This post is really long overdue! I’m almost finishing the tea already. I totally did not update in February because it had been a busy month, due to the Lunar New Year and other stuff going on in life. Anyway, this bancha is grown at 500m above sea level on the Yamato Kogen in Tsuge, Nara prefecture. This area has long been known as the production area for Yamato tea, the name of tea produced in the prefecture. Since 2007, Hamanouen has been revitalising abandoned farmlands growing tea, rice and other seasonal products without the use of pesticides or chemical fertilisers. The farm is run by ..read more

This special grade pan-fired tea is the last purchase from my Japan trip last May. It’s produced in Ureshino, Saga prefecture, a tea region that contributes approximately 1% of Japan’s overall tea production. I bought this tea at Soejimaen’s shop that’s located inside Wataya Besso, an upscale onsen hotel, just a couple of minutes’ walk from the cheaper spot where I stayed. Soejimaen is a fourth generation tea producer that’s committed to cultivating tea that are pesticide-free or with reduced pesticides. It operates two plantations with a total area of 3 hectares, including a field at an alti ..read more

This black tea was gifted to me last year and I have left it in storage until this week. It is produced by Shitajimaen, a farm located in the Tamagawa district of Shizuoka City. It has a long history, seven generations now, meaning it has been in existence since the Edo period. Run by the Sato family, Shitajimaen cultivates tea as well as processing them in their own factory. This black tea happens to be made from the Sayamakaori cultivar. The cultivar is produced in Saitama prefecture (Sayama tea region). It was selected from seeds that resulted in the natural crossing of Yabukita cultivar p ..read more

Bought this unusual Vietnamese tea sometime last year, I think, or was it earlier this year? I lost track, but this was made from the winter 2019 harvest. Chinese tea drinkers might be familiar with Ya Bao tea, which is usually made from the buds that have yet to open. I haven’t tasted such tea from China so I can’t make the comparison but from what I read online, Ya Bao could be classified as white tea or pu’er. Ermmm.. Confusing details aside, Hanoi-based Viet Sun Tea offers the explanation that this tea called Mong Rong, or Dragon Claw, is a type of Ya Bao tea made from the axillary buds o ..read more

Kouju is a rare and unregistered cultivar that was born from zairai (native species) tea plants found in the upper reaches of the Warashina River in Honyama, one of Shizuoka’s leading tea-producing areas. It is most known for its fruit aroma similar to muscat when it is oxidised. Founded in 1950, Yamanashi Shouten is a tea wholesaler based in the Aoi ward of Shizuoka city. It specialises in finishing and roasting tea, and is known for producing distinctively fragrant teas, ranging from sencha and hojicha to fermented teas like La Kouju. In 2013, it began producing the La Kocha (ko here refers ..read more

This is one of the several Shizuoka teas gifted to me last year. I’ve been taking my time with all the teas that could be aged (mostly black and other oxidised teas). Roubaika, or in Mandarin Lameihua, is a type of flower known as wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox). As its name suggests, it’s a winter-blooming flower. I think this is the first time I had them in tea. Here the flowers were blended with an oolong tea made by Shibamoto-san who’s located in Makinohara, central Shizuoka. He mainly makes kamairicha though and is quite well-known for it. Besides that, he also makes others like black ..read more

Honestly speaking, I’ve never heard of tea production in Okinawa until about two years ago. Come to think of it, I shouldn’t even be surprised. It’s like located in between Kyushu and Taiwan, and roughly across the sea from the Chinese provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, all which are tea-producing areas. I managed to get hold of this 100% Okinawa black tea last year. Kanigawa Seicha has been producing tea in Haneji, Nago City since 1956 when a tea plantation was started on the site of a former copper mine. The company initially produced only green tea, but began experimenting with black tea pr ..read more

I was planning on opening a wakoucha or Japanese black tea, but this one caught my eye when I was rummaging through my tea stash. I’ve actually forgotten that I had bought it last year. I had the early impression that it was a bancha, but at a closer look now, it’s actually kamairicha (pan-fired green tea). This tea is produced in a small mountain village in Kihoku, Ehime prefecture on Shikoku island. The area is literally one mountain away from Kochi prefecture. Numerous rivers run through the area, the largest of which is the Hiromi River, which is a tributary of Kochi’s Shimanto River. Kam ..read more

The annual Nihoncha Award is one of the many tea competitions in Japan, but it’s dubbed as a “New Wave” competition that brings consumers closer to producers and experts through a tasting and voting process. It was started in 2014 by the Nihoncha Instructor Association together with the Nihoncha Award Executive Committee and Japanese Tea Examination Council. This year a total of 538 teams were submitted for screening. The first and second screenings were conducted in August and September respectively, and as a result, 20 Platinum award winners have been decided by industry experts. The third ..read more

Finally I got around to opening this tea. I seldom buy matcha so you don’t see me blog about this tea type often. I bought this at a farmers’ marketplace in Higashisonogi, Nagasaki prefecture where I visited for the Nagasaki Ikedoki tea tour in May. Higashisonogi, a small town overlooking Omura Bay, has a long history of tea production but it was still considerably obscure until very recent years. This was because tea from here was previously marketed as Ureshino tea, as both tea regions are very close to each other. Among the new generation of tea farmers is a group of four known as Forthees ..read more