Have You Sipped Sweet Spring Green Tea?

By Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss

As spring temperatures rise in the mountain tea villages of Asia, tea bushes awaken from their winter slumber and “flush” with life and renewed color. Almost overnight, the landscape develops a lovely verdant green hue as the emerging shoots appear. The tea plants’ first shoots unfurl tiny leaves that burst with flavor and contain the largest amount of beneficial phytonutrients from the tea plant for the entire growing season.

Our first spring green tea–buying trip to China was to Anhui Province. As our van began its corkscrew ascent into the mountains, tea farmers walked to market carrying cloth bags of tea, and farmers stood on the side of the road leading into town selling their precious supply of new tea to eager passersby. Spring green teas are made just once a year and are very limited in quantity. Once known as “tribute teas,” drunk only by the reigning emperor and his court, these luxurious green teas remain highly sought after today and are the year’s most expensive green teas.

The spring green teas of China and Japan are still made mostly by hand, carefully shaped into small curls; long flat leaves; sword-shaped slender crescents; or small, lofty twists. Each shape is unique to a tea-producing region, as is the taste of that tea. The most-prized spring green teas are the first teas plucked in each tea-producing region. The earlier the “pluck,” the sweeter the tea.

Fresh green tea begins to arrive in US teashops in May and June, and it is a perfect beverage to accompany the lighter fare of warm weather. Served hot or chilled, green tea complements seasonal vegetables such as asparagus and English peas; tender greens, ramps, and woodland mushrooms; and fruits such as apricots, berries, melons, and pineapple. Look for these teas in specialty markets.

Chinese Early-Spring Green Teas

Designated Ming Qian or Pre-Qing Ming teas, these are produced from the end of February until early April. Workers must hurry to pluck the young shoots and leaves and process the teas before the leaves grow too large to receive this designation. Green teas plucked late in the spring or in the summer are less subtle in taste and do not possess the exquisite sweetness of Pre-Qing Ming teas.

Look for Gan Lu, Huangshan Mao Feng, Long Ding, Lu Shan, and Zhu Ye.

Japanese Early-Spring Green Teas

In Japan, the first seasonal green teas are called shincha, made from the sweet, tender buds of the tea plants. Shincha production begins in the tea gardens in southern Japan. As the warm weather moves north, more tea-producing areas begin their seasonal production of shincha. Shincha production is short. In some regions it lasts for just ten days before the tea leaf grows too large. What follows is sencha, one of Japan’s most beloved green teas, with a high variety of taste characteristics depending on where the tea was grown. Sencha retains some sweetness and intense fragrance in the cup but is stronger and more vegetal in taste than its seasonal counterpart in China.

Look for green teas from Japan’s Shizuoka or Uji tea regions: Shincha or Sencha 1st Spring Pluck (Ichibancha

Mary Lou and Robert J. Heiss are the co-owners of Tea Trekker and teatrekker.com, and co-authors of The Tea Enthusiast’s Handbook and the James Beard–nominated The Story of Tea.