A single cultivar (benifuuki) black tea with light, sweet, floral notes of citrus and a hint of cinnamon. Enjoy straight, or steep stronger for making milk tea.

Winner of the 2022 Nihoncha Awards Platinum Medal! This award is held by the Nihoncha (\"Japanese tea\") Instructor's Association. Unlike regional and national tea competitions held throughout Japan featuring the unrefined tea leaves that come from farmers, the Nihoncha Awards accepts entries from farms, factories and sellers that are commercial products, refined teas meant for drinking by consumers. Awards are given out in August judged by a select panel of experts while they over winners in several categories are chosen after tea tastings are held for the general public (several hundred tasters) in December—a people’s choice type of award.

Steeping notes

Product Info

Washi (和紙) is a uniquely beautiful type of paper from Japan. This tea can is wrapped in a washi paper and holds approximately 175 grams of sencha tea leaves. The plastic inner cover keeps the can airtight, but the can is made primarily for frequent use of the tea leaves contained.

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Steeping Notes

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Steeping Notes

Tarui-san's hojicha ground into a fine powder for easy and instant hojicha tea. While you may be familiar with matcha powder, have you ever tried or experimented baking with hojicha (roasted green tea) powder? Like matcha powder, you often see it in ice cream, pudding, lattes, and baked goods such as cookies, cakes, donuts, etc... A simple personal autumn-winter favorite is to bake cookies with hojicha powder and to add white chocolate chips. If you would like inspiration, here is a recipe from Sachiko-san to bake hojicha roll cake!

Hojicha powder can also serve as an easy way to make hojicha quickly and drink 100% of the tea.

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Steeping Notes

Hojicha powder can also serve as an easy way to make hojicha quickly and drink 100% of the tea.

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Steeping Notes

Another one of Tarui-san's recommendations from their tea selection, Tarui-san's first flush green tea, deep-steamed, but left unrefined. In order to properly store the tea leaves over a longer period, the leaves are green roasted, which also imparts a slight toastiness to the leaf. At Tarui Tea Farm, they value the unique aroma of their Aracha (raw leaves) without selecting the leaves and stems. In fact, Tarui Tea Farm takes pride in their aracha (raw leaf) factory. The aracha factory is where the tea leaves are steamed and then rolled into aracha, a very important step in Japanese tea processing. This is a well-balanced tea with a strong flavor and aroma, suitable for tea lovers.

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Flavor

The flavor of this tea is bright and vegetal green with a hint of bitterness. There are also some deeper green notes and a bit of astringency.

Steeping Notes

Consider also cold steeping or ice steeping (see Steeping Techniques). The main thing to note is that lower water temperatures create a sweeter flavor profile while hotter temperatures create a more bitter, astringent profile. More water or less tea will reduce the strength of the tea.

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Flavor

The flavor of this tea is bright and vegetal green with a hint of bitterness. There are also some deeper green notes and a bit of astringency.

Steeping Notes

A strongly oxidized oolong tea from tea farmer Fujisako-san, aged in long-term cold storage.

Certified Organic

All teas grown by the Fujisako family of Hinokuni Kumamoto are grown organically certified under the JAS system by Organic Certification Organization Co., Ltd. If repackaged by Yunomi for sampling purposes, it is not considered certified organic.

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Steeping Notes

A strongly oxidized oolong tea from tea farmer Fujisako-san, aged in long-term cold storage.

Certified Organic

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Steeping Notes

Organic tea farmer Yoshimitsu Masuda's best sencha, Daichi no Meicha 大地の命茶 (\"Tea [made from] the life of the earth\"), is a deep-steamed sencha or fukamushicha that produces a deep green tea with a rich umami flavor. The leaves for this level are picked while they are still very young in spring...while \"shincha\" or new tea is used broadly in the tea industry to mean any first flush tea that has just been harvested, Daichi no Meicha, Imperial Grade, is truly new leaf.

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Farmer Info

Yoshimitsu Masuda spent the first part of his adult life working in a major farming cooperative where he learned firsthand about the danger of food additives and pesticides. Returning to the family tea farm in 1992 to learn tea making from his father and fellow tea farmers in Shimada, Shizuoka, he was deeply surprised at the amount of pesticides used in tea farming.

Switching to organic farming was not an easy task; insects and disease plagued the first field he was given charge of, crop yield and leaf quality dropped, and he faced criticism from both family and other tea professionals. But he felt it was important to create tea that was safe for his own family to drink first. (Read more about Masuda-san's story here.)

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

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Farmer Info

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

Harvested a few days after organic tea farmer Yoshimitsu Masuda's best sencha (Imperial Grade), the Premium Grade Daichi no Meicha 大地の命茶 (\"Tea [made from] the life of the earth\"), has both the delicate sweetness of top grade sencha and a perfect touch of astringency for body.

