Explain about Japan

March 23rd 2026

• In this posting we will practice a grammar point. The point is using a gerund to replace so or because.
• Example 1 – 　
• I was late, so I took a taxi.　　　
• I took a taxi because I was late.
• Being late, I took a taxi.
  　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 　　　　
• Example 2 – 　
• She studied a lot for the test, so I think she’ll get a good score
• I think she’ll get a good score in the test because she studied hard.
• Having studied a lot for the test, I think she’ll get a good score.

Sencha and gyokurocha

The most common name you’ll see on the back of green tea packets in Japan is sencha (煎茶) as this is the most commonly drunk tea. Other types of tea include gyokuro, gyokurocha (玉露茶) and the famous matcha (抹茶) and these are more expensive than sencha. Thecha (茶) part of the word means tea.

All these three types of tea come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis, as all the other green and black teas in the world also do.

The characteristics of sencha and gyokurocha

The gyokuro teas and matcha are made using leaves from tea plants that are shaded for some time. These plants are shaded for around twenty days and although this doesn’t seem so long, both gyokuro and matcha are made from leaves picked only in the spring, so actually these new spring leaves are covered for most of their growth time.

The tea leaves from the tea plant Camellia sinensis have an amino acid in them called theanine and this theanine is maintained in the leaves while growing if the plant is shaded. The shading of the tea plants usually means the rows of the tea plants are covered by some kind of plastic cover to stop the sun getting to the plant. Some studies indicate that tea grown like this may have health benefits, including helping you relax and also helping your concentration but the evidence¹ is not so clear.^A

Something that is not in doubt is that the reduced sunlight that the shaded plants get makes the plants produce more chlorophyll² in the leaves to sustain³ photosynthesis⁴. The leaves become bigger and the green colour of the leaves becomes darker. This helps produce a tea that has a more delicate, less bitter flavour than the sencha teas.

Another thing that is certain – teas made from shaded tea plants have more caffeine than sencha teas and even more caffeine than coffee.

Sencha is made from tea leaves from plants that have not been shaded. The sencha tea plants are exposed⁵ to the sun. In these plants, the theanine changes to something called a catechin over time when exposed to the sun.

These catechins cause the sencha teas to be more bitter than the gyokuro teas. The catechins are also said to have health benefits, as the catechins work as antioxidants⁶. Antioxidants help prevent damage to cells in your body and this is said to help to prevent cancer and there is certainly some evidence for this.^B

The processing of the tea leaves

All types of green tea are steamed and rolled very soon after having being picked. This prevents the cut leaves from being oxidized. ⁷ Stopping the oxidization helps maintain the nutrients in the tea.

Oxidization also increases the caffeine levels in tea due to the caffeine becoming more concentrated.^C This is why green tea has less caffeine than black tea.

Making a cup of green tea

Looking at the different tea cups that people use to drink the black and green teas shows you which drink, black tea or green tea, uses hotter water.

A cup of black tea is made with boiling water. The cup is too hot to touch directly with your hands just after the boiling water has been poured.

The black tea cup has a handle. However the traditional cups used for holding green tea don’t have handles.

These cups are called yunomi in Japanese (湯吞み). A cup of green tea is not supposed to be made with boiling water.

A note about mugs and cups. A mug is bigger than a cup and is stronger than a cup – less delicate than a cup.

A cup can be put on a saucer but a mug can’t.

There is no rule however saying you can’t use a mug or a cup with a handle for drinking green tea and there are now more mugs and cups with handles being sold than in the past.

However when someone says have a ‛cup of tea’ it just means have a drink of tea and you could be drinking out of a cup, mug, yunomi, bowl or anything you want to use .

Reading the instructions on the back of a packet of green tea, you can see that for sencha, water at a temperature of 70°C – 80°C (seventy to eighty degrees Celsius) is usually recommended. The steeping*⁸ time is usually around forty seconds. Gyokuro is steeped for longer, one to two minutes and the water used should be about 50 to 60°C.

