There is something wonderfully simple about green tea.

Leaves are picked, gently heated, shaped and dried — preserving much of the freshness and character of the living tea leaf. Yet from this deceptively simple process comes an extraordinary world of flavour: sweet and grassy, floral and vegetal, softly nutty, deeply umami or wonderfully refreshing.

Green tea is also one of tea’s oldest traditions. Its story reaches back thousands of years through China and Japan, through imperial courts, Buddhist monasteries and everyday homes, before becoming the much-loved daily ritual we know today.

Where the story of tea began

The history of green tea is, in many ways, the history of tea itself.

Tea originated in China, where the leaves of Camellia sinensis were being consumed long before black tea, oolong or the other styles familiar to us today had developed. Early tea was used in a variety of ways and gradually evolved from something associated with medicine and nourishment into an increasingly important everyday drink.

By the Tang Dynasty, from the seventh to tenth centuries, tea had become deeply embedded in Chinese life and culture.

It was during this period that scholar Lu Yu wrote The Classic of Tea, or Cha Jing, the celebrated eighth-century work exploring everything from tea cultivation and preparation to water, utensils and the philosophy surrounding the cup. Tea was no longer simply something to drink. It had become an art and a ritual.

Later, during the Song Dynasty, tea culture became even more refined. Finely ground tea was whisked with hot water, and elaborate tea gatherings became fashionable among scholars and at the imperial court. This powdered style would eventually have a profound influence on Japanese tea culture.

The journey to Japan

Tea travelled from China to Japan through monks and travellers, becoming increasingly important from around the ninth century onwards.

Buddhist monasteries played a particularly important role. Tea suited monastic life beautifully: a warm, gently stimulating drink that could accompany long periods of study and meditation.

In the early thirteenth century, the Zen monk Eisai wrote Kissa Yōjōki — often translated as Drinking Tea for Health — helping establish tea as both a wellness practice and a spiritual ritual in Japan.

Over the centuries, Japan developed its own remarkably distinctive approach to green tea. Cultivation techniques, steaming, shading and grinding created teas unlike those produced in China.

From this tradition emerged Sencha, Gyokuro and Matcha — styles that remain among the great expressions of Japanese tea today.

What makes green tea green?

Green, black, white and oolong teas all begin with the same plant: Camellia sinensis.

What makes them different is largely what happens after the leaf is picked.

With green tea, oxidation is deliberately prevented by applying heat. This crucial stage — sometimes called fixing — preserves the leaf's greener appearance and much of its fresh, vegetal character.

And here we encounter one of the great dividing lines in the green tea world.

Chinese green tea — the warmth of the pan

Traditional Chinese green teas are generally heated in a hot pan or similar dry-heat process.

This can create wonderful layers of flavour: soft sweetness, chestnut, toasted grains, flowers and gentle vegetal notes. Compared with many Japanese greens, the flavours can feel rounder and warmer.

Japanese green tea — the freshness of steam

Japanese green teas are generally steamed soon after picking.

Steaming produces a very different expression of the leaf — vivid colour, fresh vegetal aromas and flavours that can suggest grass, sea greens and spring vegetables, often accompanied by a wonderful savoury quality known as umami.

It is remarkable that two leaves from essentially the same plant can become so different simply through cultivation and craftsmanship

The Wonderful World of Green Tea

Once you begin exploring green tea, you quickly discover there is no single "green tea flavour".

Here are some of its great styles.

Sencha

Fresh, grassy and quintessentially Japanese.

Sencha is perhaps Japan's best-known everyday green tea.

The leaves are steamed, rolled and dried, producing their characteristic slender shape. In the cup, good Sencha can be beautifully fresh and lively, with grassy and vegetal notes balanced by sweetness and gentle umami.

There is an invigorating quality to Sencha that makes it particularly lovely in the morning or as an afternoon reset.

Character: Fresh • Grassy • Vegetal • Gently sweet

Matcha

Vivid, creamy and intensely green.

Matcha is green tea in one of its most extraordinary forms.

