Right leaf, right time
Camellia sinensis is basically a small tree. Like every tree, it grows leaves in the spring. As those leaves mature, they get larger (duh) and hardier (also duh if you know much about gardening), and the taste shifts from something bright & grassy into something more savory & nutty.
It is a bit irresponsible & foolish to pick the buds when they are brand new, considering you end up with way less tea that way. But it also tastes unlike anything else. More than any other form of green tea, in my opinion, you taste the results of the prior weather with shincha; subtle variations mean no two crops are ever alike. And if you have enough tea trees, you can afford to pick a few of them this way, leaving the rest to nourish the plant over the remainder of the harvest.
“Shin” means new; cha means “tea.” And so with shincha, that’s exactly what you’re getting. It is only available in late spring, of course, usually with delivery between April & June. The easiest shincha for westerners to get (I think) is from Ippodo, the tea purveyors to the imperial household for several hundred years.
Mowed lawn is the top note of my favorite Japanese greens. You have an immediate image of what this is now. It’s August, full sun, hot enough to threaten but not be oppressive, and someone mowed their lawn. You kneel and inhale.
The next thing that arrives is petrichor, or the ozone-fueled smell of impending rain. A sunshower bursts over the lawn. It feels warm. Everything shifts. This all sounds overly poetic, like I’m describing someone’s perfume, but that is kind of the point. Nobody just chugs Shincha. You sit with it, take the time. There is an element of meditative leisure, of ritual, to the whole affair.
Japan does not do lawns, really, making this all a really funny analogy to consider. But it is the closest top note that I am aware of, and the times I’ve handed shincha, kabusecha, or gyokuro to someone and gotten the words mowed lawn back number north of several dozen.
It is April, time to order shincha. Go, go.
Sourcing notes
Ipoodo is a good place to start with Japanese greens in general. They have an American outpost for easier shipping, and in general they provide top-tier sencha, matcha, hojicha, and gyokuro for an affordable price.
For more interesting Japanese teas, such as black teas(!) that smell naturally floral somehow and rare-edition senchas, hit up The Tea Crane. For more bog-standard senchas that don’t skim on quality and are about as affordable as they come, Sugimoto.