{"id":20259,"date":"2025-07-10T12:55:03","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T10:55:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/vare\/mandokoro-hirabancha-natural-farming-2024\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T22:42:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T20:42:51","slug":"mandokoro-hirabancha","status":"publish","type":"product","link":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/vare\/mandokoro-hirabancha\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandokoro Hirabancha | Pesticide-free and artificial fertiliser-free | 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 style=\"text-align: left;\">Tea trees | <span lang=\"ja\">\u8336\u6a39<\/span><\/h4>\n<p><strong>Cultivar:<\/strong> Zairai<\/p>\n<p><strong>Age:<\/strong> approx. 200 years<\/p>\n<p><strong>Elevation:<\/strong> 130 masl<\/p>\n<p><strong>Shade:<\/strong> none<\/p>\n<p><strong>Fertilisation:<\/strong> none<\/p>\n<p><strong>Cultivation method: <\/strong>pesticide-free and artificial fertilizer-free farming, with occasional additions of organic compost, Japanese silver grass, fallen leaves, and plant oil cake.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Harvest:<\/strong> June 2025<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: left;\">Producer | <span lang=\"ja\">\u751f\u7523\u8005<\/span><\/h4>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Seiji Hayashi<\/p>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: left;\">Origin | <span lang=\"ja\">\u7523\u5730<\/span><\/h4>\n<p>Mandokoro in Shiga, Japan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<h4><span lang=\"ja\">\u653f\u6240\u3000\u5e73\u6669\u8336<\/span><\/h4>\n<h5>The mountain village of Mandokoro in Shiga Prefecture is renowned for its centuries-old tea cultivation traditions, dating back to the Muromachi period. Today, Mandokoro is home to some of the oldest living tea trees in Japan.<\/h5>\n<h5>The local bancha is known as <em>hirabancha,<\/em> a tea characterized by its large, mature leaves which are pressed into a uniquely flat <em>(\u2018hira\u2019)<\/em> form during the steaming process. In our case, the leaves are harvested at the end of the spring harvest from the Mizunomori garden, nestled in a dense pine forest near the Oike River, just outside Mandokoro village.<\/h5>\n<h5>The tea trees here are said to be over 200 years old and are carefully tended to without any use of pesticides or artificial fertilisers. The result is a mild and calming tea with an inherently low caffeine content and a taste that seems, in all of its natural simplicity, timeless.<\/h5>\n<p><em style=\"font-size: 20px;\">momen tofu \u2013 cedar wood \u2013 the scent of soil after a light rain<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[210,370,191,111],"product_tag":[131,135],"class_list":["post-20259","product","type-product","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","product_cat-natural-farming","product_cat-new-arrivals","product_cat-tea","product_cat-unika-tea","product_tag-hojicha-en","product_tag-unika-en","first","instock","taxable","shipping-taxable","purchasable","product-type-variable","has-default-attributes"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/20259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=20259"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=20259"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.io-te.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=20259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}