Liquor colour

Hold a cup up to the light and the ground color runs from yellow to yellow-green. That yellow is dissolved matter — the part genuinely extracted from the leaf. It is often attributed to flavonol glycosides, though we have not confirmed the per-compound contribution in a primary source, so this page does not assert it.

What is certain is that straining does not remove it. It is in solution, so a strainer makes no difference to the yellow.

The green comes from chlorophyll — which is fat-soluble and does not dissolve in water. So the green is not extracted color at all. It is the color of leaf particles held in suspension.

That is why deep-steamed sencha looks so green: the longer steam breaks the leaf finer, so more particles stay suspended. It also means cloudiness and green intensity cannot be separated. A cup that is both crystal clear and deeply green is close to impossible in green tea.

Cloudy does not mean poorly made. In deep-steamed tea it is the method working as intended.

Chlorophyll is built around a porphyrin ring with magnesium at its center, and that magnesium is vulnerable to acid, heat and light. Lose it and the molecule becomes pheophytin, which is brown — and the green fades by that much. The Ryukyu University paper writes it as an equation: chlorophyll + 2H⁺ → pheophytin + Mg.

A cup left standing drifts yellow-brown, and stored leaf browns over months, by the same route. Hojicha's color is that change driven hard and fast by roasting.

The same paper notes that deterioration shows up in color before it shows up in aroma or taste. Color is not a confirmation that flavor has gone; it is the early warning.

Hotter water and longer steeping dissolve more, so the cup darkens — but astringency rises with it, which is why 'pale' and 'weak' are not the same thing. Gyokuro is brewed at 50–60°C (122–140°F) and comes out pale while tasting anything but.

Heavily fired tea pours darker, because browning has already begun during the finishing roast. The same leaf from the same field will differ in the cup depending on that step alone.

Shaking the pot or pressing the leaf releases fine particles and clouds the cup. It intensifies the green, and brings muddiness along with it.

It tells you about method. Dark green and cloudy means deep-steamed; clear pale yellow-green means light steaming or cool water; reddish brown means roasted, or old.

It does not tell you about quality or strength. Dark is not better and pale is not weaker — gyokuro is the standing counterexample.

Competitions do judge liquor color, but only because every entry is brewed to a fixed protocol. That yardstick does not transfer to a cup made at home.