Batabatacha

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.

• Asahi (Toyama) — 50–400 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Read from the town's own topography between the coast and the Asahi hills. No source consulted states a planting elevation, which is unsurprising for a single-hamlet production.

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. Wet piling (wo dui) — Supports microbial and thermal transformation of the finished leaf, converting harsh young character into a darker, softer profile.
3. 3. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

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.

• Aerobic mould-fermented bancha — Japan's other fermented tea, and the one that does the opposite of the pickled teas: it lets the air in. The leaf is heaped after fixation and a mould is allowed to grow through it in the open, with nothing sealed and nothing weighted.

  Where it is practised: Asahi in Toyama prefecture, on the Sea of Japan coast, where it survives as a communal drinking practice rather than as a commercial category. It has no scale anywhere else.

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
• Wet piling (wo dui)
  • converts Catechins
  • creates Gallic acid
  • creates Theabrownins
  • raises Organic acids
  • raises Pectins
  • lowers ECG (epicatechin gallate)
  • lowers Soluble sugars
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

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

• Whisking (bowl-prepared powdered tea)

  1–2 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

• Boiling and decoction

  0.8–1.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Open in the brew assistant

Where this tea sits in the history

Events on TeaHQ’s chronology that this tea belongs to. Each carries its date and what kind of date it is, because a good many of the confident years in tea writing are traditional ones.

• From before the written record to roughly the eighth century CE — Tea eaten and boiled before it was infused

Common mistakes

• Reaching for a matcha chasen. A single-headed whisk will not lift the foam this preparation is built on; the twin head is functional rather than decorative.
• Powdering the leaf, on the assumption that anything whisked in Japan must be a powder.

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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