Most Japanese tea is grown in open fields under the sun. Sencha is by far the most common Japanese tea and that is a full sun tea. Gyokuro and Matcha are both examples of teas that are covered during part of their growing cycle to be shaded from the sun. Gyokuro is a loose-leaf tea of high quality, the tea plants are shaded from the sun for about 21 days prior to harvest. Matcha tea is a powdered form of a tea called Tencha - Tencha is shaded in a similar way to Gyokuro but is seldom consumed as tea and is mostly used to produce matcha. Shaded teas tend to have a sweeter and more umami taste than their full sun siblings.