It seems like as far as green tea goes roasting is more common than steaming. Is this true?
I was recently on reddit.com/r/tea where a small Vietnamese tea grower created a post to advertise his business.
I asked him if his green tea was roasted or steamed. While he had a sencha, he tried to make it sound like steaming was something green tea producers try to get away from?
Is roast easier or cheaper?
It seems like most cheap, easily available green tea in the US, is roaste ( or old ) as most it produces a yellow tea.
Re: Is roasting cheaper than steaming?
Japanese green tea is mostly steamed and Chinese green tea is mostly roasted..it's just how they make tea after all..
Re: Is roasting cheaper than steaming?
On another tea forum, I read this interesting opinion for a representative of a Vietnamese tea grower, Lily's Tea:
The reason that roasting is preferred over steaming is due to quantity over quality of manufacturers and processors. Although, roasting allows more flavor and blending than steaming, which is why you don't see as many sencha blends.
Re: Is roasting cheaper than steaming?
What does he mean by "blend" exactly? Bancha is steamed and "blended" all the time. There are a few types of "blending" so that comment seems vague to me.
Re: Is roasting cheaper than steaming?
"He" might be a "she" given the name of the company, but I don't know the answer to your question as the conversation ended there.
Re: Is roasting cheaper than steaming?
Not blending as in »tea blends«, right? The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook says that most Japanese green tea apart from »small independent tea farmers« is blended (p59).
Steaming is, as far as I know, older than roasting. I’m not sure when the Chinese began to process their green teas with dry heat, but maybe they abandoned steaming because roasting gave superior results to the way steaming was handled at that time (according to Hibiki-An’s website, the later Sencha steaming process is from 1738)? Or maybe different people just like different flavor profiles.
Steaming is, as far as I know, older than roasting. I’m not sure when the Chinese began to process their green teas with dry heat, but maybe they abandoned steaming because roasting gave superior results to the way steaming was handled at that time (according to Hibiki-An’s website, the later Sencha steaming process is from 1738)? Or maybe different people just like different flavor profiles.
Re: Is roasting cheaper than steaming?
The birth of roasting began because steaming was somewhat complicated and considered as a high class habit..thirst wrote:Not blending as in »tea blends«, right? The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook says that most Japanese green tea apart from »small independent tea farmers« is blended (p59).
Steaming is, as far as I know, older than roasting. I’m not sure when the Chinese began to process their green teas with dry heat, but maybe they abandoned steaming because roasting gave superior results to the way steaming was handled at that time (according to Hibiki-An’s website, the later Sencha steaming process is from 1738)? Or maybe different people just like different flavor profiles.
The founder of Ming dynasty was a peasant-turned-to-king..that he wanted to make tea drinking as all-Chinese activity...hence he prohibited steaming including Matcha-like tea ceremony.
But the better reason was drinking early spring leaves was a trend at that time and they found out roasting could give for better shape of finished leaves and complicated flavor...so there was a huge following among literati drinking roasted tea.