Australian Shincha

Recently, Japanese green tea has been diversifying. We see more single origin tea, more varietal tea and more aromatic tea. For the customers, this kind of trend is fun.

I wonder this can be called diversification too, but I found an interesting tea in name-wise; Austrarlia Shincha.

Shincha literally means “new tea”, and is the first flush Japanese sencha and highly valued in Japan. I took shincha granted for “Japanese” tea. So I was surprised to look at it first.

Wait a minute… this is from a Japanese tea giant, ITO EN, LTD. ,and they grow tea both at home and abroad. So is this still considered to be Japanese??? I am not sure since I don't know how and when the tea is processed. But I can see that  this is very eye-catching brand name, and some will buy it thanks to this novelty.

Nowadays, non-Japanese matcha and sencha have seen here and there in the world market. So I guess I shouldn’t be surprised if I see "not-born-and- bread" Japanese shincha one day.