A small clay kyusu pouring pale green sencha into two white cups on a wooden tray, steam rising, a dish of dark green needle-shaped tea leaves beside it

How to Brew Sencha: The Green Tea Recipe to Learn First

Published 25 Sep 20266 min read

Filed under Tea Japan

The first green tea recipe to learn is a small pot of sencha: ten grams of leaves, about a cup of water cooled to 80°C, sixty seconds, every last drop poured out. It takes five minutes, and it turns largely on a single variable: the cup that comes out bitter at home and the cup that tasted sweet at the tea shop can be the same leaf, brewed at different temperatures. The bitterness and astringency of green tea come largely from its catechins, along with caffeine, and hot water pulls them out fast. The mellow, savory side of the leaf comes from amino acids, theanine chief among them, which dissolve readily even in cold water. Boiling water gives the catechins the advantage. Cooler water shifts the balance toward the theanine. The whole recipe is learning to take that decision away from the kettle.

Ippodo, the Kyoto tea house founded in 1717, publishes the numbers this recipe is built on, and the idea of cooling the water by pouring it between vessels, rather than reaching for a thermometer, comes from its brewing method too.

Ingredients, for two

10 g Japanese sencha, about 2 level tablespoons, or another Japanese green tea such as Mariage Frères Fuji Yama (shop Fuji Yama); the Fuji Yama tea guide has the details on that tea
240 ml fresh cold water, plus extra for warming the pot and cups; soft water if your tap runs hard

You also want a small teapot, ideally a kyusu with a built-in strainer, and two small cups. A regular small pot and a fine strainer work. Sencha leaves need room to open, which is half the argument in the loose leaf versus tea bags guide.

Method

Boil the water. A full boil, in a kettle, more than you need.
Warm and cool in one move. Pour the boiling water into the empty teapot, then pour it from the pot into the two cups. Each transfer sheds heat into the vessel it warms. Ippodo's own version pours the boiling water into the cups and then from the cups onto the leaves, which cools it enough for brewing; this recipe adds a pass through the pot to warm it, so the water cools a little further on the way. Pot and cups are now warm, and the water has come down toward brewing range without a thermometer.
Add the leaves. Ten grams into the emptied pot. It looks like a lot of leaf for a cup of water; that concentration is the recipe.
Steep for sixty seconds. Pour the water from the cups over the leaves and put the lid on. Do not stir or swirl the pot; sencha is brewed still.
Pour to the last drop. Alternate between the two cups a little at a time so both brew to the same strength, and keep tipping until the pot stops dripping. Pouring out every drop draws the full flavor into this cup, and it also keeps the leaves from sitting in liquid before the second infusion.
Brew it again. The same leaves take a second infusion at the same temperature for only 15 to 20 seconds, because the open leaf gives up everything fast. A third goes a few seconds longer. Ten grams of sencha is three rounds of tea.

Why it went wrong

Symptom	Cause	Fix
Bitter, harsh	Water too hot; the catechins won	Pour between vessels before the water meets the leaf; never straight from the kettle
Bitter even at the right temperature	Oversteeped, or the pot got stirred	Sixty seconds means sixty; lid on, hands off
Thin and watery	Too few leaves, or water gone too cool	Ten grams to 240 ml is this recipe's ratio; if the kitchen is cold, skip the pass through the pot
Flat, stewed second cup	The first pour stopped short and the leaves sat in liquid	Pour to the last drop, every time
Cloudy, with green sediment	Deep-steamed (fukamushi) sencha throws fine particles	Not a fault; that style is meant to pour cloudy and taste fuller
Tastes stale, dull, straw-like	The leaf may be old, or the tin was left open	Keep the tin sealed and buy a size that gets used up

Notes and variations

In Denver, the kettle helps you. Colorado State University Extension puts water's boiling point at about 203°F at 5,000 feet, against 212°F at sea level, so in Denver, at 5,280 feet, the kettle starts you roughly 9°F (5°C) closer to brewing temperature. By our estimate, skipping the pass through the pot, so the water goes kettle to cups to leaves, gets it close to where the full sequence lands at sea level. If the cup still comes out sharp, put the pot pass back. It is a rare entry on the credit side of altitude, which the Denver altitude cooking guide tallies in full.

Cold brew is the sweet extreme. The temperature logic runs all the way down: amino acids dissolve readily in cold water, while the bitter EGCG comes out at about a fifth of its hot-water level and caffeine at about half, which is why cold-brewed sencha tastes so mellow and savory. Ten grams of leaves in 500 ml of cold water, three hours in the refrigerator, strained. A wide strip of yuzu peel dropped in for the last hour turns it into a summer drink; the yuzu guide explains why that peel is worth hunting down.

The wider family. The green tea guide covers the family from bancha to gyokuro, and the From Leaf to Tin tea-making guide walks the leaf's route from picking to tin.

Choosing between sencha and genmaicha? See sencha vs genmaicha.