Tencha (碾茶)

Open a bag of matcha and you find a silky green powder. Open a bag of the tea it comes from, and you might not recognize it as tea at all. The leaves are flat, thin and papery, more like flakes of dried seaweed than the dark needles of sencha. That tea is tencha, and almost all of it disappears into a stone mill before most people ever see it. Tencha (碾茶) is a shade-grown Japanese green tea that is steamed and dried without being rolled. It is the raw leaf that is ground into matcha, but it can also be brewed on its own as a leaf tea. In this guide, you’ll learn what the name means, how it is grown and made, where it comes from, how it differs from gyokuro and sencha, and how to drink it as a leaf tea if you can find it. The short answer Tencha is the leaf tea used to make matcha. The tea plants are shaded for about three weeks before harvest, and the leaves are steamed and dried flat, without rolling. After the stems and veins come out, a mill grinds the soft leaf into matcha. A few producers also sell tencha whole, to brew as a leaf tea. TOCWhat Is Tencha? Tencha is a type of Japanese green tea made for one main purpose: to become matcha. Like gyokuro, it is grown under shade. Un...