Green tea leaf particle and leaf size

Hi Bernie,

It really depends on the type of tea itself. While Chinese greens tend to have fuller leaves, sencha will usually have a lot of small particles-- it's not just your store. It's just a result of different processing methods, as far as I know, and doesn't necessarily mean that one is better than the other. If, hypothetically, you had a large number of different batches of long jing (or some other Chinese green) there may be a general correlation between leaf fullness and quality, but it's more of a trend than a rule. Teaspring.com is a fairly reputable source of Chinese greens; and o-cha.com, hibiki- an.com, and zencha.net are good sources of Japanese greens (like sencha). Hope this helps!

-Brent

Hello Brent, Thanks for replying.

Thanks for the info on Sencha. I will continue to enjoy my new Sencha. I guess I get a bit confused because I since discovering loose leaf green tea, there is so much more to tea than I expected. There are smells, tastes, appearance, and brewing methods of tea, that makes it a continuous learning experience. I guess one can never know the real "quality" of the tea but has to base it on their own experiences, which I'm working on, and forums like this.

I guess in a perfect world, we would all have the best quality tea. But one can only do with what he or she has, learn from it, and share their experiences.

Thanks again

Bernie

Bernie,

I grew up drinking black tea with milk and sugar from tea bags, but good ones ;-) like Red Rose and Tetley. I later eliminated the milk, then the sugar, as my tastes "matured". A special treat was Twinings loose tea. My parents are Scottish, and this is the way the Scots usually enjoy their tea.

Fast-forward to last year. I took a six-class course (two hours each) at Seven Cups here in Tucson. Each class was devoted to a particular type of tea (white, green, oolong, scented/flavored, red/black, and puer). I had never heard of puer until then. Anyway, in a short time I went from being someone who poured boiling water over a tea bag to someone who measures the tea leaves (by eye), gauges the water temp (usually by feel/time, but sometimes with a thermometer), watches infusion time, etc.

Yes, there are a lot of variables in tea-making and tea-brewing, and thousands of varieties. The fun is in exploring and finding out what you like and don't like.

BTW: sencha is also called "spider leg" because of the shape of the leaves. They're supposed to be somewhat broken.

Alan

Alan, that is so weird you mentioned Seven Cups, because I just watched those videos (I think there were 3 of them) on their site. I liked that the couple was truly into tea, and were excited about sharing their information. thanks for your experience. That class in Tucson as well as that Tea Shop sounds so wonderful. It's definitely worth a visit next time I'm in that area.

Bernie

leaf quality tells a lot about the tea. Just to be clear, a very high- grade sencha should have nice large leaves. They will be pressed flat and in fairly thin strips but they should be predominantly long. It may not be quite like other teas in that you have huge, full, perfect leaves but there is a definite difference in grades. That being said, try as many as you can. Low-grade, mid-grade, and if you can or even just a sample from an online dealer a very high-grade. It is the best way to understand and appreciate the different Japanese green teas. Hibikian, o-cha, etc. are all good places, but there is nothing inherently wrong with your local market either. I tend to enjoy the mid-grade Japanese greens (bancha, sencha, and gyokuro) and treat myself to some fresh high-grade greens in smaller quantities. Even a box of Hime brand Bancha for $3-4 is a great place to start and a large step up from teabags or expensive brand-name loose teas from boutiques.

We've all started out in the same place you are right now. The journey, exploration, and knowledge is all part of the enjoyment and never forget the most important part: If you enjoy it, it is a top tea. That's why my little gold/yellow tins of Sunflower brand jasmine green site right next to hand-produced jasmine green direct from the producer in my cupboard. You'll find your tastes will change and what is the top right now may become the very bottom in a few years, but that doesn't matter and should never stop you from enjoying the adventure.

- Dominic

Tea Sunrise

I am glad you find Sevencups useful. I have never ordered from them, but just looking at the info and prices, they look the most authentic to me, above the other mentioned ones.

I am treading sandy ground here as I have never systematically tested them, so don't take it as a recommendation from me.

The following applies only to Chinese green tea, and not to Sencha of which I know nothing of.

Yes, when it comes to green tea, size is important. The general assumption is younger the tea shoots, the higher the grade.

You can see some pictures of tea shoots over here.

Tea shoots generally are smaller than tea leaves. The Chinese tend to grade it as a % of a fully matured leaves.

So a high grade leaves will usually be one bud with 0 to 2 slightly unfurled leaves. (i.e. the leaves are hardly opened)

Whereas oolong tea may be 1/3 to 1/2 the size of fully matured leaves.

Back to green tea in the realm of tea shoots...

High quality tea shoots tend to be fairly (but not overly) complete (not fragmented) and uniform (but not overly so, as it would then be a fake).

