Sencha
煎茶/SEN-chah/
The most common Japanese green tea — sun-grown, steeped, not powdered.
Sencha is Japan's everyday green tea, accounting for roughly 80 percent of the country's tea production. Unlike matcha and gyokuro, sencha bushes are grown in full sun, which means lighter caffeine, less L-theanine, and a brighter, grassier flavor. Sencha is steeped (not whisked) at around 70 °C for one to two minutes, and the leaves are discarded after one to three infusions. A typical 8 oz cup carries 20 to 30 mg of caffeine — about half of a comparable matcha bowl. It's the right choice for casual all-day drinking; matcha is for one or two intentional cups.
In practice
- Japan's everyday green tea and around 60% of all Japanese production. Grown in full sun, steamed, rolled and dried.
- Brewed at 70–80 °C for about a minute, giving a grassy, bracing, clearly astringent cup.
- Full sun is the defining difference from matcha and gyokuro: more sunlight means more catechins and less L-theanine, so more briskness and less sweetness.
- Cheap 'green tea powder' is very often ground sencha, which is why it looks and tastes so unlike real matcha.
The common mistake
Assuming ground sencha is a matcha substitute. It is unshaded, includes stem and vein, and grinds coarser — the colour is olive, the taste is sharp, and no amount of whisking gets it to behave like matcha.
