Our Tea Story

Benefits of Green Tea

Tea has been consumed globally for centuries, and it's the most consumed beverage in the world after water. Because of its health benefits, it has recently gained popularity in the United States. [The on board British soldiers are filling up their canteens with tea in 1940.] Even though there are a couple of different varieties and several cultivars, all tea leaves are plucked from one particular shrub called Camellia sinensis. Interestingly, it’s this lack of variety that gives tremendous health benefit to tea leaves. Green, black, white, oolong, and pu-erh (fermented) teas are all harvested from this tea shrub. Even though they are all unique, the only difference between them is the level of oxidation.

Green tea is made from un-oxidized leaves, which means that it's not as processed and contains many more antioxidants than other teas. However, despite this, 78 percent of tea consumed worldwide is black, while only about 20 percent is green. Green tea is known to have numerous health benefits. Here at Tarani Tea, we advocate drinking more green tea for cancer prevention, a healthy heart, and lower cholesterol. Green tea also helps to prevent type 2 diabetes and weight loss, and promotes healthy skin and better memory retention (of course, along with eating well and working out)!

Matcha, the Super Green Tea

Matcha is the cream of the crop of all the tea types. It's known for having one of the most powerful antioxidants found in nature called EGCG (catechine. The amount of EGCG is rated by its ORAC, or Oxygen Radical Absorption Capacity. The ORAC value of matcha is 1348 umoleTE/g while prunes, which has the highest value among fruit, has only 57.70 umoleTE/g. This high EGCG level plays a key role in helping you prevent cancer, maintain cardiovascular function, and boost weight loss and memory.

Matcha also has the highest source of L-theanine thanks to the process in which it is grown. Ancient Japanese tea farmers began shading the tea shrubs from the sun, which increases the amount of L-theanine. As a result, matcha has 4 times the amount found in regular green tea.

So what is L-theanine? As an amino acid, it produces its anti-anxiety effects without causing sleepiness or impairing motor function. It has been shown to improve alertness and attention while lowering anxiety because L-theanine promotes the production of α (alpha) waves in our brain. Thanks to L-theanine, the caffeine in matcha is released gradually over 4-6 hours without the usual crash you could get from coffee.

How is the Tea Shrub Grown for Matcha?

To make matcha, farmers pick a certain part of their green tea garden, usually where they can naturally produce higher quality tea leaves. Then they cover the tea shrubs to block them from sunlight for about 3~4 weeks. This process makes the shrubs work harder to bring up more nutrients from their root, just like how “a struggling vine makes a better wine”! That is why we call this growing method as “shaded grown,” and the leaves plucked from these shrubs are called “tencha,” while the rest of the sun-exposed green tea leaves are called “sencha.” Then these tea leaves are steamed and dried by cold air to preserve its green color and slowly ground in a stone mill. At this stage it becomes matcha, the true green tea powder.

All tea is blended to produce a consistent quality. Even from one tea garden, the tea master of the garden tests leaves from different locations of the garden, and blends them. So the blending process and finding the perfect consistency and quality depends on the palate of the tea master! Tea masters grade the productions per quality, and from one garden, it's perfectly normal to produce different qualities of matcha.

Our Daily Organic Matcha

Our Daily Organic Matcha is made from the first-plucked tencha (shaded, remember?) leaves in spring. All of them are hand-picked when new leaves come out of the top of tea shrubs in Kagoshima, Japan. It was blended and graded as a great ceremonial matcha by a renowned tea master who achieved the tenth level rank among tea growers (the highest rank) in Japan. 

At Tarani Tea, we pursue the best “sustainable value” for us and for you. When we're lucky with a particular tencha harvest, we'll get a higher quality of tea to offer you for the same price for a limited period every year. Please sign up for our newsletter to stay in the loop about our new products and special promotions! 

History of Hojicha: The Invention of A Savory Fragrance

Around the time of the Great Depression, a tea merchant in Kyoto, Japan didn’t want to waste his expensive tea so he came up with a delicious idea. He set a charcoal fire in front of his tea shop, and roasted the leftover leaves and stems in a clay pot. Then, he fanned its smoke by hand. The rich and sweet aroma filled the air and brought curious passersby into his shop. Hojicha is that roasted green tea.

The invention of this new flavor of tea didn’t ended in his tea shop. It has been continued, and now flourishes, in Uji, Kyoto. This beautiful town is a historic place for premium Japanese green teas where century-old tea cafes are easily found. Their drink crafters and pastry chefs are reinventing drinks and sweets for modern palates with their great-grandmothers’ old tea recipes. Hojicha-based sweets and drinks paired with matcha are having a renaissance, so don’t miss out on these new creations! 

Organic Hojicha, Our Flagship Tea

At first glance, hojicha fits right into our goal of business: to make time-tested ingredients more accessible and fun in the modern age! Unlike most hojicha teas in the market, our dark-roasted blend is double-roasted, thus it naturally has less caffeine and a more reddish color when it's steeped. This makes our hojicha the perfect evening tea for those who are caffeine-sensitive or for those who want a non-caffeinated tea at night.

Our hojicha is roasted with a state of art roasting machine that resembles traditional method using charcoal fire.  We try our best to procure to get you the best aroma and flavor in the market. So grab your favorite mug and try our special blend of tradition and innovation in the Tarani Tea Organic Hojicha products!