Tea Guardian: Green Teas: Steamed: Uji Gyokuro

Steamed Green tea: Uji Gyokuro

A Premium Gyokuro

A premium quality gyokuro produced in Uji by a traditional renowned brand and producer. Notice the duller surface of the thinnly rolled leaves and yet the intensely seaweed green colour. The rounder body of the leaves compared to lower grade products is also a visual signifier of finer productions. The occasional lighter green of this shade is also a tell-tale of very young plucks.

Compare the appearance of this selection with the following:

A special quality gyokuro

Produced by the same traditionally renowned brand as the above selection, this particular one is said to have won a jury prize in a tea fair in Hong Kong. Look closely at the leaves and see that they are much flatter than those in the above selection. The colour is also a lot more uniform and the surface a bit more glossy. These are signs of more mass market grades. The aroma, whether the dry leaves or the infusion, is less impressive than the finer one.

A very high grade sencha

Also from the same brand, this is one of the best sencha at a reasonable price. Comparatively, the leaves are a lot glossier than the above two and the colour again more unform. The aroma is still detactable though far less complex than the gyokuro.

Gyokuro, aka Jade Dew, is the name of a special quality class of Japanese steamed green tea (i.e. sencha).(note) It originated in Uji in south of Kyoto. There are different quality grades within this class. They are named with poetic references rather than numbers, such as Crane, or Pine, or Purple Clouds etc, by the producers.

production regions

Currently, Uji, and the Prefectures of Shizuoka and Fukuoka are the key production areas in Japan. Uji and Yame in Fukuoka compete in various ways to be the best region. Productions also take place in the provinces of Zhejiang and Sichuan in China for both the domestic Japanese market and the export markets.

We shall look at a best gyokuro from Uji in this article and discuss how it can be best enjoyed, from the perspectives of taste and health. Before we do that, there are a few concepts we need to re-align so we can understand this particular green tea better.

gyokuro: one of the steamed green teas

Firstly, there are four subcategories of green teas, and the steamed green tea that most people take as Japanese tea is under one of these subcategories. <read more about green tea as a category>

Secondly, there are other tea production methods practiced in Japan other than steaming. Roasting and making of semi-fermented teas (not as oolong) are some of them, we shall look at them in other articles.

Thirdly, there are other steamed green tea varieties, such as tencha for grinding into matcha in Japan, and Emei Maofeng, a traditional whole-leaf tea from Sichuan, China.

All in all, gyokuro is a fine green tea variety that is produced by a special process involving steaming, and there are different levels of quality and slight variations dependent on origins and production styles.

note

It is popular to say that Gyokuro is a unique tea variety outside of sencha. However, we have another opinion. Please click on this <Buying tips> to read more.

Acknowledgement: Tea sample courtesy of Ms Yoshie Matsumiya of La mélangée, Kyoto.

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