Asahi Slope Gyokuro
Shading the bush for three weeks before picking is the one step that turns an ordinary sencha garden into a gyokuro garden.
Gyokuro is defined by what happens before the leaf is ever picked: growers cover the bushes with shade cloth for roughly twenty days ahead of harvest, cutting direct sunlight by 90% or more. Deprived of light, the plant keeps producing chlorophyll and the amino acid theanine without the catechin build-up sunlight would otherwise drive — which is the actual chemistry behind gyokuro’s deep colour and famously savoury, almost broth-like sweetness (“umami”) rather than a bright, grassy one.
Like most Japanese green tea, the kill-green step is steaming rather than the pan-firing used across most of China — a difference of a few seconds’ heat treatment that still shows up clearly in the cup as a softer, less toasty character.
Shaded under cloth for roughly three weeks before harvest, then steamed — not pan-fired — to kill the leaf.