Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Chinese and Japanese green tea

Do you know what distinguished Chinese and Japanese green tea? Have you tried both? Well, I have tried only one kind of Chinese green tea, but I definitely found differences between the Chinese and Japanese tea.

Left:Japanese, Right:Chinese

The needle-shaped Japanese tea, sencha has dark green hue. It looks tightly curled and its texture is somewhat glossy. Despite the Chinese green tea I tried in the workshop, it was flatter with a subtly-textured surface and the color is brighter. My impression of Chinese green tea was clearer and has milder bitterness than sencha. The Japanese sencha has more umami. The Chinese one had greener aroma, but still the green tea and its bitterness tastes most similar to Japanese tea which out of the six types of Chinese teas I tried.

The major difference of Chinese and Japanese green tea is of its heating process when they are produced. Green tea is heated right after harvested. The leaves are usually roasted on Chinese style and steamed in Japanese, which create slightly different character green teas. So, which do you prefer?

3 comments:

  1. I tend to prefer japanese green tea. But it is cool to be able to drink them all ! :-)

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  2. I have only tried one kind of Chinese green tea, but I prefer Japanese one so far. I love the umami that Japanese tea have ^^

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