Tea plants destined for traditional Matcha production are shaded before harvest, encouraging changes in the leaf that contribute to its rich colour, sweetness and umami. After processing into tencha, the leaves are finely ground into the brilliant green powder we know as Matcha.

Unlike an infused tea, where the leaves are removed, with Matcha you consume the powdered leaf itself.

Whisked traditionally with hot water, Matcha produces a wonderfully rich, creamy bowl of tea. Today it has also found a new life in Matcha lattes and contemporary wellness rituals.

Character: Rich • Vegetal • Creamy • Umami

Gyokuro

One of Japan's great luxury teas.

Gyokuro — meaning "jade dew" — is among the most prized styles of Japanese green tea.

Like Matcha, the tea bushes are shaded before harvest. This alters the developing leaves, producing extraordinary sweetness and concentrated umami.

Brewed gently at a lower temperature, Gyokuro can be remarkably rich and almost broth-like, with deep savoury sweetness lingering long after the sip.

This is not a tea to rush.

Character: Sweet • Deep • Savoury • Intensely umami

Gunpowder

Bold, robust and beautifully rolled.

Gunpowder tea takes its English name from the appearance of its leaves, which are tightly rolled into small pellets.

Rolling once helped protect the leaf during storage and transport, and the pellets slowly unfurl as they steep.

The result is generally fuller and more assertive than many delicate green teas, with a pleasantly brisk, slightly smoky or mineral character.

Gunpowder also has a fascinating place in North African tea culture, where Chinese green tea became the foundation of traditional mint tea.

Character: Robust • Brisk • Slightly smoky • Refreshing

Jasmine Green Tea

Green tea transformed by flowers.

Few combinations are more evocative than green tea and jasmine.

Traditional jasmine tea is created by allowing tea leaves to absorb the perfume of freshly harvested jasmine blossoms, often through repeated scenting.

The flowers lend their fragrance to the tea without overwhelming the character of the leaf beneath.

The result can be wonderfully romantic — fresh green tea wrapped in soft, heady floral perfume.

Character: Floral • Fragrant • Soft • Refreshing

Genmaicha

Warm, comforting and wonderfully distinctive.

Genmaicha combines Japanese green tea with roasted rice.

The contrast is irresistible: fresh vegetal tea alongside the warm, toasted aroma of roasted grains.

Originally associated with everyday tea drinking, Genmaicha has become loved around the world for its comforting character and remarkable drinkability.

Character: Toasted • Nutty • Fresh • Comforting

Hojicha

Hojicha begins with Bancha (larger leaves, later harvest) or Kukicha (stems and twigs) and then it takes an unusual turn: the finished tea is roasted.

The roasting transforms its colour and flavour, replacing much of green tea's grassy character with warm aromas reminiscent of roasted nuts, caramel and toasted grain.

The result is gentle, aromatic and particularly beautiful after a meal or in the evening.

Character: Roasted • Mellow • Nutty • Warming

Green tea and wellbeing

For centuries, tea has occupied an intriguing place between pleasure and wellbeing.

Traditional Chinese and Japanese texts frequently discussed tea in relation to health, clarity and vitality, while modern science has focused considerable attention on naturally occurring compounds in the leaf, particularly polyphenols known as catechins.

Green tea also contains caffeine, although the amount in the cup can vary considerably according to the tea, how much leaf is used and how it is brewed. It is therefore better thought of as a gently caffeinated drink rather than a caffeine-free one.

For many tea drinkers, however, green tea's appeal is broader than any single nutritional compound.

There is wellbeing in the ritual itself.

Heating the water. Measuring the leaves. Watching them unfurl. Taking a few quiet minutes away from the noise of the day.

Perhaps that is why, thousands of years after people first began drinking it, green tea still feels so perfectly suited to modern life.

A tea for spring

If there is a season that belongs naturally to green tea, it may be spring.

Many of the finest green teas are associated with the tender new growth of the tea plant, harvested as the weather warms and the gardens return to life.

Their flavours seem to capture something of the season itself — green leaves, fresh grass, flowers, warmth and renewal.

After winter, a pot of green tea can become a wonderfully simple ritual of beginning again.

Fresh leaves. Warm water. A quiet moment. And spring in the cup.

Simon