Kyobancha

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.

• Uji — 30–300 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Uji’s tea land is low-lying by international standards; the figures here are approximate and should be replaced with a sourced range before publication.

• Ujitawara — 100–500 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. Steaming (Japanese fixation) — Denatures polyphenol oxidase using saturated steam, arresting oxidation without applying dry contact heat to the leaf surface.
2. 2. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.
3. 3. Roasting — Drives off residual moisture and drives thermal reactions in the finished leaf, deepening colour and building toasted aromatics.

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.

• Unrolled roasted bancha — The hojicha route with the rolling taken out, and the omission is visible from across a room: the leaf never becomes leaf-shaped at all, and stays as whole flat brown blades that most people do not recognise as tea.

  Where it is practised: Kyoto prefecture and its immediate neighbours, where it is an everyday household tea rather than a specialty. Comparable unrolled roasted teas are made elsewhere in Japan under local names; the Kyoto version is the one with a trade identity.

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: Epimerised catechins, Melanoidins.

• Steaming (Japanese fixation)
  • creates Dimethyl sulfide
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks Chlorophyll
  • locks EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins
• Roasting
  • converts Free amino acids
  • converts L-theanine
  • converts Soluble sugars
  • creates Pyrazines
  • raises Beta-ionone
  • lowers Glutamic acid

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

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  3–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 4 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

Common mistakes

• Buying it as hojicha and being surprised by the smoke. Hojicha is roasted rolled leaf and tastes of caramel and nuts; kyobancha is roasted unrolled leaf and tastes of a bonfire.
• Using sencha quantities. The leaf is bulky and light, so a given weight fills far more of the pot than expected.

When the cup goes wrong

Written against green tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 37 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• I bought a big bag to save money and it was stale before I finished it — A large quantity bought at a good unit price faded well before it was drunk, so the saving turned into waste.
• I bought a water filter for my tea and it changed nothing — A filter jug or tap filter was bought specifically to improve the tea, and the cup tastes the same as it did before — with the same dullness, the same film and the same scale in the kettle.
• I have too many teas open and most of them are going stale — A dozen or more packets are open at once, three or four get drunk regularly, and the rest fade quietly on the shelf until they are thrown away.
• Leaves stick to the cup, the pot and my teeth — Fine leaf clings to the inside of the vessel, comes through into the cup, and ends up in the last mouthful.
• My bamboo whisk is losing tines — Fine bamboo tines snap off during whisking and turn up in the bowl, and the whisk feels stiff and splayed.
• My cold brew tastes like faintly flavoured water — After a night in the fridge the jug is pale and tastes of very little, with none of the sweetness cold brewing is supposed to give.

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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