The youngest tea shoots (picked earliest spring) tends to be the fattest. So here you have a case where they are the youngest but slightly larger (fatter) than later pickings.

But leave the tea buds a few days longer and they will get quite large, and corresponding lower quality.

This is a generalisation of the small-variety Chinese plants.

Into the realms of different varieties of Chinese green tea ...

Biluochun is usually the case of smaller the better ... When grading they into account of age and size.

Longjing is usually age, well, that is my tea garden practice anyway.

TPHK is made from Shi Da Cha (the big variety) which is exactly the opposite (stouter, larger, the better). But they are still harvested really early (first 20 days in spring only).

But TPHK is not typical of Chinese green tea. This type of Chinese tea is found only in Anhui province.

In summary, age is usually the determining factor.

When looking at external appearance, we look at size, fattiness, aroma, uniformity, PROPORTION of buds and leaves, how open the leaves, and to much smaller extent tea liquor colour/brightness are etc.

All these factors can give indication of age.

There is another page of materials here

But there most important thing is TASTE - it is the only thing that doesn't lie.

If you don't mind, can I post your question and this discussion to my site? I will love to share the discussions with my visitors.

Hope it helps.

Julian

I absolutely do not mind. Thanks for a such a great response.

Just to clarify, I was speaking about Japanese teas such as Sencha as the OP brought up. Sencha should look like a nice pile of fresh blades of grass. Verdant green, with the majority being nice long blades. It won't look like a full leaf but the pieces will be long and the majority unbroken. A lot of Sencha consists of small blades 1/8"-1/2" and broken bits and dust, it doesn't mean it is inherently bad but the better quality Sencha's I've had are full of 1-2" blades with little to no dust or broken pieces. They flow almost like silk and are not rough, over-dried, dull green/brown blades and pieces. That is probably the best quick and dirty explanation I can give.

Check out o-cha's website for a ton of info, guides, and even video on Japanese green teas for more info. I agree that all of that changes with Chinese greens which are more about the buds and different processing styles. The Bi Lo Chun I just received from Teaspring is very tight little spirals (snails) and unfurl into beautiful, almost impossible, full leaves. One would never guess that full leaf is hiding in that little curled bit just from sight alone. Chinese greens are a different animal altogether and there are no hard and fast rules that apply to all of them.

- Dominic

I agree with brent on this, chinese tea tend to have full leaf while sencha tends to have broken leaves. I experience this with all my sencha so far. :)

My experience here with green tea is that the softer the leaf feel the higher the quality of the lea leaf which after reading Julians report on th eyounge leaf it makes sense. I dont belive the size of leaf has been an attraction of mine, i have had some fine japanese sencha where the leaf is very small yet the tea is incredible. one sign in my opinion of poor quality tea is that if you have an aftertaste in your mouth after drinking the tea. This I am told is from poor manufacturing methods. finally a good qulaity can very easily be contamimated or loose its quality if there is air leaking. In my opinion if you cannot put your tea storage system under water for a few minutes then its NOT AIR TIGHT hope that he;ps maurice

I agreed with Brent, Chinese green tea leaves have fuller leaves and sencha ussually have small pieces in them. I have seen all my sencha having small broken pieces.

:)

i must....

japanese has small ones ...

chinese has big ones ...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ tgfop.wordpress.com You can handle my gaiwan, but... be gentle.

Sorry this has nothing to do with the thread due to my newsgroups experience, but I replied to someone on the thread that they could use my question on their website and it doesn't show on the thread. Also, the thread says 13 messages and I can only see 10. Is it me or am I missing something here. I'd post this question under Newbies or something , but I thought this would be easier to get a response. Thanks for your replies.

Tea Sunrise wrote in news:1190478273.952707.207280 @o80g2000hse.googlegroups.com:

if using google groups webpage, theres a "newer" link somewhere when viewing a thread, kind of like next page,

google groups has some stupid algorhythm to showing which thread has new messages, but it doesnt work right

very annoying, especially with that rather invisible next page link,

conclusion: i switched to a 'real' newsreader, xnews. i see all my messages, i see all new messages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ tgfop.wordpress.com You can handle my gaiwan, but... be gentle.

Generally, and I didn't read the subsequent posts in this thread, fuller/non-broken leaves can sometimes indicate if the tea was picked and processed by hand or with the use of a machine. Usually, in Chinese teas, if you have nice, full leaves, you have a better quality tea. This isn't always the case.

With many Taiwan Wulongs, you can see how edge of the knife that cut the stems of the tea and that it was processed by hand because of how tender the leaves remain even after processing. Compare this to any TieGuanYin and you can see a huge difference.

Bernie,

Zhuping and Austin are passionate about tea and they are very genuine people. They would rather sell you nothing than sell you something that didn't meet their standards. I feel very fortunate to have a tea house like that here in Tucson.

Alan