A bag on the shelf reads Kaga bōcha. A place name and a part of the tea plant stand together in one name. Gyokuro and sencha describe a way of making; what was picked never enters the name. In Kaga bōcha, the part of the plant does.
This piece looks at why this tea is made from stems, from the side of its beginnings and the side of today.
Two reasons for the stems
Fine, twig-like leaves show at the mouth of the bag. The reasons for the stems lie on two sides: the start and the present.
At the start, it was a use for stems left over. Today, using stems is a condition of the name.
The two answers belong to questions from different times. The sources show that they cannot be folded into one. The beginnings come first.
A use for spare stems
In drying tea leaves, stems that have come away from the leaf pile up. This tea grew out of a way to put those stems to use.
A national register of traditional foods says that, long ago, a tea merchant of a castle town found a use for the stems. The steps from picking to roasting, and the ways of dividing the roast, are on the same page.
Why stems were left over has no single explanation. One account says hand-sorted stems did not sell; another says a boom in green tea exports left stems to spare. Neither rests on a primary source, and the sources go no further. After the beginnings comes the record of a presentation.
Figure 7-3-1The Kaga bōcha process: five stages from plucking to roasting
| Stage | Step | What happens at this stage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Plucking | — |
| 2 | Steaming | — |
| 3 | Rolling and drying | The leaf becomes aracha here |
| 4 | Sorting | Leaves and stems part here |
| 5 | Roasting | Three roasting methods (direct-fire／sand roasting／far-infrared) and three divisions of roast (light roast／medium roast／dark roast) |
A light roast for a presentation
A tea for presentation calls to mind leaf of an especially bright colour. This tea was once presented to the Emperor.
The national page records the presentation plainly. The maker writes that a request arrived for the very finest. It says it made the tea by a new method, lightly roasting first-picked stems from a southern growing region.
How the tea was made is the maker's own account. The sources show the fact of the presentation and that the maker tells it this way. After the record comes the rule behind today's name.
Today, the name asks for stems
The product name is now protected by a registered rule. Using stems is a condition of the name Kaga bōcha.
The rule describes hojicha finished within the prefecture, using stem tea, by a method born in that region. Stems are required, but where the stems themselves come from is not asked.
The story of origins and today's prices are separate matters, too. One account puts stems and other by-products at half the price of main tea or less, yet one maker's stem tea and leaf tea cost the same in the same bag. The sources show that cheap-because-stems and stems-because-Kaga share a shelf.
Stems that cross three regions
Freshly roasted stems swell a little and give off a faint, sweet smell. What the place in the name points to is the last step, the roasting.
The maker writes that buying good stems is in fact very difficult. The stems for the presentation tea are chosen by a tea company in another region, which picks out the young, soft ones. Sieving them to an even size takes the amount down by about a fifth.
The roasting itself takes only moments. The sources show that the stems are picked in the south, sorted elsewhere, and roasted in the place of the name. The dates and place names come together at the end.
The numbers in detail
- Earliest record
- The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries' Encyclopedia of Traditional Foods in Japan states that in Meiji 35 (1902) Hayashiya Shinbei, a tea merchant in Kanazawa, developed a use for by-product stems.
- Why stems were spare
- The unsold-stems account is from an Uji wholesaler (Kuwabara Zensuke Shoten); the export account is from the head of Maruhachi Seichajo.
- Presentation
- The ministry's page states that in Shōwa 58 Kaga bōcha was presented to the Shōwa Emperor.
- Maker's account
- Maruhachi Seichajo writes that a request came in 1983 and that it lightly roasted first-picked stems from Kagoshima.
- Trademark
- Kaga bōcha is a regional collective trademark for hojicha finished and processed within Ishikawa Prefecture using stem tea, by a method deriving from the Kaga region, its birthplace.
- Prices
- Half the price of main tea or less is the Tokyo Tea Cooperative's description. The equal prices are Maruhachi Seichajo's presentation Kaga bōcha and Kaga hojicha, both in 60 g bags.
- Sorting
- A tea company in Shizuoka sorts the presentation stems, calling the young, soft ones mirui bō. Sieving reduces the amount by about 20%.
- Roasting
- A ceramic burner, for 30 to 40 seconds.
- Three regions
- For the presentation tea, stems come from Kagoshima, are sorted in Shizuoka and are roasted in Ishikawa.