"stePH" writes:

S. Chancellor wrote:
And if you know also, what is the difference between Sencha and Hojicha?

Sencha is a good Japanese green tea, higher in quality than Bancha (an
everyday-drinking green tea in Japan).

Houjicha is Bancha that's been pan-roasted (wok-roasted?) to a brown
color. I find it has an almost Oolong-like flavor -- I like it.

And you didn't ask, but Kukicha is mostly twigs and stems from the tea
plant.

I can't endorse that "mostly". You can buy kukicha that's mostly
leaf, and the leaf can come from vintages as lofty as sencha, or even,
some vendors say, gyokuro.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin wrote:
"stePH" writes:

... Kukicha is mostly twigs and stems from the tea plant.

I can't endorse that "mostly". You can buy kukicha that's mostly
leaf, and the leaf can come from vintages as lofty as sencha, or even,
some vendors say, gyokuro.

I stand corrected. So what exactly constitutes "kukicha" then?
Because even the sencha I get has a few stems and twigs in it.


stePH
np: King Crimson, "Improv: El Groovistico SS Blastico"

S. Chancellor wrote:
I think you're correct about this. The tea from gunpowder is brownish
gray, all three types I've bought and tried. This BI Luo Chun. (Which
looks mostly like gunpowder to me.) is very tasty in comparison.
However it was 15 dollars a pound, on many of the websites I have
looked at for it, it is much over 30 dollars a pound. Do you know

I was just browsing and I stumbled upon
http://cgi.ebay.com/Yunnan-Simao-Pre...cmd ZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yunnan-Xishuan...cmd ZViewItem
which might be quite interesting for you!

Looks intersting? Yunnan Simao Biluochun ($8.20(tea)+$14.20(post)/lb)
and the Yunnan Xishuangbannan Biluochun ($0.01(tea)+$14.99(post)/lb)
which comes close to your $15/lb price search. I haven't bought from
this seller so I don't know, the shipping/tea costs do seem a little
weird, especially the $0.01, but the tea looks good...

--
VL

On 2006-01-24 17:27:06 -0800, "
said:

S. Chancellor wrote:
I think you're correct about this. The tea from gunpowder is brownish
gray, all three types I've bought and tried. This BI Luo Chun. (Which
looks mostly like gunpowder to me.) is very tasty in comparison.
However it was 15 dollars a pound, on many of the websites I have
looked at for it, it is much over 30 dollars a pound. Do you know

I was just browsing and I stumbled upon
http://cgi.ebay.com/Yunnan-Simao-Pre...cmd ZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yunnan-Xishuan...cmd ZViewItem
which

might be quite interesting for you!

Looks intersting? Yunnan Simao Biluochun ($8.20(tea)+$14.20(post)/lb)
and the Yunnan Xishuangbannan Biluochun ($0.01(tea)+$14.99(post)/lb)
which comes close to your $15/lb price search. I haven't bought from
this seller so I don't know, the shipping/tea costs do seem a little
weird, especially the $0.01, but the tea looks good...


The second stuff looks like what i bought except that the leaves are
lighter in color. It's half the price. I may buy from them once I
drink up this stuff

Thanks a lot!

-S.

I was just browsing and I stumbled upon
http://cgi.ebay.com/Yunnan-Simao-Pre...cmd ZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yunnan-Xishuan...cmd ZViewItem


But none of those look anything like Biluochun. So why would you buy
from them?

niisonge wrote:
I was just browsing and I stumbled upon
http://cgi.ebay.com/Yunnan-Simao-Pre...cmd ZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Yunnan-Xishuan...cmd ZViewItem


But none of those look anything like Biluochun. So why would you buy
from them

I wouldn't buy from them because I have tried this kind of 'generic'
tea and I didn't like it, I know from experience that if I wanted to
try something I'd rather buy 50g of Jiangsu Dong Ting Biluochun than
500g of 'generic' Biluochun-like tea. I agree that they also look a
little weird, the Simao one looks a little better than the
Xishuangbannan one. What I meant is that if you want something for
$15/500g then this looks pretty good for that price...

yunnan si mao bi luo chun?!

Ok, as a Chinese, I really don't know YunNan province has this kind of
tea.
For us , bi luo chun is the green tea growing in west and east
mountain(though no high mountain around, "shan"means mountain in
Chinese) of dongting area in Jiangsu province.
JiangSu and YunNan 's climate,soil, latitude are not the same . Maybe
they could introduce some kind of similar tea trees to the south, but
they are not the same thing. Nobody will say Yun Nan bi luo chun in
China.

yunnan si mao bi luo chun?!

Ok, as a Chinese, I really don't know YunNan province has this kind of
tea.
For us , bi luo chun is the green tea growing in west and east
mountain(though no high mountain around, "shan"means mountain in
Chinese) of dongting area in Jiangsu province.
JiangSu and YunNan 's climate,soil, latitude are not the same . Maybe
they could introduce some kind of similar tea trees to the south, but
they are not the same thing. Nobody will say Yun Nan bi luo chun in
China.

This is implied. We are not really talking about "real" Biluochun, but
a 'generic' Biluochun-like tea that is made to look like Biluochun.

I am not sure how much Jiangsu Biluochun is inflated in price when it
is sold abroad, I've mentioned that Teaspring have some for $28.70/100g
but that factors in some airmail shipping and card processing, Jing Tea
Shop also have one for $24.90/100g which factors in card processing but
not shipping I would presume.

I mean there are a lot of 'generic' replicas that people happily drink
because they find them enjoyable. If you drink a lot of tea for the
sake of drinking the tea as a beverage i.e. with food then its the only
real option. I've tasted some 'generic' Biluochun from a Chinese
supermarket a long time ago and I found it unpalatable, I binned it in
company with some 'generic' Longjing, the steel cans they came in are
quite useful; they remind me never to do that again!

