Sencha: Analyzing 2,952 teas from 125 sellers

Sencha is Japan's most common green tea — steamed after harvest and grown in full sun, without the shading used for kabusecha or gyokuro. The cup is typically bright, grassy, and umami-forward, with more astringency and refreshment than shaded Japanese greens.

In our latest data, Japan accounts for 87% of sencha with a named origin — especially Shizuoka, Kagoshima, and Fukuoka.

Sencha suits everyday steeping in a kyusu or teapot — cooler water than black tea, with room for two or three infusions from the same leaves.

1. Use 3–5 g of leaf per 150–200 ml of water.
2. Heat water to 70–80°C (158–176°F). Cooler water reduces bitterness; hotter water adds briskness.
3. Steep 60–90 seconds for the first infusion, then pour off fully.
4. Re-steep the same leaves two or three times, adding 15–30 seconds per round.

Origin prefecture and harvest season are the most useful starting points. About 34% of what we track names a cultivar and 37% names a producer or garden.

Spring-harvest sencha dominates where season is listed. Look for steaming style — standard (asamushi) vs deep-steamed (fukamushi) — which affects how the leaf looks and how the cup feels.

Yabukita remains the most common cultivar, with Saemidori, Tsuyuhikari, and Okumidori appearing often on better-documented lots. Many titles also mention the prefecture or garden rather than the cultivar alone.

Deep-steamed (fukamushi) sencha sits alongside standard steamed styles. Single-estate spring teas and everyday blends both appear across the market — use the browse table below to compare labeling and price.

Japan accounts for 87% of sencha with a named origin. Shizuoka, Kagoshima, and Fukuoka are the prefectures we see most often, with Saitama and Kyoto also well represented.

The best-documented lots name a specific region or family garden — for example, hillside fields in Yame, Fukuoka, farmed organically at elevations between 300 and 700 meters.

Sencha typically tastes sweet, umami, and grassy — the profile of unshaded steamed Japanese green tea. Vegetal and refreshing notes appear often as well.

One award-winning Saemidori sencha from Fukuoka illustrates the style: shaded briefly before harvest for extra sweetness, then steamed — a step toward kabusecha, but still recognizably sencha in the cup.

Sencha is steamed soon after picking to stop oxidation, then rolled and dried into its characteristic needle shape. No shading step — the bushes grow in full sun, which keeps the cup brighter and more astringent than kabusecha or gyokuro.

Steaming depth varies: standard steaming preserves more whole-leaf character; fukamushi (deep steaming) breaks the leaf finer and yields a fuller, cloudier liquor. About 42% of what we track mentions steaming in processing detail.

Everyday sencha mostly sits between €9.78 and €25.00 per 100g, with a median of €16.33 — the most affordable of the major Japanese greens we track.

Sort the browse table by price per gram to compare on equal footing when pack weight is listed. Cultivar, harvest season, and garden name often correlate with where a tea sits in the range.