This spring I ordered shincha (new tea) from Japan for the first time. I have been drinking loads of sencha (at least a pot a day) for the past few years, and was excited to try the first tea of the year this May. I ordered from Hibiki-an, and chose their ‘aracha’ or ‘farmer’s shincha’. I chose this tea mainly because of the amount offered– a lot of the other new tea was sold in very small quantities. Buying 40g of tea at a time really doesn’t do me a lot of good, because I go though it very quickly.

Apparently it was a season of firsts in my tea world, because not only was it my first time buying a shincha, but it was my first time drinking aracha, as well. Aracha is, essentially, an unfinished tea. Finished sencha has all the stems removed from the tea leaves, and is also dried longer so that it keeps a bit better. Because aracha is less finished it appears rather fluffier in the bag. It takes up more space, and has a more ‘leafy’ appearance when brewed, because of the presence of larger leaves and because the stems are intact.

This tea arrived in two separate bags (80 grams in each) and I have finished the first bag, and am now about a third of the way through the second one. This tea is a good value (it’s actually the least expensive shincha available from Hibiki-an, I believe) and is a nice everyday drinking tea.

Upon opening my first bag of this tea and inhaling deeply, I found that it smelled like tomatoes. Not in an unpleasant way, mind you. It still smells like tea, but with a hint of tomatoes ripening in the sun on a bright afternoon. However, I now find that my second bag of aracha has a scent more reminiscent of tropical fruit, with deeply green, grassy notes. In the kyusu while brewing, it smells like new potatoes. The colour is a bright yellow-green when poured, and tastes like spring should; fresh, verdant and alive with possibility. It’s a bright and cheery tea. It is slightly more bitter than the sencha fukamushi (deep steamed) that I usually drink, and is a little pickier about brewing parameters. I like it brewed on the cool side, around 70C, for about a minute and a half.

When I drink this humble, unassuming tea I like to imagine I am a tea farmer in Japan. The spring sun beats down on me as I lean back against my tractor, wipe my brow, and take a break from the day’s work, with a fresh cup of shincha to relieve my fatigue and restore my spirit.

Happy new tea!

Tags: Japanese, sencha, spring, Tea

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