--
VL

"stePH" wrote in message

I stand corrected. So what exactly constitutes "kukicha" then?

Twigs of sencha are "kikucha".

The twigs of gyokuro are called "karigane".

The dust (not collected on the floor, but on the belt while processing the
leaves) is "konacha"

The shoots (that's the small leaves that are too small or the tips of the
leaves) are "mecha"

Those products are very common by-products obtained while processing the
leaves. Their names are standardised for all Japan and they are sold that
way on markets.

On this pages , photos and definitions of konacha / kukicha / mecha
http://happy.woman.excite.co.jp/garb...3/konacha.html

You can buy in shops blends of twigs and leaves and even matcha. Blends
have no standard names, the sellers decides. The Japanese package tends to
explain clearly what it contains, or if they are lazy, they only write
"ryokucha" (green tea). I think Lewis found leaves in a "kukicha blend".

There exist also (less standard) :

The big stems are "boucha", usually of bancha, and are often roasted. (I
never saw them otherwise, but I've not seen everything)

Bancha means leftovers collected later in the season. It's often roasted. It
can be aged.

Houjicha can be any *roasted* tea (sencha/bancha/boucha...)., it can be
roasted in a number of way. That can be done to recycle leaves of sencha
that lose their freshness. I have a sort of pottery with a hollow handle
that is a hoji-cha roaster.

There are dozens of regional sorts of bancha/houjicha with as many names.
For instance kyobancha is Kyoto-style, the whole leaves are
fire-dried/roasted. Other sorts are processed differently. The recipe to
prepare them also varies (brewing, simmering...)

Photos of : houjicha/ genmaicha / bancha (not roasted) / kyobancha
http://happy.woman.excite.co.jp/garb...3/hojicha.html

Bancha, bocha, kukicha are said to contain less cafeine. Hojicha is
considered cafeine-less. So old people drink them for this reason.

Kuri

"kuri" writes:

[...what each category of Japnese tea means...]


You can buy in shops blends of twigs and leaves and even matcha.
Blends have no standard names, the sellers decides. The Japanese
package tends to explain clearly what it contains, or if they are
lazy, they only write "ryokucha" (green tea). I think Lewis found
leaves in a "kukicha blend".

It was sold as "kukicha" without any modifier. I bought it at Ito En
in New York. I've had the same experience buying kukicha from Wild
Lily in New York. I would hope Ito En, at least, knew what they were
talking about, no?

By the way, I've certainly also seen twig-only kukicha.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin wrote:
"kuri" writes:


[...what each category of Japnese tea means...]


You can buy in shops blends of twigs and leaves and even
matcha. Blends have no standard names, the sellers decides.
The Japanese package tends to explain clearly what it
contains, or if they are lazy, they only write "ryokucha"
(green tea). I think Lewis found leaves in a "kukicha blend".

It was sold as "kukicha" without any modifier. I bought it at
Ito En in New York. I've had the same experience buying
kukicha from Wild Lily in New York. I would hope Ito En, at
least, knew what they were talking about, no?

Leaves in kukicha (just plain "kukicha") were commonplace where I
resided in Japan as well. This was in the Nagasaki region.

By the way, I've mentioned in the past my grandmother-in-law's
homemade tea from plants in her garden. It very closely resembles
the Kyoto-style kyobancha at the bottom of this page, the major
difference being that the whole tea leaves in hers are more
tightly curled:

http://happy.woman.excite.co.jp/garb...3/hojicha.html

--crymad

"Lewis Perin" wrote in message

It was sold as "kukicha" without any modifier. I bought it at Ito En
in New York.
I've had the same experience buying kukicha from Wild
Lily in New York. I would hope Ito En, at least, knew what they were
talking about, no?

They surely know : "茎ã�*ã�‘ã‚’é�¸åˆ¥ã�—ã�Ÿã�ŠèŒ¶". A" tea made with only the
twigs".
http://www.itoen.co.jp/tea/kind/04.html

That's not a shame to blend it. Maybe their labels are too short to write it
all.

The essential is you get real tea and don't have to drink the *special US
market Ito-en".

Kuri

"stePH" wrote in message
oups.com...
S. Chancellor wrote:
And if you know also, what is the difference between Sencha and Hojicha?

Sencha is a good Japanese green tea, higher in quality than Bancha (an
everyday-drinking green tea in Japan).
Bancha seems to have that nori vibe that I like whereas sencha doesn't.

Pete

On 2006-01-26 16:35:27 -0800, "ostaz" said:


"stePH" wrote in message
oups.com...
S. Chancellor wrote:
And if you know also, what is the difference between Sencha and Hojicha?

Sencha is a good Japanese green tea, higher in quality than Bancha (an
everyday-drinking green tea in Japan).
Bancha seems to have that nori vibe that I like whereas sencha doesn't.

Pete

Hehe. My question was more in regards to pan-fired teas. I read that
Hojicha is pan fired, but so is sencha. What's the difference then?

-S.

"S. Chancellor" wrote in message
news:2006012621151175249-dnewsgr@mephitkicksassorg...
On 2006-01-26 16:35:27 -0800, "ostaz" said:


"stePH" wrote in message
oups.com...
S. Chancellor wrote:
And if you know also, what is the difference between Sencha and
Hojicha?

Sencha is a good Japanese green tea, higher in quality than Bancha (an
everyday-drinking green tea in Japan).
Bancha seems to have that nori vibe that I like whereas sencha doesn't.

Pete

Hehe. My question was more in regards to pan-fired teas. I read that
Hojicha is pan fired, but so is sencha. What's the difference then?

Hojicha is *roasted*, like you roast coffee, like pop



-S.