What is bancha?
Bancha (番茶) is made from leaves harvested in the second or third picking of the year, or from leaves that are too coarse for sencha. Larger, older, less delicate — and much less expensive.
It's the tea served in most family-run Japanese restaurants, in elementary-school cafeterias, and in the plastic bottle on every convenience-store shelf. In other words: the flavour Japanese people think of when they think of everyday tea.
How it tastes
Mellow, a little woody, with much less of the grassy intensity of sencha. Almost no bitterness. Regional bancha styles, though, can be dramatic:
- Kyobancha (京番茶) — Kyoto-style bancha that's been pan-fired, almost smoky, with a scent like roasted nuts.
- Awabancha (阿波番茶) — Tokushima-style lacto-fermented bancha. Sour, funky, extraordinary.
- Goishicha (碁石茶) — Kochi-style, double-fermented and sun-dried. A real outlier.
Caffeine
Bancha contains roughly a third of the caffeine of a top-grade sencha — the mature leaves have had months to drop their caffeine content. Traditionally recommended for children, the elderly, and evenings.
How to brew bancha
Some regional banchas (especially kyobancha) are traditionally boiled in a kettle with the leaves inside — a very different technique from the careful low-temperature steeping used for higher grades.
Recommended bancha
Start an all-day tea habit
Bancha is the tea you can drink from morning to bedtime without thinking about it.
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