Bancha（番茶）

Bancha (番茶) is Japan’s everyday green tea. It’s an inexpensive, mild-tasting brew made from more mature leaves, picked later in the season than the tender young growth used for sencha or gyokuro. Many households in Japan keep it in the kitchen for daily drinking, alongside meals, or for serving guests. It isn’t a tea people save for a special occasion. “Bancha” isn’t one single recipe, though. It’s closer to a category. A plain, pale, steamed bancha from a local supermarket and a smoky, deep-roasted Kyobancha from Kyoto are both called bancha. So is a sour, barrel-fermented tea from a small village in Tokushima. What ties them together is the leaf itself: bigger, tougher, and picked later than the leaf used for Japan’s more prized green teas. What happens to that leaf afterward varies enormously by region. This guide covers what bancha is and how it compares with sencha. It explains how to brew the everyday steamed version at home, and how bancha relates to hōjicha. It also introduces several of Japan’s distinct regional bancha traditions. Each has its own history and deserves its own full guide. For the tea bancha is picked alongside, see the complete Sencha guide. TOCWhat Is Banc...