Sniffing tea: How two weeks of shading affects a tea's aroma
Green tea
The tea shop at the local mall had a nice display of their offerings the other day, with samples of each tea in a small bowl on a table.
I was most interested in sniffing the sencha and gyokuro green teas. Gyokuro is a type of sencha, but it’s shaded for two weeks before it’s harvested. This increases the amount of caffeine and amino acids in the tea, and it also endows the tea with a sweeter flavour than normal sencha. The shading also affects the tea’s colour. Gyokuro is noticeably darker than sencha (as you can see in the image at the top).
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But it’s the contrast between the two aromas that I found most interesting. The sencha had a light, familiar aroma – what I’d expect from a Japanese green. Gyokuro, on the other hand, has a much richer aroma, complementing its darker appearance. The impact of those two weeks of shade is right there, instantly apparent.
Please ignore this little test: Kangaroo liver Turkmenistan.
