Many green teas come to us from plantations all over Japan, including this tea for everyday pleasure with a little caffeine, Bancha - a Japanese classic. The leaves are harvested at different times of the year and processed in different ways in order to obtain a certain taste and aroma. They are exposed to steam, fried, dried, with or without previous shading, rolled, broken, ground into powder. Bancha, Japanese tea for everyday enjoyment, is made from large, mature, robust leaves.
Bancha is very often used as a basic drink in a macrobiotic diet.
Origin
Bancha kojeg japanci koriste kao čaj za svakodnevni užitak, spada u japanski klasik. Uzgaja se diljem Japana. Prefekture: Mie, Toyama i Shizuoka na otoku Honshu, Kumamoto na Kyushu, Tokushima na otoku Shikoku, najmanjem od četiri glavna otoka Japana, da navedemo samo neke.
Its leaves are from the autumn harvest, near the end of the growing season. They have less theanine (caffeine), and therefore less umami, but more catechin. This makes this tea different from most green teas where young leaves and buds are harvested, and that's why this tea is a tea for everyday enjoyment with little caffeine.
Bancha is processed using the process standard for Japanese green teas: steaming, rolling and drying, just like sencha, but due to the size of the leaf, the rolled leaves end up mostly flat, and only a few have a needle-like shape.
In different parts of Japan, the term Bancha has a different meaning, which can also refer to leaves from the summer harvest or even a combination of leaves from three harvests: spring, summer and autumn in a certain ratio, which can be additionally fried. Roasting reduces the amount of caffeine in the leaves, which is why Bancha is a tea for everyday enjoyment.
Characteristics
Dry Bancha leaves, before preparation, are mostly thin, dark green, compressed pieces. But there will also be a few rolled pieces in the shape of a needle. They have a pleasant aroma of mowed, completely dry but not yet withered grass.
After soaking, the wet leaves, thin pieces, increase their volume, and the "needles" unroll. Their color changes to olive green, aromas similar to cooked spinach. The drink is yellowish in color and medium in texture, with a taste of roasted chestnut with a little bitterness and a grassy note.
After you have drunk the tea, a floral-nutty aroma will remain in the cup. If you haven't tasted anything for at least half an hour after the tea, you will feel a marked sweetness with hints of dryness.
Preparation
You can extract the most from the leaves of this tea in three steepings. Ratio of leaves and water: 1 full teaspoon/150 ml of water heated to 80 °C. These are the initial parameters. Depending on whether you like stronger or milder tea, you can increase one of the parameters. The first soaking lasted 1.5 min, the second 1 min and the third again 1.5 min. The first two preparations gave tea with similar characteristics, while after the third steeping the tea was somewhat weaker with more pronounced dryness and bitterness.
Cold brew
If you want to switch from classic to pure Rock & Roll, then instead of preparing it in the classic way with heated water, soak the Banche leaves in room temperature water for two to three hours. You will get a refreshing drink with a more intense taste and aroma.
The sweetness will be even more pronounced.
The only disadvantage of this method of preparation is that you can soak the leaves only once. Well, maybe twice, but don't expect too much from the second steeping it still remains a tea for everyday enjoyment with a little caffeine.
Impressions
While you are still sifting through all your senses to determine the impressions that this tea left on you, you will feel slightly awake, and if you drank the tea after a large meal, your digestion will thank you.
Final thought
A mild green tea for daily drinking that can be afforded even by tea lovers with a more modest budget, which does not diminish its value and is another reason why we can call it tea for everyday pleasure.
It can also be drunk by those sensitive to caffeine due to the lower content of theine in this tea. After drinking it, you will not have problems with insomnia, so it is ideal for those who do not want an energizing effect, but want to enjoy the delicate, specific aroma of green tea, with a discreet grassy-sweet taste.
Must try cold soaking. The same tea produces a similar but completely different drink. A real example of how to go from classic to Rock & Roll.
| Visually dry leaves | Dark green, thin, pieces of leaves, partly like leaves and partly like twigs |
| Fragrance-dry leaves | Miris pokošene i potpuno osušene, ali još ne uvele trave |
| Smell - moist leaves | The faint smell of cooked spinach. |
| Visually-the color of tea | Yellowish green |
| Taste-texture | Medium density |
| Taste | Roasted chestnut with a bit of bitterness with a grassy note. |
| Aftertaste | Sweet taste mixed with dryness |
| Odor-empty cup | Flowery nutty fragrance |
| Visually-moist leaflets | Olive green in color, the "twigs" have unrolled into pieces of leaves |
| Body sensations | Mild awakening. |
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