Shade-grown for three weeks before harvest, concentrating the amino acids that make gyokuro the umami benchmark of tea.
The shading builds L-theanine into something like savory broth — and makes gyokuro the most temperature-fussy tea on this page: 50°C extracts sweetness while leaving bitterness behind. Use more leaf, less water, and shorter time than instinct suggests. The second infusion runs hotter and tastes rounder; the third is the quiet reward.
The numbers above optimize for a standard Western mug (8–12 oz). If brewing Gongfu style in a gaiwan, double the leaf dose (5–7 g per 100 ml), use boiling or near-boiling water, and reduce steep times to 15–30 seconds for 6–8 distinct infusions. Read the full Gongfu breakdown →