Aracha (Unrefined)
Aracha is not really a finished tea; it is the crude tea that comes straight off a Japanese farm's primary processing line, before a finisher sorts and re-fires it into sencha, kukicha, konacha and the rest. Buying it means buying everything at once: whole leaf, stems, buds and dust, with a raw, green intensity that the refining step normally tames. The variable that matters most is freshness, because unrefined leaf carries more moisture and goes off faster than finished tea.
A bag of aracha should look inconsistent on purpose: a jumble of leaf sizes, visible stems (kuki), fine powder and the odd stalk, all deep green and smelling vividly of cut grass and steamed vegetables. That mixed grist is the point, not a defect, but it should still smell alive rather than flat or hay-like, which signals oxidation from poor storage. Because aracha skips the finisher's final firing (hiire), it is more perishable and more variable cup to cup than refined tea, so current-year, vacuum-sealed, refrigerated material is the only version worth buying. Clarity about the farm, region and harvest is a good sign, since aracha is usually sold farm-direct or as a single lot. Treat any aracha that has been sitting warm on a shelf with suspicion.
Aracha is produced everywhere Japanese tea is grown, from Shizuoka to Kagoshima, and from any cultivar (Yabukita dominates here as it does across Japan). It is the form in which almost all Japanese tea is actually traded: farms make aracha, then wholesalers and finishers (chashi) buy it, sort it by particle type and apply a final firing to create the named products on the shelf. The character therefore reflects the raw farm and region rather than a finisher's blending and roasting decisions, which is exactly why some drinkers seek it out.
Treat it like a slightly unruly sencha. Western: 70-80°C, 3 g per 200 ml, around 60 seconds, but watch it, because the fine particles and dust release fast and can turn the cup harsh. In a kyusu: 70-75°C, 4 g per 150 ml, 30-40 seconds, increasing slightly each steep, 3-4 infusions. A fine-mesh pot helps, since the powder fraction will otherwise muddy everything.
€8-25 (about $9-27) per 100 g for most farm-direct aracha, with premium single-cultivar or first-flush lots reaching €30-45 (about $32-49). It is generally cheaper than the finished sencha it would become, since you are skipping the finisher's labor.
Prices reviewed June 2026
Sencha
The finished, sorted and re-fired product that most aracha is destined to become; sencha is the refined cup, aracha the raw material.
Shincha
The first sencha of spring, sold fresh and lightly finished; shincha is the closest finished tea to aracha's just-off-the-farm character.
Kukicha
One of the fractions a finisher separates out of aracha: the stems and twigs, sorted away during refining.
Konacha
Another refining fraction, the fine dust and particles sifted out of aracha during finishing.
Almost every single-estate Japanese tea on the market began life as aracha sold at wholesale; the finisher who buys it decides, through sorting and final firing, how much of that one harvest becomes sencha and how much becomes kukicha, mecha or konacha, and how it ultimately tastes.