Japanese Tea Cultivars : A Short Guide

Description

Extract:

“All tea comes from the Camellia Sinensis plant, which has two main varieties for tea production: var. assamica and var. sinensis. And then, within those varieties, we have plants with unique traits, i.e., cultivated variety. A cultivar is a group of plants that have been bred to achieve desirable characteristics, thus, the plants share identical genetical compositions inherited from their mother plant. Cultivars can be suited to various weather conditions (frost-hardy or early sprouting, for example), or they can be cultivated for specific flavours or aromas. Some cultivars are habitually used for a particular type of tea – for example, sencha (good for open field cultivation) or matcha (shaded cultivation). However, you can make any kind of tea (green, black, oolong, etc) from any cultivar; it depends on how the tea is processed after harvesting.”