Well we’ve all been served green tea (Camellia sinensis) at some point in Australia and it’s no wonder we don’t like it. It’s nothing like the quality of the tea that is served in restaurants and sushi bars in Japan. Most of what I’ve drunk in Australia tastes like straw. Good green tea has a mild flavour comboned with a pleasant sweetness. Green tea has all sorts of good things in it – like antioxidants, catechins, etc. The four most common teas in Japan are Sencha, Matcha and Genmaicha ( a green tea combined with roasted brown rice ). Matcha is made by grinding the first of the seasons leaves which have been shaded just before the new shoots have started to grow. Those first shoots are then harvested, processed and then ground into a fine powder. The photo below shows the Matcha being produced in a department store in Kyoto. The tea is sealed into airtight containers to keep the freshness. Because it’s an antioxidant is quickly oxidises when in contact with air. It’s drunk by mixing about a teaspoon of powder mixed with water at 80 deg C with a bamboo whisk into a fairly thick liquid. Sencha is a high quality tea used in the leaf form while Bancha is a lesser quality tea also sold as tea leaves.