's in between sencha and Gyokuro) and exhibits sweetness as well. How would you compare the sweetness compared to Gyokuro? I bring Gyokuro up so much because its what I have drank the most out of. I've enjoyed it the most so finding other greens that are close is only natural....right?

Kabusecha is sort of between Gyokuro and Sencha as it has been shaded for a short period of time ... Gyokuro is shaded longer.

It is natural, yes. But try new teas with an open mind. You never know what you may discover.

Chip wrote: Kabusecha is sort of between Gyokuro and Sencha as it has been shaded for a short period of time ... Gyokuro is shaded longer.

It is natural, yes. But try new teas with an open mind. You never know what you may discover.

Thanks for the tip Chip. I think Ill order some to see if its a nice trade off for an everyday tea with the qualities I'm searching for!

Very simply, all sencha has L-theanine which creates the umami flavor and catechin which creates astringency.

Shading reduces the catechin in the leaf, so that it doesn't overwhelm theanine, and allows a sweet, savory tea to be steeped from the leaf. Gyokuro is shaded for maybe 3 weeks, but also is created with other techniques including fertilization and concentrating nutrients by plucking off leaf buds.

Kabusecha is shaded for shorter, and used to be generally used to increase the theanine content of sencha...a blending technique. Blenders blend a machine-harvested kabusecha or even gyokuro leaf with mid-grade sencha to increase the sencha's overall umami flavor, making it a "better" tea.

Different cultivars of plants also naturally produce different levels of the above components too.