What is tencha? The leaf before matcha

Tencha is the leaf before it becomes matcha. That is the whole definition, and most explanations stop there. The more useful thing to know in 2026 is that tencha is where the price of matcha is actually being set — at auction, as leaf, weeks before anyone grinds it.

Tencha is shade-grown tea leaf that has been steamed, dried flat without rolling, and stripped of its stems and veins. Grind it on stone and it becomes matcha; nothing is added and nothing else changes — which is why the sweetness in the bowl is decided under the shades rather than at the whisk. So yes, tencha and matcha are the same tea at two stages. And the reason matcha costs more this year is visible at the tencha stage: at the first Kyoto auction of 2026 the average price of tencha reached about 14,100 yen a kilogram, the highest in a decade and up from about 8,200 yen the year before.

What makes a leaf tencha

Three steps separate tencha from ordinary green tea, and all three happen before any grinding.

Shading is the step that matters for flavor. A leaf kept out of direct sun holds on to the amino acids that taste savory and sweet instead of turning them into the compounds that taste bitter. Not rolling it is the step that matters for grinding: rolling bruises and twists the leaf into shapes a stone mill cannot work evenly, and a flat, dry leaf with the veins gone grinds to the talc-fine powder matcha needs.

That is also why grinding sencha does not make matcha. It makes green tea powder: sun-grown, rolled, stems included. It looks similar in a jar and behaves nothing like it in a bowl.

Where the 2026 price rise actually happened

This is the part no English-language explanation of tencha includes yet, and it answers a question people are asking all year.

These are prices for leaf. Nothing has been ground, packed, shipped or marked up yet. By the time that leaf is stone-milled at a few tens of grams an hour and sealed into a thirty-gram tin, the increase has been carried through every step after it.

The reason given across the Japanese tea trade is straightforward: demand for matcha has grown faster than tencha can be produced, so growers have been switching fields from sencha to tencha. That has a knock-on effect people do not expect — fewer sencha fields, so sencha has become more expensive as well, even though nobody is buying it for lattes.

I saw the other end of this myself. A tea I could buy as a single tin at retail could not be supplied to me wholesale at any price. The auction numbers are the same story told from the field.

How matcha compares with sencha, gyokuro and konacha, the other Japanese teas a subscription might send: a Japanese tea subscription: matcha, sencha or gyokuro?

Can you drink tencha as leaf?

You can, though very little is sold that way. Most tencha goes straight to the mill, and the leaf form is a specialty item.

Makers who do sell it as loose leaf recommend brewing it gently: roughly seven to eight grams in 200 ml of water at 60–70 °C, for a minute and a half to two minutes, and it will take two or three infusions. The leaf is flat and light — about half the weight of sencha for the same volume — so it floats, and it needs a larger measure than you would expect.

The cup is pale and mild, closer to a delicate, sweet green tea than to anything resembling matcha. That surprises people, and it is worth understanding why: infused, you only get what dissolves out of the leaf in two minutes. Whisked as matcha, you drink the leaf itself, which is where the depth, the body and most of the caffeine come from.

Questions I get asked

Is tencha the same as matcha?

The same tea at two stages. Tencha is the shaded, dried, de-veined leaf; matcha is that leaf ground to powder on stone. Nothing is added in between. What changes is how you drink it — infused as leaf, or whisked so you consume the whole leaf.

Is tencha cheaper than matcha?

Per kilogram, the leaf is cheaper than the finished powder, because stone milling is slow and every step after the auction adds cost. But tencha is not a cheap tea: its auction price is what has risen most sharply in 2026, and loose tencha sold for drinking is a specialty product priced accordingly.

What is the difference between tencha and sencha?

Tencha is shaded before picking, dried flat without rolling, and has its stems and veins removed, so that it can be ground. Sencha is usually sun-grown, rolled into needles, and brewed as loose leaf. Grinding sencha gives you green tea powder, not matcha.

What is the difference between tencha and gyokuro?

Both are shaded, which is why both taste sweet and savory. Gyokuro is then rolled like sencha and brewed as leaf, and is prized as a leaf tea in its own right. Tencha skips the rolling because it is headed for the mill.

Why is matcha so expensive this year?

Because the leaf is. The average price of tencha at the first Kyoto auction of 2026 was about 14,100 yen per kilogram, the highest in ten years and up from about 8,200 yen in 2025, and first-flush tencha in Kagoshima more than doubled. Growers are converting sencha fields to meet demand, and it has not caught up.

Where this fits

Shading and stone-milling are what made this leaf Japanese, even though the whisking itself came from Song China. The rest of the journey from field to tin is in when matcha is harvested, and the four costs behind any tin are in why matcha is so expensive. If the word itself trips you up, how to pronounce matcha covers tencha as well. The tea I stock is a tin chosen for the bowl, the complete set pairs it with the bowl and whisk, and the beginner's guide covers everything else you need.

Written by Mio.K, who chooses everything in this shop by hand in Japan.