I brewed ‘tencha’ using low-temperature hot water and enjoyed its umami which is almost like a broth. 🍵😌
:: Today’s Recipe ::
Tea leaves 6g
Amount of water 100ml
Temperature of water 60℃ (140℉)
Steeping time 3 minutes
‘Tencha’ is the primary ingredient used to make matcha. Matcha is made by grinding tencha tea leaves using a stone mill. The tencha tea leaves are shaded for a certain period of time before being picked and that makes them a beautiful green color and contains much more umami.
One of the fragrant components shaded tea leaves have is the same as what ‘aonori seaweed’ has. Also, not like sencha and gyokuro, tencha isn’t rolled in the manufacturing process. That makes tencha look very similar to aonori seaweed! I actually compared them in the photo below. lol
It takes a little bit of time to brew because the tea’s components aren’t dissolved in to hot water easily due to not being rolled.
By the way, the aonori seaweed-like aroma is because of a fragrant component called ‘dimethyl sulfide’. I checked the definition on Wikipedia (in Japanese) and it says “it’s an odor component similar to that of a rotten cabbage”…! The aroma of aonori seaweed smells tasty for us Japanese though…!
Actually the characteristics of the fragrant components are a little complicated. It smells different when you smell each component separately and when you smell the components combined. It can be fragrant or a bad smell depending on its concentration. Many parts of its characteristics remain unexplained. It’s a very interesting topic to explore! 😆