*Please note that there are one or two other words apart from the word steep used with brew being one of them and the word infuse is used too.

Thinking of steeping or brewing or infusing, whichever word you want to choose, it doesn’t change the fact that leaving the tea leaves in the water for longer makes the tea more bitter. The amount of caffeine released is also affected. Higher temperatures and longer steeping times means a higher amount of caffeine in your tea.

Almost all households in Japan have an electric thermo pot in their home, even if they don’t use it to make green tea. This is an electric pot that acts like a kettle by boiling the water and then it maintains the water temperature at a certain temperature for as long as the thermo pot is switched on. Common temperature settings seem to be 98, 90, 80 or 70°C.

Other types of green tea

Genmaicha (玄米茶） – Genmaicha is sencha mixed with roasted rice. It has a nutty flavour.

Kukicha (茎茶) – Kuki means stem in Japanese. Kukicha includes the stems⁹ as well as leaves. The colour is clearer than the other teas and has less caffeine and a milder¹⁰ flavour. Milder is a positive word in this situation. If you think the taste is not so good because it’s not so strong you could use the word weak instead of mild.

Hōjicha (ほうじ茶）– Hōjicha is roasted green tea and is brown in colour. Sencha teas are usually harvested three times a year and hōjicha is generally made from leaves from the second or third pickings. These older leaves contain less caffeine than the younger leaves and this is the main reason that hōjicha is lower in caffeine than most of the other teas.^D

It is said there is now a hōjicha boom following the matcha boom. Hōjicha, having a roasted taste, actually means it is easier to experiment with than matcha when using it to flavour sweets and cakes.^E

One more thing to say about hōjicha. Thinking of someone who doesn’t have a thermo pot, hōjicha might be the drink for you if you’re in a hurry. It is made with boiling water, so you don’t have to wait for the water to cool down before steeping the tea. You’ll need to put it in a mug or a cup with a handle though if you don’t want to wait to drink it…..

And being made from older leaves hōjicha certainly isn’t the most expensive tea. Well, having spent lots of money as someone who got involved in the matcha boom, it might be time to save money, so that’s me finished writing today. I’m going out to see if I can get my hands on some hōjicha cakes ….. before the hōjicha boom starts to make them too expensive.

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References

A 　www,sciencedirect.com – From tea leaf to trending supplement – does the science match the hype for brain health and relaxation? Roderick Dashwood, Fransesco Virioli (February 2025)

B 　www.news-medical.net – What are Catechins?

C 　coffeaalchemy.com – Does Green Tea Have More Caffeine Than Black Tea

D 　coffeaalchemy.com – Does Green Tea Have More Caffeine Than Black Tea

E 　yedoensis.com

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<Example sentences>

3. to sustain
■　That marathon has runner started the race very fast but can she sustain that pace?
■ How about some hōjicha flavoured cake to help you sustain your energy until dinner?

5. exposed
■ Forgetting his hat, his head was exposed to the sun all afternoon.
■ They planted some trees at the bottom of the garden to stop it being exposed to the cold winter wind.

10. mild
■ Do you like hot, spicy curries or milder ones?
■ This area ismild all year and it never really snows.

1. Evidence is something that makes you believe or shows you that something is true.
2. Chlorophyll is the green thing in plant leaves that allows plants to make energy from the sun.
3. To sustain something means to provide enough of something so that something can continue. It is the sustain of sustainable as in the SDG’s – the Sustainable Development Goals that started to be talked about a few years ago.
4. Photosynthesis is when plants make energy for themselves using the sun.
5. In this sentence exposed means to not be covered, to not be hidden or sheltered.
6. Antioxidants help prevent oxidization of cells in your body. The oxidization of cells in your body means the cells become damaged due to contact with oxygen.
7. When something is oxidized it changes chemically because of the effect of oxygen.
8. In this sentence to steep something means to leave it in some liquid for some time to get the flavour to come out.
9. The stem of a plant means the thin part which grows upwards and supports the leaves and the flowers.
10. In this sentence mild means not strong.