This tea is a deep-steamed sencha or fukamushicha that produces a deep green tea with a rich umami flavor. The leaves for this level are picked in late April while still young and tender.

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Farmer Info

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

This tea is a deep-steamed sencha or fukamushicha that produces a deep green tea with a rich umami flavor. The leaves for this level are picked in late April while still young and tender.

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Farmer Info

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

What is meant by kuki hojicha? A kukicha (“twig tea”), or stem tea, made with parts of the tea plant that is usually not used for making the most common type of green tea such as sencha. This tea from Zenkouen is a roasted stem tea, and specifically with stems/stalks coming from their final bancha harvest. This tea has a very fragrant aroma and refreshing taste.

Please note that roasting is performed by an outside professional, so this product is not included in the organic tea certification.

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Steeping

About the Tea Farmer

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

Please note that roasting is performed by an outside professional, so this product is not included in the organic tea certification.

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Steeping

About the Tea Farmer

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

Kuchikiri

手前茶の口切にさへゆふべ哉
temae cha no kuchikiri ni sae yūbe kana
The tea before me, I break the seal, in the evening

This poem was written in 1806 by one of Japan's most prominent haiku poets, Kobayashi Issa 小林一茶. The term kuchikiri 口切 refers to the unsealing of tea in the winter. After the spring harvest, traditionally (particularly prior to modern refrigeration) tea producers would would seal gyokuro (as well as tencha, the leaf used for matcha) in a jar (tsubo 壷) and store in a cool place (underground or in a cave). The storage during the hot summer and into winter allows the leaf to age, allowing any remaining bitter-tasting catechin to degrade, rounding out the flavor. The tradition has become an event and ceremony in Kyoto and other regions.

The term is also used by poets as a seasonal indicator, adding an additional layer of hidden meaning to the haiku. I'm not sure my translation is entirely accurate...I couldn't figure out the significance of the \"ni sae\" and the nuance of the \"kana\"...if you are a student of Japanese poetry, please feel free correct me in the comments!

This tea has followed this process, so we are naming it \"kuchikiri\" in honor of both the tradition and one of my favorite poets, Kobayashi Issa.

Organic cultivation

What is also unique is the richness of the umami flavor despite the fact that the leaves were grown organically. Non-organic cultivation allows farmers to infuse their tea plants with nutrients, creating an intensely rich umami flavor--a flavor that also attracts pests, and requires pesticides to deal with the pests. Growing organically, most examples of organic gyokuro can't attain a high level of umami due to the need to avoid leaf damage from insects.

\"Kuchikiri\" is able to achieve a smooth, rich gyokuro flavor due to the skill of the farmer who grew the leaves for \"Kuchikiri\", and the refiner who both aged the leaf over the last 9 months as well as green-roasting just enough to enhance the sweetness of the leaf.

Saemidori Cultivar

Finally, \"Kuchikiri\" benefits from being a single cultivar, utilizing the naturally umami-rich and bright green saemidori cultivar.

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Kuchikiri

手前茶の口切にさへゆふべ哉
temae cha no kuchikiri ni sae yūbe kana
The tea before me, I break the seal, in the evening

This tea has followed this process, so we are naming it \"kuchikiri\" in honor of both the tradition and one of my favorite poets, Kobayashi Issa.

Organic cultivation

Saemidori Cultivar

Finally, \"Kuchikiri\" benefits from being a single cultivar, utilizing the naturally umami-rich and bright green saemidori cultivar.

Product Info

Blending matcha into leaf teas (sencha or genmaicha mostly), is this idea new to you? It is actually liked by many people! The genmaicha, with the blending of brown rice and green tea has a fragrant and roasty scent. Because of the matcha addition, this tea also has a very beautiful dark green color. The tea is a deep-steamed (fukamushi) Yabukita green tea, cultivated by the Masuda family without the use of pesticides and using organic fertiliser.

Steeping recommendation

Steep one tea bag per 200 ml of hot water (70C/158F) for 60 seconds. Resteep 2-3 times.

Product info

Farmer Info

Yoshimitsu Masuda spent the first part of his adult life working in a major farming

cooperative where he learned firsthand about the danger of food additives and pesticides. Returning to the family tea farm in 1992 to learn tea making from his father and fellow tea farmers in Shimada, Shizuoka, he was deeply surprised at the amount of pesticides used in tea farming.

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

Steeping recommendation

Steep one tea bag per 200 ml of hot water (70C/158F) for 60 seconds. Resteep 2-3 times.

Product info

Farmer Info

Yoshimitsu Masuda spent the first part of his adult life working in a major farming

Today, built upon 25+ years of organic farming experience, Masuda-san produces tea that he is proud to call both safe and delicious and is passing his tea-making skills on to his children.

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