Awabancha

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in Japan. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Kamikatsu — 200–800 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Kill-green (fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase and related enzymes, arresting enzymatic oxidation.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Anaerobic pickling — Excludes oxygen from a mass of heat-treated leaf so that lactic acid bacteria dominate the microbial population, acidifying the leaf and transforming it under anaerobic conditions.
4. 4. Sun-drying (shai qing) — Reduces moisture to a storable level at low temperature, leaving residual enzymatic and microbial activity in the leaf.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Boiled and rubbed lactic tea — A pickled tea whose leaf is boiled in water rather than steamed above it, and then rubbed before it goes into the barrel. Both differences exist to produce something the other pickling routes do not have: a liquid to seal the leaf under.

  Where it is practised: The mountain villages of Tokushima prefecture on Shikoku, above all Kamikatsu, where it is an everyday tea rather than a revival product. The neighbouring Kochi tradition, which is two-stage, is a separate route.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Organic acids.

• Kill-green (fixation)
  • locks 2-Phenylethanol
  • locks Anthocyanins
  • locks Catechins
  • locks cis-3-Hexenol
  • locks Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks L-theanine
  • locks Leaf lipids
  • locks Methylated catechins
  • locks Theogallin
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Anaerobic pickling
  • creates Organic acids
• Sun-drying (shai qing)
  • raises Beta-ionone
  • lowers Carotenoids

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

Brewing

• Boiling and decoction

  0.5–1.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

Common mistakes

• Brewing it like sencha, at 70°C for a minute, which produces a thin sour water with none of the body the long kettle steep gives.
• Assuming the sourness means the tea has spoiled. It is the point of the process, not a fault in the batch.

When the cup goes wrong

Written against dark tea and pu-erh as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 15 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• Every infusion in my gongfu session tastes the same — The cups are pleasant and interchangeable, with none of the change from steep to steep the method is supposed to show.
• My clay pot has changed how the tea tastes — A tea that tasted right in porcelain comes out muted, differently scented, or carrying something that was not in the leaf.
• My first infusion is always the worst one — The opening cup is thin, dusty or flat, and the second is markedly better — consistently, across different teas.
• My gaiwan is too hot to hold — The rim and lid become uncomfortable within seconds, the pour is rushed, and tea ends up on the tray.
• My gongfu tea is bitter even at five seconds — The timer says five or ten seconds and the cup is over-extracted anyway, with the later infusions dropping off sharply.
• My pu-erh cake will not break apart cleanly — The cake resists the pick, then gives way suddenly into powder and fragments rather than intact leaf.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

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