Shimizu (east of Shizuoka city) teas by Mr. Yamamoto are now classics of my selection (although this may not always be for good reasons). To the cultivars Yabukita, Kanaya-midori, Oku-yutaka, Sayama-kaori, was added a few years ago a Kôshun. Here… Read More ›
Dôsenbô is a mountain town in Minami-Yamashiro in the south of the Kyôto prefecture. It is traditionally a sencha production area, with real non-shaded sencha, a rare thing for an “Uji tea”. Located at 400-500 meters above sea level, the… Read More ›
Until now, the kama-iri cha from Ashikita (Kumamoto prefecture) by Mr. Kajihara were blends based mainly on Yabukita or on his “zairai-shu” (seed grown tea bushes), with Oku-yutaka in smaller proportions. This year, in even more limited quantities of course,… Read More ›
Here is one of the nicest tea of this season 2017, one of my favorites, and this is still an inzatsu type cultivar. This Fuji-kaori cultivar sencha from Fujieda is clearly far superior to its 2016 vintage. Mr. Yamamoto is… Read More ›
It really is very slowly that this 2017 season begins; After the delay of the beginning of the crops, things accelerate, but it is then the finishing work (sorting, final drying, etc) that does not follow. For the mountain teas,… Read More ›
After having presented a Kondô-wase, a Sôfû, here is the “father” of these cultivars, a Shizu-inzatsu 131 cultivar, the 2017 vintage of the incredible, unique, fukamushi-cha from Nearai in western Shizuoka, manufactured by Mr. Tarui. Once is not custom, I… Read More ›
To take over the Kondô-wase cultivar from Mariko, this year again is this one from Osaka. Again, necessary precision, this is Osaka 小坂, in Suruga district of Shizuoka, not Ôsaka 大阪 the big city of western Japan. The characters, as… Read More ›
After Kondô-wase cultivar sencha from Mariko (Shizuoka), which is already sold out, here is the second early shincha hasty on Thés du Japon. With the cultivar Sôfû, it is still a variety of “inzatsu” type. It is also a cross… Read More ›
For those who are still surprised to see me come out now with a 2016 gyokuro, please refer to, for example, this article about the Gokô gyokuro from Kyô-Tanabe, or this one about the Gokô matcha Gokô from Uji. Uji-tawara,… Read More ›
Given the time of year, some may find it strange that I speak of gyokuro and matcha. So, I repeat, the gyokuro and matcha from Uji are teas that are in principle never sold at the time of the spring… Read More ›
I recalled it in a previous article, but gyokuro is indeed the Japanese tea to enjoy in the current late winter/early srping season. By this I mean that not only gyokuro is never sold at the time of shincha, but… Read More ›
After the excellent Kôshun from Ashikita, here’s again a black tea, this time coming from the prefecture of Saitama, from Iruma city to be more precise. Certain may have guessed, it is a tea by Hiruma Yoshiaki. Last year, I… Read More ›
It has been a century and a half since Japan began producing black tea (or red tea if literally translated as kôcha (jp) hongcha (ch) 紅茶). Japan, however, does not have the image of a black tea producing country, it… Read More ›
What to drink in late winter or early spring? In Japan, the big tea brands released in February the “haru-machi cha” (tea for waiting spring), or other blend with the same kind of naming. These are of course no particular… Read More ›
I have been proposing for several years a smoked black tea from Shimada in Shizuoka by Mr. Matsumoto who was the first in Japan to try this experiment. Its flagship product is the one I was proposing, smoked with wood… Read More ›
