Shincha means new tea. It is the first harvest of the year, and it is sold as quickly as it can be processed and shipped.
It is sencha, just sooner
This is the part that confuses people. Shincha is not a separate type of tea. It is sencha from the first flush, sold fresh instead of stored.
Most Japanese tea is picked in spring, processed into aracha, and then held in cold storage to be finished and packed through the year. That is not a compromise, it is how the industry keeps quality stable. Shincha skips that: it goes from the field to the pack in weeks.
When it is picked
Somewhere between late April and May, but there is no date on a calendar for it. The grower decides on the weather: how the winter went, how warm the spring has been, how the bud is developing. Picking a few days too early or too late changes the tea, and knowing when to start is experience rather than a rule.
What that does to the taste
Younger leaf and no storage time gives you more aroma and a sweeter, greener cup. Soft, light, and unmistakably fresh in a way the same tea does not manage in November.
Whether that makes it better is a matter of taste. Whether it is different is not.
The packaging is part of it
Shincha arrives in bright, seasonal packaging, and that is not a marketing decision on our side. In Japan the new harvest is a small event, and the packs are designed for it: cherry blossom, spring colors, gold. If you see a Japanese tea in a pack that looks like a gift, it is usually shincha.
When it reaches Europe
Picking starts in late April in the south and runs into May further north. Processing, export and customs take a few weeks after that, so the first lots reach our warehouse in May.
Because it is a single harvest of a single lot, there is a fixed amount and no restock. When it is gone it is gone until next spring.
How to brew it
Cooler and shorter than you would brew the same tea later in the year: around 65 to 70 °C for 45 to 60 seconds. Young leaf gives up its flavor fast, and heat flattens the aroma you came for.
Drink it within a few months of opening. Shincha does not improve with keeping, which is rather the point.
Which shincha we carry
The lots change every year, because we buy what is good rather than the same line each season. That means the names on this page will be different next spring.
Everything we have lands in the shincha collection as soon as the stock arrives, so that is the page to check in spring.