Uji sencha

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.

• Wazuka — 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.

• 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.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Yabukita — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Balanced rather than distinctive: a dependable base for sencha, which is precisely why it was planted so widely.

• Samidori — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Frequently blended with Gokou: Samidori for body, Gokou for aroma. Single-cultivar matcha is the exception rather than the norm.

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. 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. 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.

• Japanese steamed green tea — Fixation by steam within hours of plucking, then a rolling sequence that dries and shapes at once — and then a second factory that turns one intake into four named teas.

  Where it is practised: Almost all Japanese green tea. Also the route for Chinese steamed greens such as Enshi Yu Lu, which use the same fixation and none of the refining tail.

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: Dimethyl sulfide.

• Steaming (Japanese fixation)
  • creates Dimethyl sulfide
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • locks Chlorophyll
  • locks EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• 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.

History

Uji has been Japan’s benchmark tea district since the fifteenth century, when Ashikaga shoguns established gardens there. Its position rests on tencha and gyokuro as much as on sencha, and it survived the shift to Kyushu volume production on reputation.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 65–75 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Kyusu brewing (Japanese style)

  3–5 g/100 ml · 65–75 °C · 3 authored infusions

  Needs: Kyusu

  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

• Ice steeping (kōridashi)

  4–8 g/100 ml · 0–5 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Shiboridashi, Glass teapot, Houhin

  Open in the brew assistant

• Flash-chilled iced tea

  2.5–4 g/100 ml · 75–85 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Cold brew tea

  1.5–2.5 g/100 ml · 3–8 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  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.

• The eighteenth century — Senchadō, and the monk who sold tea in the street

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.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Uji vs Kagoshima — Japan’s historic benchmark district and its modern high-volume one, and the difference is more about cultivars and terrain than about quality. Put the two side by side

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Chatsumi — the Japanese tea-picking season — The eighty-eighth night, the first flush, the song every Japanese schoolchild knows, and the modern reality of a harvest performed almost entirely by machine and celebrated with a hand-picking that is mostly for the cameras.
• Edo-period sencha — The eighteenth-century Uji process that produced the needle-shaped steamed green tea Japan now drinks — invented by a named grower, marketed by a named merchant, and adopted by a counter-cultural movement that wanted nothing to do with the tea ceremony.

Guides covering this tea

• Kuradashi: the one Japanese green tea tradition built on keeping it