The Quick Sip
Organic Green Tea Sencha teas are produced by steaming early spring tealeaves before they are dried. These lightly steamed organic Sencha tealeaves have higher concentrations of chlorophyll, vitamins and other health promoting elements than most green teas. Infusing to a bright gold-green cup, this refreshing tea has a crisp, light grassy finish and a fresh early spring character.

Tea Tales

After China, the Japanese have been drinking tea the longest. Japanese tea is all green. Tea drinking in Japan has a special place in its culture and imagination. In 1191, the famous Zen priest Eisai (1141-1215) brought back tea seeds to Kyoto. He also wrote the oldest Japanese tea specialty book, Kissa Yojoki (How to stay healthy by drinking tea). The first sentence states, "Tea is the ultimate mental and medical remedy and has the ability to make one's life more full and complete". First drunk by Buddhist monks to help improve concentration and stave off sleep during meditation, tea is credited by the Monk Ikkyu to “bring more enlightenment than hours of meditation." The Samurai were urged by Daidoji Yuzan in his treatise “The Code of the Warrior” to take up verse making or Teaism, as a means of reflecting on things past and present. Relatively little of the tea produced in Japan is now exported, so it's difficult to imagine that 20% of the US tea market was composed of Japan green tea before the Second World War!