bi luo chun Green Tea

yunnan si mao bi luo chun?!

Ok, as a Chinese, I really don't know YunNan province has this kind of tea. For us , bi luo chun is the green tea growing in west and east mountain(though no high mountain around, "shan"means mountain in Chinese) of dongting area in Jiangsu province. JiangSu and YunNan 's climate,soil, latitude are not the same . Maybe they could introduce some kind of similar tea trees to the south, but they are not the same thing. Nobody will say Yun Nan bi luo chun in China.

This is implied. We are not really talking about "real" Biluochun, but a 'generic' Biluochun-like tea that is made to look like Biluochun.

I am not sure how much Jiangsu Biluochun is inflated in price when it is sold abroad, I've mentioned that Teaspring have some for $28.70/100g but that factors in some airmail shipping and card processing, Jing Tea Shop also have one for $24.90/100g which factors in card processing but not shipping I would presume.

I mean there are a lot of 'generic' replicas that people happily drink because they find them enjoyable. If you drink a lot of tea for the sake of drinking the tea as a beverage i.e. with food then its the only real option. I've tasted some 'generic' Biluochun from a Chinese supermarket a long time ago and I found it unpalatable, I binned it in company with some 'generic' Longjing, the steel cans they came in are quite useful; they remind me never to do that again!

-- VL

Twigs of sencha are "kikucha".

The twigs of gyokuro are called "karigane".

The dust (not collected on the floor, but on the belt while processing the leaves) is "konacha"

The shoots (that's the small leaves that are too small or the tips of the leaves) are "mecha"

Those products are very common by-products obtained while processing the leaves. Their names are standardised for all Japan and they are sold that way on markets.

On this pages , photos and definitions of konacha / kukicha / mecha

You can buy in shops blends of twigs and leaves and even matcha. Blends have no standard names, the sellers decides. The Japanese package tends to explain clearly what it contains, or if they are lazy, they only write "ryokucha" (green tea). I think Lewis found leaves in a "kukicha blend".

There exist also (less standard) :

The big stems are "boucha", usually of bancha, and are often roasted. (I never saw them otherwise, but I've not seen everything)

Bancha means leftovers collected later in the season. It's often roasted. It can be aged.

Houjicha can be any *roasted* tea (sencha/bancha/boucha...)., it can be roasted in a number of way. That can be done to recycle leaves of sencha that lose their freshness. I have a sort of pottery with a hollow handle that is a hoji-cha roaster.

There are dozens of regional sorts of bancha/houjicha with as many names. For instance kyobancha is Kyoto-style, the whole leaves are fire-dried/roasted. Other sorts are processed differently. The recipe to prepare them also varies (brewing, simmering...)

Photos of : houjicha/ genmaicha / bancha (not roasted) / kyobancha

Bancha, bocha, kukicha are said to contain less cafeine. Hojicha is considered cafeine-less. So old people drink them for this reason.

Kuri

It was sold as "kukicha" without any modifier. I bought it at Ito En in New York. I've had the same experience buying kukicha from Wild Lily in New York. I would hope Ito En, at least, knew what they were talking about, no?

By the way, I've certainly also seen twig-only kukicha.

/Lew

Leaves in kukicha (just plain "kukicha") were commonplace where I resided in Japan as well. This was in the Nagasaki region.

By the way, I've mentioned in the past my grandmother-in-law's homemade tea from plants in her garden. It very closely resembles the Kyoto-style kyobancha at the bottom of this page, the major difference being that the whole tea leaves in hers are more tightly curled:

--crymad

They surely know : "茎だけを選別したお茶". A" tea made with only the twigs".

That's not a shame to blend it. Maybe their labels are too short to write it all.

The essential is you get real tea and don't have to drink the *special US market Ito-en".

Kuri

Bancha seems to have that nori vibe that I like whereas sencha doesn't.

Pete

Hehe. My question was more in regards to pan-fired teas. I read that Hojicha is pan fired, but so is sencha. What's the difference then?

-S.

Hojicha is *roasted*, like you roast coffee, like pop

I see. But still:

But everywhere I read says it's roasted tea still. Except here and the FAQ. So the difference between Hojicha and Sencha (traditional) would be that it is a difference in quality of the leaves used?

-S.

That wikipedia article is not correct. Sen 煎 in sencha 煎茶 does not mean roasted. I guess it's just a mistranslation:

Sencha is actually steamed green tea 蒸茶, or 蒸绿茶.

I guess, the meaning of sencha 煎茶 has to do with the way the tea is prepared for drinking - not so much as in the way the tea is processed.

I am not trying to argue with you, but there seems to be a lot of people who are confused. I just want to know what I'm getting because i DO NOT WANT pan-fired tea, and was thinking about purchasing this:

But it claims it's pan fired. =/

-S.

Well, I don't know about that. Seems their information is incorrect too. I have a package of Maeda-En Gold Sencha purchased from my local Korean grocery store.

The package says: "immediately after the leaves are picked they are steamed, rolled and dried resulting in shiny needle-like leaves."

The key thing here, with Sencha (or even Gyokuro), is that they're steamed first to prevent oxidation. Then, they are rolled. Then, they are dried to get rid of the moisture. Harvesting and processing is all mechanically done, so it results in broken leaves.

Since I enjoy both pan-fired and steamed green teas, I wonder why you're trying to avoid the former.

/Lew

My assumption is that pan-firing it exposes the tea to much hire temperatures, destroying some of what i enjoy about green tea. I should try it I suppose. (I just don't want to buy 2 pounds of it if I don't like it.)

-S.

They claim you can get Japanese sencha for 10 bucks a kilo. If you buy that, you can buy anything they tell you.

Kuri