The market · Herbs and aromatics · East Asia

Green tea

Brewed as a punch's backbone or a drink's tannin: grassy and gently bitter, with enough structure to stand up to spirit.

grassy · vegetal · tannic

What to do with it

Kenji Hara's Milk punch, with hojichaGreen tea would temper its sweetness
Classics built on it
ZhejiangLongjing shrimpSmall peeled river shrimp, quick-fried pale and tender, then tossed with the fresh leaves of Longjing green tea.No one here has made it yetKashmiriKahwaGreen tea brewed with saffron, cardamom and cinnamon, sweetened and poured over slivered almonds.No one here has made it yet

Kinds

Sencha
Steamed, grassy, bright — the everyday Japanese green.
Genmaicha
With toasted rice, nutty and soft.
Matcha
Ground whole leaf, whisked in rather than brewed; vivid and bitter.

If you can't find it

Cooked here without it

Goes with

mezcallondon dry ginhoneywhole milk

Cooked with, here

lime juicemezcalpineapple juicesimple syrupwhole milk

How much, here

Clarified milk punch, mezcal and pineapple150ml green teaRosa Ibarra · 16% of the dish

Knowing it

Where to buy
Loose leaf from a tea shop, bought small and kept airtight; it fades in months.
Worth knowing
Brew it cooler than black tea, around 70–80 °C, and briefly — over-steeped green tea is all bitterness, and milk-washing will only take some of it out.

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