Roasted Japanese (bancha) green tea with an amber colored infusion with a rich nutty flavor. Low in caffeine.
Most Japanese teas are made from well handled leaves and much of their elegance and style is due to the processing: steaming immediately after plucking and then air drying. Bancha or Sencha are the everyday green tea drinks of Japan. Ban 2 GO is one of the highest grades of Bancha. The leaves to produce Bancha are generally plucked after the new season and tend to be somewhat coarser. This however gives the tea its unique character and visual appearance. Since the leaves used to make Bancha are coarser and contain some stalks and stems the resulting tea generally contains less caffeine or tannin then the finer grades of Japanese tea. Also the cup tends to be somewhat milder. Because of the proceeding factors Bancha is often give to children.
Japanese tea gardens look quite different from tea plantations in other parts of the world. The bushes are cultivated in long rows and trimmed so the row has the appearance of a long dome. In Shizuoka Prefecture it is said that the tea gives the impression of smooth waves of green, undulating over the landscape. This curved form of the tea bush gives the largest plucking table (the area where the new shoots used in high quality tea production grow is called the plucking table - not only in Japan but in other parts of the tea growing world as well). It is on the long regularly shaped plucking table that the pickers take the leaves and the new buds. In the early season plucking is only done by hand, but once the first few weeks pass, mechanical plucking is the preferred method. The Japanese have been very innovative in this aspect by developing a curved machine that is hand held but clips the tea bush with automatic scissors that look like electric hair clippers.
Houjicha a pan-fried or oven roasted green tea commonly encountered in teashops throughout Japan. Houjicha is known for very little bitterness and tend to be aromatic teas as well as being light on the palate and quite refreshing. Both bancha and Kukicha are used to make houjicha grades. The tea is fried at high temperature, the leaf colors then change from green tints to red, and the roasted flavors are extracted and predominate. Houjicha infusions have a distinctively clear red appearance (as distinct from hongcha) and are reputedly low in caffeine as well as catechin antioxidants.
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