Shincha and Japan's tea seasons.

The tea year, in one picture

A tea bush rests through winter. In spring it wakes slowly, and that slowness is everything. Cool nights, short days, a young shoot taking its time. That is where the sweetness comes from.

Then the year speeds up. Each later harvest grows faster, in more heat and more sun. Faster growth means less sweetness and more bite.

What each harvest gives you

Timing varies by region: Kagoshima starts weeks before Shizuoka and Kyoto.

The reason is in the leaf. In a cool spring the plant keeps more theanine, an amino acid that tastes sweet and brothy. In summer sun, theanine is turned into catechins, which taste bitter and drying. Same bush. Different season. Different tea.

Shincha, the new tea

Shincha (新茶) is not a separate kind of tea. It is the first sencha of the year, sold fresh, soon after picking. In Japan the first shincha in the shops is a small celebration. Signs go up in tea shop windows: 新茶入荷, new tea has arrived.

Shincha tastes green in a way later tea does not. Bright, sweet, a little like fresh peas and cut grass. It is at its most vivid in the weeks after release. After that it settles and rounds out.

The 88th night

Hachijūhachiya (八十八夜) is the 88th night after risshun (立春), the traditional first day of spring. It falls around 1 or 2 May.

Japanese tradition says tea picked around this night brings good health and a long life. It also marks the heart of the first flush in many regions, and the point when late frost is usually over. Children in Japan still learn a song about tea picking on the 88th night, Chatsumi (茶摘み).

1. Risshun, around 4 February: the old calendar's first day of spring.
2. Count 88 nights. You arrive at about 1 or 2 May.
3. Frost risk eases. Growers say the frost stops at the 88th night (八十八夜の別れ霜).
4. Picking peaks in Shizuoka and Uji around this time.

Why the south picks first

Japan is long. The spring tea front moves north the way the cherry blossom front does.

Kagoshima, on Japan's warm southern tip, starts weeks before Uji. That early start is one reason Kagoshima has grown so fast: its tea reaches the market first.

Price and taste by harvest

Source: MAFF 茶をめぐる情勢, October 2026.

Japan's first flush has shrunk by more than a third since 2008. Farms age. Growers shift to cheaper late season tea. That is one reason first flush matcha has become so expensive.

When does shincha reach Australia?

Shincha is released in Japan from late April to June. After processing, shipping and testing, new season tea typically reaches Australia from around the middle of the year.

Matcha is different. Tencha from the first flush is stored cold, whole, and milled through the year. Milling to order keeps it fresh long after the spring picking.