HomeWhich tea should you choose Japanese tea or Chinese tea? This is a common question as Japan and China are two of the most prominent regions for premium tea cultivation, but there are major differences between the two in this Blog, we’re going to compare the differences and similarities between Japanese tea and Chinese tea to see which one is better before we get started. It would really mean a lot to us if you could stay tuned for future tea Blogs. We have many of blogs on all sorts of topics related to Japanese green tea. But for this episode we’re also going to talk about Chinese teas as well. Without further ado let’s get started which is more common Japanese tea or Chinese tea. The first thing to keep in mind when making a decision between Japanese tea or Chinese tea is the quantity of tea produced. China is the largest producer of tea in the world, making over two million tons per year. Japan is tiny in comparison, producing only 90 thousand tons of tea a year. 98 percent of the tea produced in Japan is consumed domestically, while only two percent is exported. This makes Japanese tea even more rare compared to Chinese tea, which is heavily exported around the world. You may experience a lot of low quality Chinese teas, but this does not mean that high quality teas are not produced in China. It only means that there’s a huge volume of inexpensive teas being produced there as well. When it comes to Japanese tea, it really only makes sense to export the premium stuff to foreign markets. That’s why you may find that there’s seemingly a higher bar for Japanese tea. This is especially true for match as you will mostly find the premium ceremonial grade match coming from Japan and the lower grade match mostly coming from China. This high equilaterality match requires a lot of extra labor and special talent in order to produce and with centuries of specialization around match cultivation and production, the advantage goes to Japan. What are the advantages of Chinese teas? Because we mentioned Japan having an advantage when it comes to producing teas like match? Let’s also discuss an advantage of Chinese teas. While China does produce a huge volume of teas, they also produce some very high quality teas as well as we will discuss in more detail later. The production of Japanese tease relies more in machinery and automation, and the production of Chinese tease is more hands-on. This more hands-on approach makes it possible to produce premium teas with incredible attention to detail. The tea producer is able to use visual cues to tell when the T is exactly right and therefore they are able to make unquantifiable calculations to improve the flavor. The next disparity when comparing Japanese tea or Chinese tea comes down to the type of tea being produced. While both China and Japan produce more green tea than anything else. Japan has a much higher concentration of green tea. Three- fifthfths of the tea produce in China is green tea, meaning that 40 percent is black tea, ung tea, white tea, yellow tea, or postfermented tea. While this may seem pretty lopsided, it’s actually quite balanced compared to Japan. Around 90 percent of the tea produced in Japan is green tea, while the remaining ten percent is black tea ung and post- fermented tea. Because almost all the tea produced in Japan is green tea, it makes sense to compare Japanese green tea and Chinese green tea together. Both of these teas are unoxidized, but the methods used to produce them can be very different. To be considered a green tea, the tea leaves have to be unoxidized. Once the leaves are picked, they will begin to oxidize naturally over time and eventually turn into a black tea. In order to stop this process, heat needs to be applied to the leaves in order to deactivate the enzymes that cause oxidation. In China, the leaves are heated in a hot pan or a wok in order to stop this oxidation process. When you heat the leaves together in a hot, dry pan like this, it imparts different flavors onto the leaves and the tea tends to take on this warmer nutty characteristic. In Japan, the producers will steam the tea leaves after the harvest. This locks in more of the vegetable notes of the tea and as a result, steam tea like senica will take on these notes of steamed dataame, sweet corn, baby spinach and even seaweed. Some of these teas will take on a vibrant green color like the Fukumushi sancha, a tea steam for an even longer time. For this reason, if you were designing between Japanese tea or Chinese tea, it all comes down to which flavor profiles you prefer. There is a type of Japanese tea called Kame Iachcha which shares these more nutty taste characteristics with Chinese teas. This is because the tea is panfired and the same method used to make Chinese green teas. Choosing between Japanese tea or Chinese tea. Finally, given the differences in production, taste and appearance of the two teas which one should you choose Japanese tea or Chinese tea, the most important variable comes down to taste and this is something you will need to experience for yourself. If you’re interested in getting an idea of the flavor of Japanese tease, we can certainly help you there. During the past few years we’ve traveled all around Japan to meet with farmers and sampled 100 of different types of Japanese screen tea. We have ultimately decided on just a small handful of our favorites and we share these with people all around the world. If you want to try all these teas at once, you can try one of our seamers. With these sammpers, you can explore different types of Sancha, matchcha. Gokuro. Hojiccha. Kairriccha. Gen, Matcha, and more, all produced without the use of pesticides or chemicals. These teas are a great representation of Japanese green tea and once you try them all, you are one step closer to deciding between Japanese tea or Chinese tea. Not that you can enjoy both. Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this blog. I really hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions about Japanese tea or tea in general, please feel free to leave those in the comments below. Until then, we’ll see you next blog.
