Kamo Sencha Yabukita | Natural farming | 2022

Description

Description | 詳細

No fertilizer, no pesticides, no shade before harvest, no hi-ire firing after, nor any sorting of stems – Tokuya Yamazaki’s sencha teas come close to being as natural and minimally processed as possible.

Kamo Sencha Yabukita was harvested on May 5, 2022 by Kamo Shizen Nōen from the Higashiyama Masato tea garden, which consists of 100% naturally farmed Yabukita tea trees. The tea leaves are processed into sencha immediately after harvest by Mr. Yamazaki himself, and they brew a clean and robust green tea with a mild but refreshing sense of astringency from the unshaded days of direct sunshine and a prominent minerality from the nutrient-rich soil. Here, too, are moderate sensations of umami that – without being dominant – support the natural sweetness and finely lingering aftertaste of the tea.

Thanks to its unfertilized and minimally processed nature, Kamo Sencha Yabukita offers an unusually honest glimpse into the classic qualities that have made the Yabukita cultivar so popular across Japan’s tea-producing regions (more than 2/3 of all Japanese tea is made from this one variety of the tea tree). But the tea leaves also bear witness to Mr. Yamazaki’s aim to grow and create Japanese tea in greater accordance with the particular qualities that define the local environment as well as the tea trees themselves; a sip of Kamo Sencha Yabukita is – as with the other naturally farmed teas from Kamo Shizen Nōen – like taking a sip of directly from the Kamo terroir.

Tea trees | 茶樹

Cultivar: Yabukita

Age: unknown

Altitude: 150-200 masl

Shade: none

Fertilisation: none

Cultivation method: natural farming (read more about organic and natural farming here)

Harvest: May 5 2022

Production method | 製茶方法

Steaming: medium (futsūmushi)

Hi-ire: none

Producer | 生産者

Tokuya Yamazaki at Kamo Shizen Nōen 加茂自然農園

Origin | 産地

Kamo in Kyoto, Japan