Aoyanagi

[skilfautdire]

Just got almost through an hefty bag of aoyanagi bought at the Chinese supermarket. Strong smelling bancha tea. $6 for 300g. The brew for such a cheap tea has refreshing properties. Could also be nice perhaps as iced tea. That kind of roasted Japanese tea is seemingly not very much offered by the online vendors. is it considered too cheap (2nd maybe 3rd flush) to be worthwhile of attention ?

[tsusentei]

I know that many of the Japanese vendors sell some sort of bancha/hojicha concentrates, but the leaf is unappealing to them. Maybe it is too cheap. I make some, but just because it is so refreshing. I know that there is always big demand in Japan as in many households they drink that instead of water I also use the brew in cooking soups, etc. Interesting that you found some, i haven't seen it in stores yet.

[skilfautdire]

It is indeed quite refreshing. A quick search shows that aoyanagi is part of a family of Japanese teas which are not steamed, but rather roasted and which excludes hojicha. So maybe the right word is not 'roasted' but maybe pan-fired or somesuch. Some articles refer to these teas as japanese teas made the Chinese way. tamaryoku-cha (kama-guri) is one of those teas. This is very new for me so I'm not sure. Aoyanagi as well as ureshino seems to be methods of making teas, both using this 'kama' tray to heat the tea for stopping oxidation. Well, I'm taking these informations from a blog by a French guy (in French) living in Japan and selling teas at a Japanese store. Does it make sense to me ? So far, I like the refreshing taste of the aoyanagi and from that I saw that there are some 'pan-fired' Japanese teas although they are seemingly in low production and only from specific regions of Japan.

I will certainly get some more aoyanagi from the Chinese supermarket and eventually I will perhaps learn about other teas from this lesser known family of Japanese teas.

[tsusentei]

Pan-fired teas are extremely rare in Japan. I have only found them by going into regions where there are no major forms of commutation (trains, highways, etc.) Aoyanagi, at least those that are made now, are not really pan-fired and neither is tama-ryoku, or so I have been told. I have not seen production on these teas, but the pan-fired teas I have sampled have tasted nothing like tama-ryoku. They tend to taste more like Yunnan green teas. Anyhow, good find! Aoyanagi is a great table-tea.

[OchameTaiken]

I hesitate to say that yanagi would be pan-fired. That certainly isn't the case most of the time. I cannot speak to what all producers may do with their yanagi, but kawayanagi and aoyanagi are merely appellations for bancha. Whereas the term bancha is commonly used throughout the industry, kawa-/ao-yanagi is an old term used down in the Kansai area around Kyoto. So, yanagi can be used to differentiate Kansai bancha from Kanto bancha up north.

As for tamaryokucha, pan-fired is a classic form of this tea. Teas that are parched in the Chinese style mostly remain in the island area of Shikoku where that style of tea was introduced through China and Korea.

Today you can get tamaryokucha in both mushi-sei (steamed), and kamairi-sei (parched). The name just refers to the coiled magatama shape.

[Chip]

+1

OK, we are talking about a bunch of very different things here?

I have had one yanagi, which I was told means willow leaf or something similar (I cannot vouch for whether that is true or just a sales pitch by Harney), a reference to the rather long flatter green leaves. It was simply green steamed bancha. Nothing very exciting, but I could see it as a so called water substitute or cold brewed.

Of course this would lend it self nicely to roasting/the making of a houjicha which I would call a post manufacture process. The tea was already manufactured, then roasted to make houjicha. .

This is completely different than the firing process during the actual manufacture of certain classes of Japanese teas in the Chinese pan firing style such as Kamairicha.

[Chip]

In the course of making Sencha, it happens that some leaves fall out in the rubbing process and come out flat, folded in two or double-folded in four. Because they look like willow leaves, the tea made of such leaves is called Willow, which has a lighter and less lingering taste than Sencha. More than a few people prefer to drink it after a meal as well as between meals. The tea leaves are naturally bigger than Sencha’s. A great value.

Not sure of the correctness of this info. I mean they call it Premium Yanagi which seems like an oxomoron, it is bancha after all.

[tsusentei]

Okay, so I looked it up in the glossary that I have been putting together over the last 10 years and here are some answers that I understand to be accurate:

Aoyanagi: Tea that is pan-fired and then rubbed. The harvested leaves are placed into a wide, shallow wok and fired. This tea is produced from Kamamoto to Miyazaki.

Kawayanagi: Sometimes considered a high-grade Bancha, this is the larger leaf taken during a sencha harvest that has been rubbed into the rough shape of a willow leaf, long and flat. A by-product of sencha production. (this sounds like the Harney tea, perhaps)

Yanagicha: One name for Bancha.

Of course, most wholesalers will tack on any old name if they think it will make something sell. So if the tea fails to fit one of the first two descriptions above, I would imagine it might fall into the third category.

