In my age in
Japan, boys had boyish name, and girls had girly name. The color of boy’s
school bag used to be black while that of girl’s bag used be red. The color
that boys were supposed to choose was blue while that of girls were pink. As
such, things were often divided by gender. But recently, it’s changing.
Sometimes, we cannot tell the person is boy or girl only to see its name. Some
boys prefer red to black. Some girls like blue. It’s getting more “genderless”.
When I went to
the tea market the other day, I found the similar situation in tea too. (I know
comparing people with tea is stupid, but I didJ) I mean when
I tried Sencha, some smelled a bit more like Oolong to me. Other Sencha tasted
like more Kabusecha (covered tea).
Of course, the
process of Sencha and that of Oolong is different, but the reason I found
Oolong aroma in Sencha is, I think, mainly because of “withering”. Sencha was
not allowed to be withered according to the tea industry rule. If it’s
withered, it was taken as a bad quality. But recently, some Sencha are slightly
withered on purpose. The standard procedure might have been good to
mass-produce the similar taste tea, but people are getting bored, and turning
away from the tea. Due to withering, the aroma of Sencha varies.
As for Sencha
with slightly covered is not really categorized as “Kabusecha”, but adding a
bit of Umami (savory) helps vary the taste of Sencha.
I am not
saying the conventional Sencha is not good, but I’ve found it interesting to
see more “genderless” Sencha.
