Tsubame Kukicha (燕茎茶) is Japanese green tea made from the stems and veins of tencha (the shade-grown leaves used to make matcha). It has a slight umami taste with lots of herby and some slightly spicy notes.

Some things worth noting about this tea:

• Being a kukicha (stem tea) it’s naturally lower in caffeine than other green teas (but there’s still enough to notice).
• In matcha production they shade-grow the leaves then carefully remove the stems and veins before processing it into matcha. So not only does it have something extra from that shading period, but this is also essentially a tea made from a by-product, so no waste, wooh!
• The tsubame or barn swallow, that the producers named this tea after, is the most widespread species of passerine (order of perching birds comprising over half of all bird species) in the world.