Thank you for visiting from the TeaGuardian.com! Actually, all of these teas are from Japan, though they are quite rare to see at stores (even in Japan). Yunomi.life is dedicated to bringing these rare Japanese teas to the global market by partnering with and introducing small scale tea farms and factories.
Kyobancha is harvested before the first spring flush of the year. Farmers who harvest by machine trim the shape of their tea hedges in March with their harvesting machines forming a base. When the new leaves sprout, they can then follow this base to harvest only spring leaf. The leaves from that preparation in March are large mature leaves often used as fertilizer, but occasionally, particularly in Kyoto, they are steamed the dried without rolling, and finally roasted to create a light, very low caffeine tea.
Kancha is a rare tea made of similarly mature winter leaves but generally harvested in January and processed in January and February by steaming, but then sun drying. The specific process varies from location to location, but this tea not made widely and very few people, even Japanese themselves, have heard of it.
Tencha - is not a rare tea but rarely sold as leaf. It is the green tea leaf used to create matcha. Leaves are shaded (generally in the spring, particularly for more umami rich flavor), then harvested, steamed, dried without rolling, green roasted (low temperature drying done not at the initial processing factory but generally at refiners), crushed to allow for easier grinding, but also to separate stems and veins from the main leaf (creating a finer grind of matcha). As a tea, the leaf tends to be very light and delicate, much like white tea, and will vary in bitterness / umami flavor according to the grade.
Goishicha is a very rare tea that has been fermented (dark tea) and produced only in the Otoyo village of Kochi Prefecture.
