Honyama Sencha Yabukita

Honyama (also known as Tamakawa) is considered by Japanese tea connoisseurs to be one of the top growing regions. Here, where the Abe River originates, the conditions for producing high-quality tea are ideal. The nights are clear and cool, and the mornings are shrouded in mist. The narrow valleys also provide natural shading for the tea fields. It therefore comes as no surprise that the tea leaves in this area are ready to harvest about a month later than teas grown in the lower-lying regions of Shizuoka.

We are so impressed by Mr. Sato’s teas that we have added all of his productions to our assortment. At our request, Mr. Sato even produced a hand-picked and hand-rolled Sencha. We were able to secure a total of just 200g – the yield of an entire day’s work. Unfortunately, more was not possible, since Mr. Sato and his wife handle the entire tea production themselves, and harvesting machines cannot be used in the mountainous terrain.

Mr. Sato produces only single-cultivar teas and does not create blends, as is common with larger producers. Blends are not inherently bad in Japan – and we ourselves carry several blends in our range – but we find teas based on a single cultivar, such as the Honyama Yabukita Sencha, much more interesting. They allow one to experience the differences between the individual cultivars directly. Blends, on the other hand, tend to be more balanced.

You can read more about Honyama Yabukita Sencha in our detailed photo report on the Honyama tea-growing region.

Harvest season: Spring
Aroma: Sweet and refreshing
Terroir: Honyama, Prefectur Shizuoka, Japan
Cultivar: Yabukita
Steaming: Asamushi
How to prepare it: This blog post describes how to optimally brew Japanese green tea.