Natural & Sustainable Tea
We deliver an incredibly rare farmer’s direct teas from Ujitawara, kyoto, Japan.
We’re on a mission to secure the sustainable future of traditional Uji tea culture.
– HISTORY –
Yutani tea
Birthplace of Sencha
Yuyadani is the valley of the wind. The breeze always flows and the cold air does not stay there. Therefore, tea gardens have been protected from frost damages for a long time. Frost burns tea sprauts and stops their growth.
When there was no frost protection fan, high quality tea could only be harvested in places where frost did not occur. This is probably one of the reasons why Yuyadani is a good production area. I want to keep the tea garden that was handed down from a long time ago.
– PHILOSOPHY –
Imagine “Origin of Sencha”
Glimpses of unfamiliar Japanese tea
What’s tea terroir and how does it affect the tea’s aroma and flavor? Even if the tea garden is the same cultivar in adjacent field, the aroma, taste and everything are different. Just like a vineyard. But why isn’t there a culture that enjoys the difference in individuality of each field like wine? In Yuyadani’s tea gardens we can get a unique tea with the aroma of Yamabuki flowers. Surely I don’t know about teas that are as fragrant as here.
– ACTION –
Reborn “Zairai”
Rememberance of japanese tea past “Zairai”
Why do we work with native tea plant varieties grown from seed?
Pure Uji tea is a valuable tea that is less than 1% of the japanese tea sold in the market.
The characteristic of Uji tea is its unique aroma called “hotoro aroma”.
Native varieties”Zarai” tea has stronger “Hotoro aroma” than cultivers. Natural tea without using chemical fertilizers has stronger aroma than conventional farming tea.
Note: Zarai simply refers to tea plants grown from seed that are thought to be descendants of the original tea plants brought to Japan from China. They are usually considered the “native” tea plants of Japan.
How is growing native Japanese varieties of tea plants different than more widespread cultivated varieties?
The buds of Zarai varieties of tea plants are difficult to cut with a machine because the growth speed varies from strain to strain. Cultivated varieties have soft leaves that grow quickly with fertilizer. Non-fertilized tea leaves are hard and more difficult to make tea with.
However, Zairai grows from seeds, so its roots are so deep that they are strongly influenced by the local terroir. In particular, it is a very nice tea with a strong noble fragrance of hotoro-incense characteristic of the Uji region.
I want to grow Uji’s characteristic tea even if I have a hard time raising it.
Note: hotoro-incense in this case roughly means an incense-like aroma related in some way to the grassy undergrowth of the garden which is influenced by the local terroir.