Decription:

This light and refreshing tea is prepared in Kyoto from the season's first tender young leaves harvested at their peak of flavour in late spring. The leaves are briefly steam, rolled and cooled by the special Japanese Sencha process. Then immediately packed to seal in their fresh taste and aroma.

The traditional Japanese practice, not usually found elsewhere, of steaming green tea leaves immediately after picking preserves their unique properties. This steaming, sometimes referred to as the Sencha process, takes place within 24 hours of harvesting and inhibits the enzyme activity that causes oxidisation, enabling the tea to retain its bright emerald green leaf colour and preserving its health benefits.

Current research indicates that drinking green tea may help to prevent heart disease and strokes, regulate blood sugar, lower blood pressure, facilitate weight loss and fight viral colds and flu. Sencha contains vitamin C and six times the antioxidant levels of black tea.

Green tea contains six times the antioxidant levels of black tea and Japanese green tea contains the highest amount.

Historians believe that tea was first drunk thousands of years ago, when the ancient Chinese started boiling their water to guard against bacterial contamination and added tea leaves as flavouring.

Though it has its origins in that simple practice, extraordinary healing properties have come to be associated with tea over the centuries. 16th century European explorers, who encountered tea for the first time in the Far East, reported that it was a hot, medicinal drink used to relieve fever, headache, stomach ache and joint pain.

Recent research confirms what Eastern healers have long known: that drinking green tea may not only help to prevent heart disease and strokes, but may also regulate blood sugar, lower blood pressure, boost the immune system, facilitate weight loss, help prevent ulcers, slow the ageing process, fight viral colds and flu, and even prevent gum disease, cavities and bad breath , reduce bone loss in elderly women .

Furthermore, Asian populations, where green tea is consumed as part of the everyday diet tend to have a lower incidence of cancer than people in countries where green tea is less commonly drunk. Consequently, green tea has been the focus of a considerable amount of research in recent years and has been associated with reducing the risk of many types of cancer.

Many of these possible health benefits come from green tea's rich supply of catechins (also referred as polyphenols, which they belong to), which are one of nature's most powerful antioxidants. Even though black tea and green tea come from the same variety of tea bush, black tea can loose up to 10 times of its health promoting properties during fermentation.