Light and delicate in style and fresh in flavor, green tea is the daily tea of choice in China and Japan. Minimally-processed in order to retain its natural green color, the best green teas are picked in the early spring when the leaves are small and their flavors are the most concentrated. Hand processed teas are available in a variety of shapes and sizes of dry leaf, all of which are as delightful to look at as they are to sip.

Green tea invites contemplation and renewal, and this cup of 'liquid jade' provides refreshment any time of day. While Japan produces fewer than 12 varieties of green tea, all of which undergo a steaming process in their  production, China brings to market thousands of local variations of green tea, which are traditionally not steamed.

 
China’s green teas are famous for their finesse, elegance, clean fresh flavors and artistically shaped leaves.
The finest of these teas are plucked, sorted and shaped by hand by experienced workers whose nimble fingers coddle and shape the tea with a series of repeating hand motions.
Artisans in no other country on earth possess the hand skills of Chinese tea workers.

China produces more distinctive varieties of green tea than any other Asian country – in fact, there are believed to be close to ten thousand distinctions of green tea alone produced across the vast expanse of China.
China cultivates green tea in eighteen provinces, with the exception of provinces such as Xinjiang, Mongolia, Qinghai and Tibet where the environment is harsh and dry.

Many of the teas we enjoy today – China’s Famous Teas – are teas that were once produced exclusively for the enjoyment of the emperor.

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Japanese teas are uniquely Japanese. Their flavor profiles suite the palate of Japanese people and they are a perfect match for Japan’s cuisine. In Japan most tea is made from leaf that has been mechanically plucked from tea bushes that grow in meticulously groomed gardens at relatively low elevations. This leaf is usually processed by sophisticated and often computer-driven, high-tech machinery in state-of-the-art modern leaf-processing facilities.

Several styles of Japanese green teas feature the addition of other materials, such as thin-cut stems or roasted rice, or are used in powdered form. Matcha, the powdered tea used in the Japanese tea ceremony, and Genmaicha, Bancha green tea to which roasted and popped kernels of rice are added, are two popular and very contrasting examples.

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Despite the significance of Korea’s long history with tea and tea drinking, the modern-day Korean tea industry is small but expanding. Korea’s tea gardens are located in several locations in southern Korea, spreading from Mount Jiri to Cheju Island off the coast of the southern coast of the island. Cultivated tea gardens have been propagated from wild growing tea bushes, and the numbers of acres devoted to tea gardens increase every year. As is true for neighboring China and Japan, the finest, most delicate teas are plucked from tender young leaf early in the season. The first plucking occurs just before April 20th or Koku, the first grain rain, which is the sixth seasonal division of the year. Korean teas are hand-plucked, and processed by one of two traditional methods: puch’o-cha (‘parched’ in an iron cauldron then removed and vigorously hand-rolled and shaped ) or chung-cha (submerged quickly in boiling water, drained, and then rolled and shaped in the firing pan). These ‘taste giving’ and ‘fragrance enhancing’ processes are unique steps in the manufacture of Korean green tea.

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