Why is Sencha so ugly

In my experience, tamaryokucha is, shall we say, up to Chinese green tea standards.[1]

/Lew

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. :) I have found quite a number of senchas and gyokuros that are very nice leaves, also some variants of sencha like the wiry "spider leg" type end as a nicer leaf. I actually really like the slim broken blade-like look of the brewed leaf, I find it interesting and a bit more interesting than just a full round leaf or bud. I will say when all the liquor is gone though and it is just a mass of flat green mush-like sludge with no definition it loses some beauty. It is a pretty shade of green though.

Bancha and most cheaper sencha is pretty poor. There is one inexpensive sencha that comes in a long plastic bag/tube thing and that one often has very nice long flat pieces... but outside of the few exceptions you need to get into the higher-end before you start getting away from the "ginsu combine" look and even then there are no guarantees. The taste is telling enough.

- Dominic