I have one more published tea dictionary to which I have contributed, but it is in Japanese, so I will translate and post it's entry on Yanagi related teas later today.

[OchameTaiken]

In the course of making Sencha, it happens that some leaves fall out in the rubbing process and come out flat, folded in two or double-folded in four.

What this is describing is the lower-grade leaf that is sifted out from aracha. Instead of the finely rolled needle-shaped leaves, larger flat bits are separated from the batch.
This is called atama, or sometimes atamayanagi. It is just one of the by-products ("demono") sifted out during grading: atama, mecha, kuki, kona. Just as Anglo-Indian teas have their BOP, fannings, dust.

Atama and kona can come from good-quality leaf, or common quality leaf. Bancha is a very loose term and doesn't always have to mean low-grade late harvest tea. It can be a low-grade sifting from an otherwise high quality tea or even just refer to houjicha in some regions.

[tsusentei]

The "Green Tea Dictionary", by Takano et al, says this:

Yanagi: One type of Bancha. In the Kansai area it is a common spoken abbreviation of Kawayanagi. Anything with older and large leaves mixed in.

Aoyanagi: One type of Kamairi-cha produced in the mountains between Kumamoto and Miyazaki prefectures. The origins are unknown, but it is green, shaped like a comma and has stretched appearance with the unique aroma of Kamairi-cha. Because of recent mechanical processing techniques the existence of these larger leaves is becoming much less prevalent. In the Kansai area this can now be seen represented by a relatively strong and green tea made by using only large, overgrown leaves. The lower grade of this modern tea is called Kawayanagi.

Kawayanagi: One type of Bancha. A by-product of Sencha production, the long, flat, green leaves sorted from Sencha Aracha. Within the Bancha category this is considered a higher grade with a light and refreshing aroma. Composed mainly of the new shoot that has hardened and folded over 2 or 3 times in processing. (like Chip said)

I love it when I get to learn something, too!

[toastedtoads]

The "Green Tea Dictionary", by Takano et al, says this:

Yanagi: One type of Bancha. In the Kansai area it is a common spoken abbreviation of Kawayanagi. Anything with older and large leaves mixed in.
...
Kawayanagi: One type of Bancha. A by-product of Sencha production, the long, flat, green leaves sorted from Sencha Aracha. Within the Bancha category this is considered a higher grade with a light and refreshing aroma. Composed mainly of the new shoot that has hardened and folded over 2 or 3 times in processing. (like Chip said)

I love it when I get to learn something, too!

I've been away from TeaChat for a while and was searching around on things that mention Harney & Sons and found this thread. I'd like to learn more about this so that we can properly educate people in the tea room as to what our teas are and we only have what Mike Harney tells us usually.

When we talk about Bancha and Yanagi in the tasting room, our understanding is that Bancha is comprised of the leaves picked later, after the bud/leaf set for Sencha is picked and that Yanagi is sort of a by-product of the actual processing of Sencha.

Are we wrong? Or are the terms just too vague to really worry about.

[OchameTaiken]

When we talk about Bancha and Yanagi in the tasting room, our understanding is that Bancha is comprised of the leaves picked later, after the bud/leaf set for Sencha is picked and that Yanagi is sort of a by-product of the actual processing of Sencha.

Are we wrong? Or are the terms just too vague to really worry about.

Hello! It's good that you are interested in better understanding the intricacies of the trade. Of course, this is one confuddling topic you've stumbled upon!

Both of the distinctions you described are perfectly true, and the terms are both applicable. But trouble comes from interpreting some terms as hard-fast rules for tea; or use broad, general terms to define something specific. Yanagi is perfectly correct for the low-grade sifting (atama) you mentioned, as this is called 'atama-yanagi.' But, 'bancha,' on the other hand is not so nearly clear-cut as many people assume.

The Japanese Tea Instructors Assoc. and leading scholars on bancha culture recognize many different applications for the term bancha:
-As a late-picked leaves which are older and rougher than young flush (Autumn/Winter Bancha)
-As the course, flat siftings of atama or atamayanagi that are separated from aracha
-As certain domestic, home-grown teas which are still produced by local, regional communities (sun-dried bancha) and old-style, post-fermented teas (Awa Bancha, Goishi-cha).
-And of course there are some regions, such as Tohoku, where the term bancha is simply used to refer to houjicha.

My only point being, that we cannot assume 'bancha' means any one thing.

[toastedtoads]

That all makes sense. I have had people look at our "Bancha" and say it doesn't look roasted (which it's not), or it has not enough/too many twigs in it. I wonder if Michael knows exactly what type of tea it is that we have, besides just "Bancha."

Thank you for the education!

[edkrueger]

Its Yanagi which is essentially second flush sencha. Bancha is the generic term for second flush and byproduct teas.

[Kevangogh]

Bancha can come from the third and fourth harvest, if there is one.

Also, I live in Tohoku and bancha is not referred to as houjicha or vice versa. I'm not sure where this info is being pulled from but it appears dated.